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She ignores the dig. “Dad and I were always grateful to be one of those couples. I’ll admit that sometimes I was jealous you didn’t look like me instead of him, but that’s the way things go. And since he was so hesitant to adopt, it was probably for the best. I think it helped the two of you to connect.”
A thud sounds from inside.
Mom leaps up. “I better see what he’s getting into. Come with me, and we can keep talking.”
“I need some time to process all of this.”
“If you want to ask more questions, you can call or come over anytime. We can even leave the house later, if you want. Dad has a nurse coming over in an hour.”
I take a long, slow breath. “I’ll think about it, but I can’t imagine coming back over here today. I’m going to go home and stare at a wall for a while before I have to pick up Owen and Sophie.”
She gives me a quick hug before running inside to find my dad.
I see myself out, barely able to walk without stumbling over my own two feet.
ChapterTwenty-Six
I’m not sure if I’ve been staring blankly for five minutes or an hour. Everything in my life now takes on a new meaning. I can’t see any of it the same way anymore.
My parents adopted me and never once mentioned it. What if a medical issue came up? Knowing that information might’ve been important.
But there is one good thing from this news—a really big good thing.
I’m not related to my dad or brother. I don’t have their genes, and I no longer have to worry about early onset dementia or being a sociopath. We’re not even part of the same genetic pool.
Now I can explain to everyone that I have no chance of losing my mind. And my theory of having a sister still holds water. My biological mother had other children, and one of them looks a lot like me. It isn’t uncommon for siblings to look eerily similar. Take Megan’s sisters, for instance. While they have a two-year age gap, most everyone had a hard time telling them apart when we were growing up. They were mistaken for twins many times over the years.
That has to be the case with my doppelgänger. No, my sister.
I have a sister.
Maybe.
No, I do. That’s the only explanation for all of this. Unfortunately, we won’t be having any sleepovers or gab sessions. The woman is trying to ruin my life. She doesn’t care that we’re sisters. Unless she didn’t know, either. But that seems unlikely. She found me and instead of trying to be part of my life, she’s trying to steal it.
How can I prove it when she always manages to avoid me? Unless I can convince my mom to secretly text me the next time my sister goes over there to see them. Then I can race over and confront her.
It’s the perfect plan. In fact, I can’t wait to let my mom know. She’ll be on board, and even if she isn’t, she owes me. Waiting until I’m forty-three to tell me I’m adopted is completely unacceptable. All this time spent worrying about sharing genetics with my dad and brother could have been avoided.
Really, learning we aren’t related is the best news I could’ve asked for.
I get up and throw in a load of laundry just to move around, and I don’t even flinch when I pull my purple tank top from the hamper. My sister can’t mess with my head anymore. I know I can trust my mind now.
After I start the load, a thought strikes me. Something that could answer all my remaining questions—or at least most of them.
Years ago, I sent my spit off to one of those genetic testing sites. It never came up with any close relatives, but back then, the technology was still pretty new and most people weren’t sure about it. Plus, I didn’t give it a second thought in all these years because both my parents are only children with no living relatives. My dad had dementia, so he had no interest in submitting his DNA. Michael is locked away, so he had no access to the tests. To this day, my mom thinks the government is going to one day use those results against people who send in their saliva.
But now, I could actually find relatives. What if my sister has taken the test? I might be able to figure out who she is. Or my birth parents. I know next to nothing about my biological mom and absolutely nothing about my biological dad.
I race to my laptop in the bedroom and fire it up. It takes me a minute to find the genetic testing website because I haven’t logged in for so long.
My login doesn’t work. I know I still have the account because the payment gets taken out every August. And every August I think about how I should login again but never do.
Until today.
If I can get the right password.
After a few more tries, a warning pops up. If I have one more failed attempt, it’s going to block my IP address from the site.
