The mood in the room shifted like a switch had been thrown. Mom was no longer smiling, and she’d gone stiff by Dad’s side. Everyone was looking at me when Selena started to cry.
As though in slow motion, Mom and Dad turned their heads back to the paper as he unfolded it.
“It was supposed to be cousins,” I said, choking on the words. “Distant cousins.”
Dad had been reading as I spoke. The paper was in his hands, and he kept scanning it. I knew the second his eyes saw the top result. I could see it perfectly in my mind, the logo in the corner, the male and female avatar icons, the information listed beside each one: 4 percent match, 7 percent match, 3 percent match, on and on, up to the one that matched 47 percent with Dad—the “father or son” match.
Tears were streaming down my face when I said it. “His name is Brandon. He’s eighteen years old, and he’s your son.”
CHAPTER 40
No one made a sound. Selena was sobbing silently but not a single word escaped her mouth. Mom was the first to speak.
“That can’t be. They obviously made a mistake.” There was nothing grasping in her voice. She wasn’t trying to deny something her brain had instantly accepted. Her faith in Dad was unimpeachable. And unlike Selena when I’d told her, Mom didn’t lash out at me. “Honey, I’m so sorry. Is this why you’ve been so upset lately?” She came around to wrap her arms around me in my chair. “It’s not true, okay? Look at me, Dana.” It was impossible to resist the gentle command in her voice. “It’s not true.”
She blurred in my vision as my eyes continued to well up and spill. “His mother’s name was Maggie McCormick and she got pregnant when you and Selena were in Texas.”
Mom’s arms fell slack, releasing me. She stared straight ahead, not at me or Dad or the paper that slipped from his hands when he stood up only to fall to his knees.
“Dad!” Selena was out of her chair and at his side in a second.
“It can’t be,” he said, his voice hoarse. Like Mom’s, his eyes focused on nothing.
Mom’s chin lifted and a wounded sound broke free. Dad was on his feet an instant later.
“Adriana,” he said, reaching for her. Mom came to life for an instant, slicing her gaze to him. I’d never seen her look at him that way, not in the throes of their most heated argument. Her look cut me as deeply as it clearly did Dad. Drawing back, he aborted the gesture, but he couldn’t break free from her Gaze. It pinned him in place. The flare of anger died out, leaving despair and agony in the ashes. There was no fight in her eyes.
“Mom,” I said, my chin quivering. “I’m so sorry.”
She looked at me, blinking too fast, the only part of her to move. Then her arms jerked back into motion and she wrapped one around me while pulling Selena up and folding us both in her arms.
Selena sobbed uncontrollably into Mom’s embrace, the sounds coming just shy of wailing.
Dad had never looked so small or so broken. I cried for him too. For what he’d lost and was actively losing before my very eyes.
Mom spoke first into my hair, then Selena’s. “I love you and I love you.” Then she released us and walked out of the room and through the front door. A minute later I heard the car backing down the driveway.
Dad said Mom’s name and then he was on his feet and moving through the dining room. He grabbed his keys on the way, and then he was running out the front door. I heard his car as he peeled out, and I ground out the ember of hope that had warmed for the tiniest second inside me at seeing him go after her. I remembered Mom’s expression too well for anything but ice and ash to fill me.
Alone with my sister and Dad’s untouched birthday cake, I gave in to some long-forgotten childish impulse to reach out for Selena’s hand, but the second our fingers touched, she spun away from me. Her face was a blotchy, teary mess.
“Why?Why did you have to do this?” It was as if she’d sucked all the energy from the room.
Her words stabbed straight through my heart. I kept my knees locked as she grabbed her purse. “Please,” I said, watching her jerky movements. “Stay with me. Be mad, but don’t leave.”
The front door slammed behind her. I let my knees buckle and I sank to the floor, surrounded by torn silver wrapping paper and nothing else.
CHAPTER 41
Iwas still sitting on the dining room floor when my cell phone rang two hours later. Recognizing the ringtone Mom had programmed for herself, “Enter Sandman” by Metallica, I dove for it. I held the phone to my ear with both hands. “Mom? Mom, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“No, no, no,” she replied, soft and soothing. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“You left,” I said. And there was a long pause before she answered.
“I didn’t leave. I’m at Dulce’s—just for right now.”
“Dad went after you. Did he find you? Did you talk to him? Mom, he didn’t know. He—”
