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West spotted Henry and headed his way. When he took his seat, he ordered a beer from the blonde, hard-body, pink lip glossed waitress and looked out at the fading sunset. She brought back the bottle quickly, a tasty local ale from 3 Daughters Brewing.
“It’s always a sight, isn’t it?” said West. “Every sunset a different color show, a different mood, kind of a reflection of whatever you have going on any given day.”
Henry looked out at the pink sky, the dark blue water, the orange orb moving inexorably toward the horizon line. He didn’t have a ton of time for sunsets, in fact, he found the tourist fascination with the whole thing a little tiresome.Yeah, people, the sunsets. Every. Night.
“I didn’t have you pegged as a poet.”
A smile, a long draft of his beer. “Old age turns us all into poets. Or assholes. One or the other.”
Henry laughed at that. His father-in-law was getting old, too. He was no poet.
Henry took the morning’s newspaper article from his pocket and shifted it over to West, who picked it up, slipped a pair of readers from his shirt pocket and read.
“What’s this now?”
“So, a couple years ago I connected with my aunt Gemma, Alice’s sister. Remember?”
“Of course, nice lady. We’re in touch.”
“Yeah,” he said. “She helped me figure some things out. She’s into genealogy, our family’s history. She got me the Origins test.”
“I remember. As I recall it didn’t get you any closer to your father.”
“That’s right. But through a Facebook page, and the Donor Sibling Registry, I connected with some of my half siblings, other kids fathered by the same anonymous donor.”
He told the detective about Cat, about their conversation, how they kept in touch via email, the occasional call. He told West about the woman Cat had found up in the Bronx, Marta Bennet, how she’d died.
Then, he shifted a file out of the backpack he had at his feet. The manila folder contained articles about the donor siblings who had died. Eight, including the Miami entrepreneur, if he was indeed a donor sibling. He hadn’t turned up on Henry’s Origins page, and he wasn’t hooked up with the Donor Sibling Registry—which he only would if he’d taken a test, or been digging into his own ancestry. But the resemblance he bore to Henry—and to Cat—was striking.
West flipped through the articles, twisted at his mustache.
“What are you thinking?” asked West.
Henry shook his head, looked out at the beach. The bell rang and people cheered. The sun had dipped below the horizon. Supposedly when conditions were right, a green flash of light was sometimes visible right after the sun went down. Two optical phenomena combined—a mirage and the dispersion of sunlight. Henry had never seen it.
“It’s odd, right?” asked Henry. “All these people dead—suicide, murder, accident.”
“Statistically, it’s troubling, yes.”
The waitress came and took their order—Famous Palm Burgers and Island Fries for them both. If Piper had been there, he’d have ordered the grouper sandwich; she’d have gotten The Sunset Salad with salmon.
“And this guy,” he picked up the article from that morning’s paper. “He’s one of your half siblings?”
“I’m not sure. I hadn’t been on Origins or Donor Sibling Registry in a while. I logged back on today. I didn’t see him.”
The detective cocked his head at Henry. “Why did you stop logging on?”
“I went through the motions, met up with a couple of people. It was just—weird. I realized that it’s not just about blood, it’s about chemistry, too. And I wasn’t feeling it with anyone.”
Henry took a swig of his beer. He hadn’t really talked about this before. But he went on,
“So I decided that I needed to be here now. I have a son, a wife. We’re building something. The past—my past—Alice. It’s dark. It hurts. I have Gemma now. She’s a part of our life. We have Piper’s family. Not perfect, of course. But it’s enough.”
West considered him with a slow nod, looked down at the file.
“But here we are.”
Henry drained his beer as West flipped through the pages in the folder. Yes, here they were. He wanted to forget everything to do with his past, and yet—he dreamed about Cat, found himself Facebook stalking their half brother Dave in San Francisco, Todd in Georgia, Mira in Portland. Now this.Good old Dadgot around—or at least his sperm did.
