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“If you’ll please follow me.” He leads me through the lobby and into the hotel’s five-star restaurant. This is a white tablecloth, live classical music, waitstaff-in-tuxedos kind of place. The scent of fine cuisine wafts through the space and my stomach clenches both from not only being hungry but being completely underdressed.
He leads me to a table with a man and a woman I’ve never seen before. I quickly peg them for mid-fifties. They’re both fair-skinned. The woman has gray-streaked auburn hair and the man has gray-streaked black. They both have an air of wealth about them that screams old money. I almost wouldn’t recognize it if I hadn’t just spent a summer surrounded by these kinds of people in Nantucket.
“I don’t understand,” I squeak out to the front desk attendant, but he ignores me and pulls out a chair.
“This is Arden Davis,” he tells the couple. “Arden, please have a seat.”
“I’m sorry, who are you?” I ask the couple.
The man smiles. “Sit down and we’ll explain everything.”
I hesitate.
“Don’t worry,” the woman adds, her voice kind and her green eyes watery. “We just want to buy you a meal and talk for a few minutes.”
As if on cue, my stomach twists on itself and a server walks by with a plate of prime rib that looks so good I could cry.
I slide into the seat and the front desk clerk is replaced with a waiter. I have a zillion questions, but I don’t get a chance to ask them because they’re ordering and asking me what I’d like to eat. Finally we’re alone again and they’re looking at me like I have answers for them. How could I possibly have answers when I’m the one with so many questions?
“So, who are you?” I start.
The woman smiles again but this time she looks like she’s about to burst into tears. My anxiety surges. She takes her companion’s hand and he nods. “Arden, we didn’t even know you existed until a few weeks ago.”
I scoot back in my chair, prepared to flee. “What is this about?”
“I’m sorry, we’re scaring you, I don’t even know where to start—” She originally gave me the impression that she’s not the type to mumble her words or confuse her thoughts but she’s doing both.
Her husband intercepts. “Arden, we’re Gregory and Amelia Laurence.”
“Okay—” He declares it like it’s supposed to mean something to me.
“We’re your aunt and uncle.”
My—what?
What do I say to something like that? I’ve been alone since I can remember. My mother was an addict who died when I was a toddler. My father is an unknown. I don’t have memories before foster care. And now this couple shows up claiming they’re my long-lost relatives? It’s everything I used to dream of but now that it’s actually happening, I don’t believe it. I can’t. Things like this don’t happen to me. They happened to cute babies. The Little Princess. Anastasia. Little Orphan Annie.
Not to me.
“You must have me confused with someone else.”
Gregory shakes his head. “I assure you we do not.” And then he slides a crisp piece of paper across the table. “Take a look at the DNA results.”
“Please don’t be mad,” Amelia adds quickly. “We had to be sure before we approached you.”
My stomach sours. DNA results means they somehow had my DNA sample taken when I was unaware. My vision narrows and I want to run but I force myself to study the paper anyway. There are charts I don’t understand, statistics I don’t know a thing about, but the results are clear. I am a match for Amelia Laurence. We’re related.
I look up at her and it feels like I’m looking at her for the first time. She’s gazing back at me with the exact same expression. She’s studying, assessing. And she’s amazed. Does she realize we have the same color of auburn hair? That our skin tones are nearly the same, too? Does she see that our noses are similar, that long Grecian slope. Or that even though her eyes are green and mine are brown, the shapes are both more almond than they are round?
All at once it hits me. Not the similarities. Not the resemblance. But the fact that she knew my mother.
“My mother was your sister?”
She nods. “She was my baby sister. We lost touch with her when she became an addict. After a failed intervention, she wanted nothing to do with our family for several years. I’m sure you already know the ending to her story.” She brushes a tear from her cheek and sits up a little taller. “But I swear we never knew you existed.”
I sit with her words for a second. She sounds sincere but I find it hard to believe that she really didn’t know about me. “The state contacts all next of kin before placing a child in the foster care system. You’re telling me that nobody ever contacted you about me?”
She shakes her head adamantly.
