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Once again, he was hard within her.
The second dance was beginning when she closed her eyes.
There was only so much joy one woman could feel without coming undone.
Three hours later, they were rummaging through the fridge for leftovers. Sean had a bath towel wrapped around his waist and was heating up cold pizza. Amalie had on an oversized T-shirt hanging halfway to her knees, no longer bothered by revealing her burn scars and completely focused on the peanut butter and jelly sandwich she was making.
“I like to put peanut butter on both slices, then put jelly in the middle, squish it, and cut it in quarters,” she said.
Sean grinned. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said, and sprinkled a liberal helping of red pepper flakes over the pizza before he carried it to the table. She was right behind him.
“Want a glass of milk with that?” Sean asked, as he went back to get himself a Coke.
“Yes, please,” she said, waiting for him to sit down.
When they were at the table, face-to-face, Amalie put her hands in her lap.
“I have something to tell you, and it has to do with what Aunt Ella said to me this morning.”
“Can I eat and listen at the same time?” he asked.
The corner of her mouth tilted in a half-assed smile. “I don’t know, can you?”
He chuckled. “We’re about to find out,” he said and took his first bite as Amalie started talking.
“When I turned eighteen, I ordered a DNA test from Ancestry.com and sent it in. I thought maybe…just maybe…I’d find something out about who I was, you know?”
He nodded and kept eating, just letting her talk.
“And of course, nothing happened. I actually forgot about it. Then a few days ago I was at home going through a ton of old email I’d let pile up during my move and saw a notice from Ancestry.com. It was one of thoseyou-have-a-matchemails, and my heart stopped.”
“Oh wow!” Sean said.
“I know, right? They don’t tell you much. You have to log on to your site to see the name and connection.” She was shaking and, without thinking, took a bite of one of the sandwich pieces and sat there chewing, then took a sip of milk to wash it down.
Sean said nothing. She would tell this in her own terms and time.
“It was a man,” she said. “He had two email addresses as contacts. I used both, one as an initial contact, and copied it to the second, telling him a little about me. How old I was, what I did for a living, and that I’d grown up in the foster care system. I can’t remember the details of how I ended it other than I looked forward to hearing from him, and hit Send. Then waited.”
She looked up at him then. “I’m still waiting. And I’d just about given up hope when your aunt Ella said that I didn’t know my people, but one knew me, and to be patient.”
Sean had been eating and listening, but he stopped and pushed his plate aside.
“Oh, honey…”
Amalie looked away. “I didn’t intend to say anything because I didn’t want anyone feeling sorry for me. It’s just easier for me that way. But I wanted to tell you the moment I got that notice, and then decided to wait a bit. I wanted to share good news, not anotherpitiful-mestory.”
“I understand, and it’s okay. If you feel the need to hold on to a story from your life that doesn’t need to be told, then no one needs to hear it. Understood?”
She nodded, finished off the piece of sandwich, and started on the second.
“He had a really strange name. I have no idea what his ethnicity or nationality is. I only know mine.” She finished the second piece of sandwich, took another sip of milk. “His name is Wolfgang Amadeus Outen. That’s a mouthful, isn’t it?”
Sean froze. That man was suspected to be one of two men who’d died in the chopper crash. It wasn’t official until all of the DNA results were in, but that was the working theory, and he couldn’t believe that life would kick her in the teeth like this again.
He couldn’t think what to say. What to do. How to react. So, he sat without commenting, watching her finish her PB and J. sandwich and milk, and then carried their dirty dishes to the sink.
“What do you think?” Amalie asked.
