Last call was at two in the morning, and by 3:30, I had everything cleaned up and the place locked. By four, I’d crashed at home and sleeping like the dead.
The next day, I rolled over in bed and grabbed my phone, the time on the screen showing it was noon. I saw Abi’s message with the link to the ancestry site and stared at it for a few seconds, debating. I was still nervous about what I might discover. Whatever diseases I might be at risk for was not as scary as finding out about the people I had come from. I’d never been able to find any information about my birth parents. Would I find out they were serial killers? I chewed at my lip, thinking.
“Screw it,” I said, and clicked the link.
Less than five minutes later, I’d purchased a kit. The company was based in Florida, and only a two-hour drive from where I lived here in Clearidge. It said I was eligible for free one-day shipping. I’d have it the next day. I put it out of my mind and went about my business the rest of that day and night.
Abi was at my place having lunch the next afternoon when the package arrived. I brought it in from the mailbox, and when she saw it, her eyes lit up. “It came. Nice. Let’s do this,” she said, putting her sandwich down.
“Do we really need to get a wad of spit out of me while we’re eating?” I asked.
“Oh, come on, we were done anyway. Whip it out.”
“Isn’t that what you always tell your boyfriends?”
“Very funny. You know what I mean.”
I cut open the box and pulled out all the items. It was pretty cut and dry. I poked my finger, put a drop of blood on a little cardboard sample card, and packed it back up. “Is that all?”
Abi nodded. “That’s it. Just put that baby back in your mailbox and raise the little red flag. Are you excited?”
I shrugged, trying to hide my anxiety. “I don’t know, maybe.”
“What are you going to do if you have any DNA matches?”
That was the very thing freaking me out. Instead of directly answering her question, I told her I’d be right back and took the box out to the mailbox. Once I got back inside, it was easy to change the subject. The truth was, I wasn’t totally sure what I would do if there were matches. I had no idea why I’d been given up for adoption. My adoptive parents had told me the adoption agency had no information about me. All they knew was that a guy claiming to be a social worker had brought me in as a baby. He told them he knew my parents and they didn’t want to be involved in the adoption process or have their names put down. The problem, my dad had told me, was once the agency looked into the social worker, they couldn’t find any trace or record of him.
That story had always haunted me. Had I been kidnapped? Or had they truly wanted to get rid of me? My parents didn’t even have my original birth certificate. They’d found the hospital I’d been born at, but my birth mother’s name had been registered simply as Jane Doe. All of it had pointed toward my birth parents being less than trustworthy. Why in the world would you not put your real name down when having a baby? The only thing I had from my birth parents was my name. The mysterious social worker had told the adoption agency my name was Maddison.
Thoughts of the test came and went over the next few weeks as I waited on the results. The website said it could take up to amonth to receive them. A few weeks later, Abi asked again if I’d received the results.
“No, again, for the five hundredth time,” I said with a groan. I was starting to get more irritated each time she asked.
“Sorry, sorry. I just like stuff like this. I get excited. Oh, you never answered when I asked what you’d do with any matches. Are you gonna stalk them on the internet? Friend-request them?”
The thought that my very existence could spell disaster for someone had started to rear its head. What if my birth parents had only been kids and given me up so they could go on with their lives? What if they had their own families now? Would shoving my nose into everything upend their entire lives?
I didn’t blurt out what I was thinking. Instead, I took the safe route. “I don’t know. I’ll wait to see what the test says and go from there.”
Fate didn’t force me to wait long. My phone chirped a few hours later with a text that let me know the results were ready. I didn’t open the email, though. My fear and anxiety spiked as soon as I saw the message.
I called Abi to let her know and see if she could come over. She was, of course, beyond excited about it and was at my place in less than twenty minutes.
I had my laptop open, the email link to the test ready. Abi walked in and pointed to the screen. “All right, sister, let’s see it.”
I took a breath and opened the link. The first couple of pages explained what the company had done and also assured me that my DNA wouldn’t be shared or sold to outside companies. Finally, I pulled up the page with possible genetic markers for disease. Thankfully, there were none, except a negligible chance of developing irritable bowel syndrome at some point. Ugh, pleasant reading.
The next page brought up possible DNA matches. It was the one I was most excited and nervous to see. But the results were less than enlightening.
“Seriously?” Abi said, sounding dejected.
The only match was for some guy who’d lived nearly three hundred years ago. I didn’t even know how they had any DNA from the guy to match me, but there it was. I leaned back, sighing in both relief and disappointment.
“I had like thirty different people matched to me,” Abi said. “Most were distant, though. I can’t believe you only have one. That’s crazy.”
“Yeah. Oh, well. We can’t all have slave-owning rapists in our family tree,” I said, nudging her.
“Hey, don’t be an asshole. You can’t choose your ancestors.”
