“An identical twin?” gasped Dorothy, flabbergasted. “But…Oh my God! I was raised in the foster system…I had no idea…”

So Dorothy sent Michelle Simpson a personal message through the heritage website and received an excited reply which included a phone number and a suggestion they meet up.

Dorothy agreed and two days later she walked into a restaurant towards a table where a slim red-head was sitting. The woman, Michelle, tried to get up but sank back down in her chair, white as a ghost.

“You…” she whispered. “You look just like mom. Exactly, that hairstyle, the type of clothes…you even walk like her!”

“Michelle?” asked Dorothy hesitantly. “Your mom, she was in foster care too?”

Michelle shook her red curls. “No! Mom was adopted when she was two. She had no memories of her mother, but she had a hard time adapting. So later on, my grandparents didn’t encourage her to find her biological family.”

“Your mother…” Dorothy said. “She’s my twin. Have you told her? Does she know?”

Michelle nodded. “Yes, she knows. She’s scared though. She didn’t want me to do this. She didn’t want to know why her mother had abandoned her.”

“Abandoned us,” said Dorothy. “She abandoned us, and she let us be separated.” Michelle lifted her cell phone and took a snap of Dorothy. She typed out a quick message and sent it.

“Sit!” said Michelle. “Tell me about yourself!”

“I’m a lawyer,” Dorothy said. “And a widow. I have no children, I have no one which is why I sent in my DNA…” But Michelle was gazing over Dorothy’s shoulder and her face broke into a wide smile.

“Mom,” she cried. “Come and meet Dorothy.”

Dorothy got up on trembling legs and turned around to face herself!

“Dorothy?” her other self whispered, “I’m Susan.”

Dorothy didn’t even think. She just stretched out her arms and threw them around Susan. She discovered that she was crying, but it was okay, because Susan was crying too, and so was Michelle.

“I always felt there was something wrong with me, a part of me missing,” cried Susan sobbing.

“Me too!” said Dorothy. “As if only half my heart was working…”

“Now we are together!” said Susan. They turned radiant faces towards Michelle and smiled identical smiles. Even their hair was cut the same way, and they were both wearing similar outfits.

Susan — who practiced family law — explained that she had been married to Michelle’s father for over 15 years before the relationship fell apart. She and the teenaged Michelle had left Florida and decided to start life over in Denver Colorado — which happened to be where Dorothy was living!

Michelle had married and had four children. “So you are a grandmother!” cried Dorothy enviously. “Tom and I kept putting off having children, we thought we had forever…And then it was too late and now I’m alone.”

“No you are not!” said Susan fiercely. “You have me and Michelle, and her husband and her kids… You will never be alone again!”

So Dorothy ended up with a big family and lots of grand-nieces and nephews who looked just like her. As the two sisters got to know each other better they discovered that they had eery parallels in their lives and identical tastes.

Since they were both alone, the sisters ended up moving in together, and Dorothy spoils Susan’s grandchildren shamelessly.