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a slight shrug. “You afraid of what?”
    He flicked his thumb on his chin, his other fingers splayed open.
    [ Mother ]
    Maria knew Baako considered her his mother, which in many ways she was. While she might not have given birth to him, she had fostered him and raised him as if he were her own child. Additionally, even from a biological standpoint, Baako was technically hers. Baako was not wholly a western lowland gorilla. His unique genome had been engineered in her fertility lab, with the resulting embryo carried to term by a surrogate female gorilla.
    “I’m fine,” she told Baako, emphasizing this by giving him a squeeze. “You can see that.”
    Baako wiggled free and shook his head.
    He repeated the sign for mother, then followed it by cupping his chin with his right hand and dropping it firmly to his left hand, which was clenched in a fist with the index finger pointed toward her.
    [ Mother-Sister ]
    Maria nodded, understanding better now.
    He’s worried about Lena.
    Baako had two mothers: Maria and her sister Lena. Baako considered them both to be equally his maternal caretakers. At first they thought Baako might have been confused because the two sisters were identical twins, but it was quickly evident that he had no trouble telling them apart, unlike some of their colleagues at the field station.
    Baako repeated his first sign, over and over again.
    [ Afraid, afraid, afraid . . . ]
    “You don’t have to worry, Baako. We talked about this. Lena might not be here right now, but she’ll be back. She is okay.”
    She signed the letters O and K.
    Again he gave a shake of his head and repeated the gesture for afraid.
    She returned to her earlier question, signing more emphatically to pry out the particular source of his anxiety. “Why are you afraid?”
    6:38 A . M .
    He sinks more heavily to his rear and stares at his open palms. He clenches and unclenches his fingers, struggling to think how to make himself clear. Finally he places his fingertips to his brow, then turns his palm toward her.
    [Don’t know]
    He crosses his left arm over his chest and jabs his right thumb twice toward his face, striking his right wrist against his left.
    [Danger]
    She frowns, then stares into the other room, toward the nest of blankets atop his bed. She touches her forehead with an index finger, then lifts it away and flexes it twice while speaking.
    “ It was just a dream, Baako.”
    He huffs out a breath.
    “ You know about dreams, Baako. We talked about them before.”
    He shakes his head, then imitates her gesture.
    [Not dream]
    6:40 A . M .
    Maria read the certainty in Baako’s expression. He clearly believed that Lena was in danger. It suddenly reminded her of her own inexplicable anxiety upon waking on her office sofa earlier.
    Should I be worried?
    While growing up with an identical sister, she had read about the unique bond that could develop between twins, how some pairs seemed to have a sense of each other even across vast distances. Likewise, animals were also said to share a similar preternatural ability, like dogs moving to the door several minutes before the unexpected arrival of their master. But as a scientist, she put little weight upon such reports, preferring empirical data to anecdotal accounts.
    Still . . .
    Maybe I should call Lena.
    If nothing else, her voice on the phone should reassure Baako.
    And me, too.
    She glanced to her watch, wondering what time it was in Croatia. She and Lena spoke almost every day, either by phone or over a videoconference call. They compared notes, shared stories, often talking for hours on end, trying their best to preserve their close bond across such a distance. She knew it wasn’t unusual for twins to maintain such a lifelong intimate relationship, but she and her sister had been forged even closer by hardship and heartbreak.
    She closed her eyes, remembering the small apartment where they grew up in Albany, New York.
    The door to their bedroom creaked open.