She finished cleaning her board and turned to observe her happy, tidy classroom. Semicircles of chairs radiated away from where she was standing toward the opposing wall, which contained a bank of windows. She’d stocked her bookshelves with textbooks, binders, and notebooks from her years at Clemmons, her large personal collection of books about math, and a few potted succulents and inspirational quotes.
Primary-colored portraits of the world’s most renowned math minds filled every remaining patch of wall space. Thus Hypatia, Euler, Gauss, Cantor, and more looked down on her daily.
“Here’s hoping I’m doing the lot of you proud,” she said. “Please do intervene and speak up if I’m not.”
She scooped a crumpled piece of paper and a pencil stub off the floor, depositing them in the trash before taking a seat at her desk. Outside, a breeze stirred the trees draping the hills.
Since receiving her second round of test results from YourHeritage, she’d been working to metabolize her genetic truth. It had shifted the earth she walked on. It was confusing and painful. But the best course forward was to accept what could not be changed. And so, gradually, she was learning to coexist with the revelations about her DNA the way she might coexist with a mutt who appeared one day and insisted on following her everywhere.
She had no plans to reach out to her mom. Mom had been apprised of the situation and could call her for additional information whenever she chose. Nor did Leah have plans, at this point, anyway, to tell Dylan what she’d discovered. It would upset him, and what purpose would that serve?
So far, she’d settled on just one course of action. She wanted to find answers to the questions her DNA tests had raised.
She’d been born at Magnolia Avenue Hospital in Atlanta. If she could examine Magnolia Avenue’s records on the babies born onthe same day that she’d been born, she might be able to work out which biological parents were hers.
But first, she’d need to convince the hospital to show her their records. She knew just enough about the privacy regulations pertaining to hospital data to know that in order to gain access to those records, she’d need an expert on her side.
Ben sailed into her classroom and handed her the can of sparkling water. Today he’d paired a dark purple short-sleeved polo with gray pants and spotless black leather sneakers with thick white soles.
“Thank you,” she said. “Do you realize that if we walk somewhere side-by-side today, we’ll look like a study in color wheel opposites?”
“We will?”
“Yes. Yellow.” She pointed to her blouse, then to him. “And purple.”
“Ah.”
“Sir Isaac Newton would be pleased.”
“Because?”
“Because he was the first to split sunlight into beams of color and invented the color wheel.”
“You know what I said to myself when I woke up this morning?”
“I do not.”
“I said, ‘Dress to please Sir Isaac Newton today, Ben.’”
She smiled. “Mission accomplished.”
As usual, Ben settled into the student chair nearest her desk. A softpopsounded as he opened his package of baby carrots.
She took a swallow of the chilled sparkling water, savoring it. The first sip was always the best. “The day of the farmers market you introduced me to your friend Sebastian.”
Ben chewed, nodded.
“He’s a doctor in Atlanta, right?” Leah asked.
“Yes. He lives there during the week but stays at his house here in Misty River most weekends.”
“Do you think he’d be willing to speak to me? I have a few medical questions I’d like to ask.”
Lines of concern indented his forehead. “Are you sick?”
“No. My questions have to do with old records.”
“I’d be happy to relay your questions to Sebastian and get back to you with his answers.”
