I snort. “Mine is silence.”
She smiles, entertained. “You do silence well.”
My spine stays loose. My mind tightens. “You’ve watched me.”
“You’re hard not to watch,” Iris says, casual, like we’re discussing weather. “You’re on screens. You’re on podcasts. You’re… a topic.”
“A topic,” I repeat. “How flattering.”
“I’m not flattering you.” Her eyes barely blink. “I’m stating a fact.”
A server appears. Iris orders something with oat milk. I order black coffee because I prefer my edges intact.
When the server leaves, Iris leans forward slightly, like she’s beginning a meeting.
“So,” she says. “Do you believe me?”
“I believe you wrote a letter.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
I tap my phone against the table once. Controlled. Clean. “What do you want?”
Her smile widens. “Straight to business. We really might be related.”
“I don’t know that.”
Something flickers—annoyance, delight. With people like us, it’s hard to tell.
“You want proof,” she says.
“I want certainty,” I reply. “If you’re stepping into my life, you don’t get to do it as a mystery.”
Her gaze sharpens. “Mystery is how you got famous.”
“Try again.”
She sits back, slow, settling into her role. “Okay. You want DNA.”
“I want a test.”
“And if I say no?” Her voice goes sweet. “If I say I don’t want my genetic material in some database. I don’t want to be tracked. Labeled. Categorized.”
I stare at her. Connection or control—either way, she wants it badly. If she is my sister, God has a sense of humor I don’t appreciate.
“That’s dramatic,” I say.
“It’s accurate.”
“You reached out to me,” I remind her. “You don’t get to demand closeness and refuse verification.”
Her jaw tightens. “So you don’t believe me.”
“I’m saying I don’t know you.”
Her fingers curl around her cup. “You know me.”
I blink. “Excuse me?”
