I thought I knew who I was until a stranger at the pharmacy shattered my entire life with five words. She went missing 25 years ago. My name is Jessica Thompson, and this is the story of how I discovered that everything I believed about myself was a lie.
It started on a rainy Tuesday afternoon in Portland. I was standing in line at Walgreens, feeling miserable with a sinus infection, when an older woman turned around and stared at me like she’d seen a ghost. Her face went completely white, her hands started shaking, and then she said something that changed everything.
You look just like my sister. Now, I’ve heard that before. People always tell me I remind them of someone.
My best friend, Ashley, says I have one of those faces. Generic, familiar, the kind of face that makes strangers think we went to high school together. So I smiled politely, the way you do when someone says something random in public, but this woman didn’t smile back.
Instead, tears started forming in her eyes. She went missing 25 years ago, she whispered. That’s when my polite smile started to fade.
There was something in her voice, something raw and desperate that made my skin prickle. I laughed nervously trying to lighten the moment. I’m sorry to hear that.
What was her name? She stared at me for what felt like forever. Then she said two words that made my blood run cold. Your name.
The prescription bottle I was holding slipped from my hand. I watched it fall in slow motion, heard it hit the linoleum floor with a crack. Little white pills scattered everywhere, rolling under the candy display, bouncing off the woman’s sensible brown shoes.
But neither of us moved to pick them up. My name? I repeated, my voice barely a whisper. Rachel, she said.
Rachel Marie Anderson. My middle name is Rachel. Jessica Rachel Thompson.
My parents told me they named me after my grandmother, but I’d never met her. She died before I was born, or at least that’s what they said. The woman stepped closer, and I could see every line on her face, every gray hair that had probably turned that color from years of worry.
You have her eyes, she said, green with little gold flecks, and that scar above your eyebrow. My hand moved involuntarily to touch the small scar above my right eye. I’d gotten it falling off my bike when I was seven.
My dad had rushed me to the emergency room. Mom held my hand while they put in three tiny stitches. I remembered it perfectly, or did I? How old are you? the woman asked.
32. She’d be 32. Her voice cracked on the words.
She had a birthmark on her left shoulder, shaped like a crescent moon. The pharmacy suddenly felt too small, too bright. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead like angry wasps.
I could hear my heart pounding in my ears, drowning out the soft music playing from the speakers. An elderly man behind us cleared his throat impatiently, but we didn’t move. I’m sorry, I managed to say.
I think you have me confused with someone else. But even as I said it, something cold was creeping up my spine, because I do have a birthmark on my left shoulder, shaped exactly like a crescent moon. I’d always thought it was cute, unique.