Angela's Twin?

Today was Alejandro's PPT, but that story will have to wait. First, my day started off at a frenzied pace because I had to talk to one of my students who I see for counseling. Her teacher was concerned because Angela* told her about her twin sister dying in a drowning accident. I doubted that the student ever had a twin so I tread carefully when I spoke. I talked to her about what it meant to have a twin sister. I tried to figure out her timeline, because she kept changing it from having a sister that died at birth to having a sister that died when she was old enough to drown. It was frustrating because I felt like I was dealing with someone who possesses a poor sense of reality. I reasoned with her and I talked about the fact that she didn't have any pictures of herself with her twin, which is something that all twins experience. I asked her if she had any pictures of herself when she was a baby. I pointed out that there were no pictures with her twin. I knew that there was a possibility that she may have had a twin that died at birth and maybe she misunderstood a story. Well, she has many misunderstandings of this magnitude. She also talked about finding out that she was adopted. I wasn't sure how true that was. Apparently I forgot that I meant to call her mom after my morning PPT to ask about the source of these interesting stories. Luckily I was reminded when I walked into the teacher's lounge and had a teacher ask me "What's up with Angela? She has a dead twin sister?" Another teacher remarked, "Oh yeah, didn't she say that last year?" Then another chimed in, "I just saw her telling the nurse about it." Now, I talked to her first thing in the morning, and she was still talking about it hours later. I called her mother and she didn't give me the response I was looking for. I wanted some kind of reaction. Mom told me that the stories weren't true. She mentioned that Angela does want siblings, but there was no basis for her ideas about a twin sister or her adoption. Mom was too calm to me for having heard that her daughter was saying crazy and bizarre things throughout school. She was a little too cavalier about her daughter's ramblings. It was like she had heard it all before.

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