Rachel and Kim Saunders have shared every first day of school, every birthday cake, and every secret since they could talk, so when they both saw those tiny blue lines on plastic sticks nine months ago, they laughed until they cried in the same bathroom, two tests lined up like mirror images. Their due dates sat one day apart on the calendar, but the babies had other plans. On a quiet Tuesday before dawn, Kim’s contractions quickened; three hours later, Rachel’s water broke in the next room of the same hospital wing. By sunset, two brand-new boys—each with the same dark swirl of hair and the same button chin—lay in matching clear bassinets, born only four hours apart, looking more like brothers than cousins.
The nurses kept mixing them up. Even the grandmothers had to check the wristbands twice. It felt like someone had photocopied a baby: same sleepy eyes, same wrinkled frown, same frog-legged stretch when they yawned. One doctor joked that the boys had skipped a generation and landed on “twin squared.” Rachel and Kim just smiled, too exhausted to explain that this was simply what their lives had always done—rhyme without trying.
