I left Greer’s house last night after those kisses, needing to give us both a chance to breathe and recover for another day at work. I’ve dated enough women to know this thing with me and Greer is different than anything I’ve experienced before. My restless spirit has always fueled my love of travel and new adventures, but with her, I don’t need to see anything else, be anywhere else, or be with anyone else. Maybe I’ve always known things with her would feel like this, but I never let myself admit it before. Now, there’s so much more I need to say to her, and I can’t wait to see her again today. Still, there’s no way Greer and her perpetual ten-minutes-late internal clock will be in the office today before nine, and even if I were to get in early, I still need to make it till at least five o’clock without crashing.
Strong coffee it is.
I pad to my kitchen in my boxers and set a pot of coffee brewing, then drop into my dining room chair to sort through yesterday’s mail. I throw a couple of bills into a stack to pay when I get home and then pull out an envelope with HealthIQ on the return address.
When I slide a thumb under the flap of the envelope, a letter falls into my hand.
Dear Mr. Mills, we’re pleased to offer the results of your food sensitivity test.
The rest of the page tells me which foods might make me feel like shit, based on the handy specimen of blood I’d mailed in. The expected legalese blankets the bottom of the paper—HealthIQ is not liable for any misinterpreted results. This test is intended to serve as a guide and should not be counted as medical advice, nor should it replace a formal allergy diagnosis. For further questions and testing, consult your medical professional.
Blah, blah, blah.
But it’s not the tiny words swimming across the page that make my heart stop in my chest or make the paper tremble in my hands.
It’s not even the suggestion that I might want to avoid dairy products—noted—that makes my mouth taste bitter and dry.
Instead it’s my blood type, written out definitively in black ink on the white sheet. My blood type that I’d always assumed was A positive—it has to be A positive—which is unequivocally not A positive.
O positive.
Sonofabitch.
I stare at the paper a minute, numb, while a mixture of cold fury and confusion crowds my chest, and then I reach for the phone.
My mother picks up on the first ring. “Lachlan? Are you okay?”
It’s seven-fifteen in the morning. I can’t remember the last time I called her this early, and she must think it’s an emergency. Why the hell else would I be calling?
I imagine my mom’s growing sense of dread, and the me from ten minutes ago would have set her mind at ease. But right now, I don’t want to let her off the hook so easily. “I don’t know, Mom. You tell me.”
“Honey, what’s wrong?”
My shoulders tense under my thin T-shirt, and I ignore the quaver in her voice. “I just got back a mail-in food sensitivity test.”
She’s quiet on her end of the line.
“A blood test.”
“I see.” Her voice is tired and resigned, with no trace of surprise. “It sounds like we need to talk. Why don’t you come over?”
I shouldn’t be here right now. I should be in the office with my colleagues, writing bits of UI text and cracking jokes. I should be plowing through emails or butting heads with Damien or sharing secret looks with Greer. Instead, I’m slouched at my mother’s dining room table, where I haven’t sat since Thanksgiving. A cup of coffee cools at my elbow, untended.
“Tell me.” I try to keep my voice from shaking as I unfold the test results and set them on the table between me and my mom.
She flinches but doesn’t break eye contact with me. “You know how much your dad and I love you, right?”
I rub a hand over my eyes. I’m too tired for this. “Yes, Mom. But when’s the part when you tell me why my blood type doesn’t match Dad’s?” I slide the coffee mug to the side so I don’t knock it over as I lean forward. “You’re O positive, which means I should have the same blood type as Dad. He was A positive. I remember from the hospital.”
My mom closes her eyes briefly, and when she opens them, they’re filled with pain and a thin, glossy coat of tears. “Your dad was sick, honey.”
“I know,” I bite out. I remember the way he went frail at the end, Hodgkin’s Disease taking him one debilitating step at a time. There’s never a good age to lose a parent, and twenty-five felt so very young. But that doesn’t mean I don’t remember.
“No,” she corrects. “I mean he was sick because he’d been exposed to Agent Orange. And we wanted to get pregnant, but the risk of birth defects was too high because of what your dad had been through.”
Everything I’ve ever known unravels, thread by thread. I gape at my mom, not quite believing, the edges of the puzzle not fully lining up. “So, I’m…adopted?”
“No. You’ve seen the pictures of me pregnant, Locke. Those are real.” She wipes away tears. “Your dad and I wanted you and Maggie very, very much. You are ours.”
“Tell me,” I demand again. I want to be able to talk about this calmly like everything isn’t disintegrating, but I’ve moved past rational into the primal, animal part of my reflexes that wants to snarl and fight and run away from this threat all at once.
“We used sperm donors.”
“Donors?” My voice scrapes into a growl. “Plural?” I flatten my hands against the table and the whorls in the wood smash against my sweaty palms. “Is Maggie even my real sister?”
She drops her eyes. “Half. There were different men.”
“Who?”
“They were
