She pulled several items from the freezer. Lasagna. Chicken pot pie. Burritos. “Any of these intriguing choices. Help yourself when you feel so inclined.”
He looked unimpressed.
She returned the items to the freezer. “Are you doing okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Have any plans tonight?”
“Nah.”
“Want to watch Star Wars with me?”
“Which one?”
“Any one. Your choice.” Dylan was the primary love of her life, and Star Wars had been their shared passion since he was little. Sadly, it had been months—maybe a year?—since he’d deigned to watch one with her. When he wasn’t at school or football practice, he spent his time with his friends, creating ink on paper drawings, or staring at YouTube in a concerted effort to avoid homework. “Please, O brother of mine?” she wheedled. “Humor me.”
He gave a bored shrug and shook his head. “I think I’m done with Star Wars.”
She covered her heart with her hands. “That’s blasphemy, you realize.”
“Uh-huh.”
“What are you going to do with yourself all evening if not watch a movie?”
“I thought I’d look up the recipe for heroin.”
This was their running not-so-funny joke. He knew very well that despite all the parental controls she’d instituted over the electronics in their house and her own careful oversight, she really was afraid that he’d find a way to do things like make heroin.
An amused grunt issued from him; then he set the Cheez-Its on the table and walked away.
“Contrary to what you might think, you will not perish if you spend a few hours outside the force field of your room,” she said.
He didn’t answer.
“Dearest boy of my heart!” she called with gusto.
His door shut behind him.
Leah pondered the view of the empty space where he’d been.
If Mom and Dad are not my parents, then Dylan might not be my brother.
As if she’d just pressed on a broken tooth, pain flared, warning her away from that line of thought. Dad had vanished from her life fifteen years ago. Mom had been an infrequent presence since she’d left to serve overseas in the Peace Corps ten years ago. As jarring as it would be to part with her biological connection to her parents, it would be a thousand times worse to part with her biological connection to Dylan—
That line of inquiry is premature, Leah. No need to ponder that until you must.
For the past several months, Mom had been on a genealogy kick. In February she’d gifted Leah a DNA test kit for her birthday, though Leah would have preferred the book on category theory she’d requested. That said, she was someone who loved to accumulate knowledge, and since she knew next to nothing about her ethnic heritage or her ancestors, she’d sent in her sample with a sense of pleasant anticipation.
She slid back into the dining room chair and retraced the steps she’d taken after logging on to YourHeritage. The first screen full of results informed her that she was 72% Scandinavian, 20% Irish/Scottish, and 8% German. Noteworthy, but no great surprise, since she was fair, with blond hair and grayish-blue eyes.
She moved to the next screen of results. Right beneath the first heading, Closest DNA Matches, her mother’s name should have appeared.
It did not. Instead, the site designated Leah’s closest DNA matches to be people with faces and names that didn’t ring a bell in her memory.
Riley Haskins. David Brookside. Margie Brookside Schloss. Emilie Donnell. Doug May. Ryan Brookside.
Who?
No Everly relatives from her mother’s side in this list. No Montgomery relatives from her father’s side.
Weeks ago her mom had granted Leah permission to view her YourHeritage data so that Leah could access the family tree Mom had been compiling. She visited her mom’s page of DNA matches. Leah ought to appear here as her mom’s closest match . . . but didn’t. Mom’s list included several relatives Leah knew—relatives who were conspicuously absent from her own list.
She checked her profile settings. Not wanting any of the strangers connected to her by DNA to see her pop up as a surprise cousin, she switched her settings to private, then knotted her hands in her lap.
She’d spent a lifetime trusting in the answers math provided. The world was not always logical. But math was. And she loved math for that.
Her saliva sample + laboratory analysis = the results she’d just received. Her inclination was to believe this sum because it was highly unlikely that there’d been a flaw in the equation.
The ghostly fist that had a hold of her insides squeezed harder.
She logged off and cleared her browser history. Grabbing her phone, she stepped onto her back patio and closed the sliding glass door behind her to ensure she was safely out of earshot of Dylan.
She dialed her mom, bracing herself the way she did for doctor’s appointments and other such duties, which were occasionally necessary but never enjoyable. Mom rarely picked up when Leah called. Even so, Leah murmured, “Answer.”
Mom did not pick up.
“Hello,” Leah said, when invited to leave a message. “I just received the results of my DNA test at YourHeritage.com, and the findings are perplexing. Please call me back as soon as you receive this. Thank you.”
Back when Leah had set up her account at YourHeritage in preparation to submit her sample, the site had given her a solemn warning about how upsetting the conclusions of DNA testing could be. She’d checked the box to acknowledge that, yes, she understood and was willing to accept the results.
At the time, she hadn’t had an iota of concern.
Her fingers trembled slightly as she placed a call to the customer service phone number provided in her email from YourHeritage.
An agent named Heather politely and patiently assured her that the site stood by the outcome of her test.
Leah could only imagine the calls Heather must receive: “You got my mother right, but that man isn’t my father!” “She’s my half sister? I always thought she was my cousin!”
If Leah had concerns about the test’s validity, Heather suggested that Leah take a retest, which Leah was most certainly willing to do
