Coincidence by David Ambrose

morning encounter in the park.

Chapter 13
    I have to say that if Larry’s story did nothing else, it took my mind off the painful subject of my ailing marriage. Now and
     again, when my concentration faltered briefly, the memory of that softly spoken “Yes” with which Sara had answered my question
     “It’s Steve, isn’t it?” plunged again like a knife into my heart, and would have twisted there until I screamed for mercy
     had I not forced my attention back to Larry and the extraordinary coincidence of his meeting Nadia Shelley. It was tailor-made
     for the book I was planning to write. Work, I have always believed, is the best antidote to depression and despair, and here
     fate was handing me a more extraordinary story than I could ever have invented from my own imagination. I knew I must cling
     to it, stay focused, because in time this would be my way through and (I could only hope) eventually out the other side of
     the agony I now faced.
    At my suggestion we walked back to the apartment together. Although Larry’s “disguise” would probably have got him through
     the lobby without so much as a suspicious glance from the doorman, I preferred not to take the risk. Instead we went around
     the side of the building where I used my key to enter the garage, then we took the elevator directly to my floor. Only when
     we had closed the front door firmly behind us did he remove his hat and sunglasses.
    “Great view,” he said, looking around approvingly.
    “Would you like some coffee? I can fix it in a minute.”
    “Sure.”
    He followed me into the kitchen, and while I made the coffee filled me in on the “missing” details of his life. When he had
     realized that acting wasn’t for him, he had gotten into the music business more or less by accident: first of all as a “roadie”
     on various U.K. tours by visiting American groups, eventually returning to Los Angeles with one of them, where he had lived
     for most of the last fifteen years—which explained why no obvious trace of a British accent remained. He had become a manager
     and record producer, obviously with some success, because he had second homes in Switzerland and Hawaii.
    “Okay,” I said as I handed him a mug of freshly brewed coffee, “I’m now going to tell you the whole story from my side, and
     you will see why the key word in all of this is the one you used in connection with your meeting Nadia Shelley two days ago.
     That word is ‘coincidence.’ As a matter of fact, I’m writing a book—I’m a writer, by the way—about that very subject right
     now.”
    “Hey, no kidding!”
    I brought out the envelope filled with the things I had found in my father’s chest—the photographs, the old copy of
Variety
—and gradually, throughout the afternoon, pausing only to make a quick sandwich around two o’clock, we put together a theory
     about what must have happened, what accidents of fate (for want of a better word) had brought us to this point.
    What seemed inescapable was that we were twins. Of course we couldn’t be absolutely sure without DNA tests, and we agreed
     we would both give blood samples on Monday. But the photographs and everything I knew about my parents pointed to one relatively
     simple though remarkable scenario. My mother, having become pregnant, was told that she was carrying twins. Bearing in mind
     my father’s ambitions as an artist at that time and my mother’s slavish devotion to his career, they had decided that the
     financial burden of two children at once was too great. By some accident they had met and gotten to know two English actors
     touring a play around America in the late fifties. Jeffrey and “Larry” Hart had been childless, perhaps unable for some medical
     reason to have children of their own, though they had wanted one. Perhaps they had been thinking about adopting already. Perhaps,
     for all I knew, “theatricals” were not considered desirable parents by official adoption