But neither of those things had happened. Not the cooking, and not the working. After he left, she settled in to check her email and found something that had changed her plans for the day. Changed everything she’d ever assumed about who she is and where she came from.
She’d called her mother in Florida. Emily Tucker had gasped when Liliana told her. “Well, that’s not what we were expecting, is it? How do you feel about it?”
“I don’t know what to think.”
“Are you going to—”
“I’m not going to do anything until I tell Bry, Mom.”
“Good. The two of you can sort through this together. But whatever you decide, I want you to remember one thing, Lily my love. You are still the person you’ve always been.”
Yes. She’s the same person, and the loving couple who’d adopted her and raised her are, and will always be, her parents. But—
She hears another vehicle coming up the street. This time when she peeks out the window, she sees her husband’s SUV. Briana follows her to the door, tail wagging.
Liliana pats her head, watching her husband climb out of the driver’s seat and go around to the passenger’s side to grab a bag of takeout he’d picked up on the way home after learning she hadn’t cooked. She can see that it’s Chinese food, and he hadn’t asked her what to order. She always gets chicken and broccoli with brown rice, hot and sour soup, and a spring roll.
Once, early on, Bryant had theorized that she craves familiarity because she’s an adoptee. He’d started asking questions; she’d said she doesn’t like to talk about it. Her husband, never one to resurrect a dropped subject, had never asked about it again.
She watches him stride toward the house in his navy wool walking coat, a gray plaid scarf at his neck. There’s a bounce in his step. He must have had a good day. He’s one of the top reps on his team, receiving an award at his company’s sales conference in San Diego this week. Bred for success, he’s the son of a doctor and a college professor, grandson of one of the country’s first Black airline pilots. So much pride in that family, and rightfully so.
Her parents are also prominent and successful. They, too, had raised her with high expectations, taught her to set lofty goals and achieve them.
But they’re white.
Bryant greets her with a kiss, then points to the walk and driveway. “Babe, I don’t want you shoveling on days when you don’t have to go anywhere! I can do it when I get home.”
“I used that service that left a flyer in the mailbox a few days ago offering a free trial. I thought they wouldn’t even show up, but the guy came twice, and he said he’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Good, then I don’t have to worry about you while I’m gone.” Bryant hangs his coat on a hook, stomps his feet on the mat and heads for the kitchen with the food. “Let’s eat, and then I have to pack.”
She follows him. Now isn’t a good time. He’s had a long day, and his airport car service will be here at four in the morning, and he’s leaving for a week . . .
And I can’t keep this to myself for a week.
“Bry.”
“Hmm?” He’s unpacking the food, lining up white cartons on the counter.
“I need to tell you something. Can you sit down for a second?”
“Can we eat while you’re telling me? Because it’s late and I’m starved and—” He turns and catches sight of her face. He sits. “What happened?”
She takes a deep breath and sinks into the opposite chair, opening the laptop she’d left on the kitchen table. “You know I was adopted. But I never told you I was abandoned.”
His eyes widen and then fill with tears as she tells him about her earliest memories of a grim life, and how she’d been found at the Chapel Square Mall as a toddler. He takes her hands in both of his as she tells the story leading up to finding a forever home with the Tuckers.
“I can’t believe you never told me you had such a traumatic childhood.”
“It wasn’t, after I was adopted. I’ve never liked to talk about it, or even think about how I was abandoned. I mean, maybe a part of me always wondered, but the rest of me didn’t want to know. Only lately . . . I guess the wondering part took over, and I didn’t just want to know. I needed to know. Because of you, and how we’re going to have children, and . . . you know, I kept thinking that my birth parents were not good people. Terrible people who are out there somewhere, and they might walk back into my life someday, into our lives. So . . .”
She tells him about the DNA test she’d taken.
About the results that had come back today with a match to a man with whom she shares 3,448 centimorgans across eight-two DNA segments.
“What does that even mean?”
“It means the higher those numbers are, the closer the relationship is. And one hundred percent of the time two people share that amount of DNA, they are parent and child.”
“So you’ve found your birth father.”
“Yes.”
“The man who slapped you around and—”
“No.”
Liliana takes a deep breath, turning the laptop to show him the match, accompanied by biographical information and a photo of a man who doesn’t have a scar and hasn’t been haunting her dim memories and recent nightmares. “This is my father, Bry. He’s a detective in New York City, and his name is Stockton Barnes, and he’s been looking for me.”
There are still plenty of troopers monitoring the southbound interstate with radar guns, but Amelia’s cousin is in no danger of a speeding ticket. Lucky drives a good fifteen miles per hour below the speed limit. Amelia, seated in the front passenger seat, can feel Jessie’s impatience in the back. She knows Jessie’s right foot is gunning an imaginary gas pedal as her mouth rattles at full speed, asking questions about the town, passing landmarks, Lucky’s life . . .
Everything except where they’re going. She’d already tried that, back at the house, and the woman had shaken her head.
“You’ll see.”
“But does it have something to do with—”
“Like I said, this truth isn’t mine to reveal. So I’m taking you to meet someone who’s been waiting a long time to tell it. Half a lifetime—and all of yours,” she’d added with a glance at Amelia.
“But how did you know we were coming tonight?” Jessie asks. “Because when we showed up at your house, it was like you were expecting us.”
“Marshboro is a small town. Folks know everything about everything.”
Lucky is a lovely woman, not just for her age, which Amelia would guess is mid to late seventies. She’s not roly-poly as Bettina had been, but there’s a resemblance.
Back in October, Amelia’s DNA test had turned up Lucky’s daughter, Quinnlynn, as a first or second cousin. She’d sent a message through the private website. Waiting for a response that never came, Amelia had studied the genealogical profile. Based on DNA—she and Quinnlynn share 286 centimorgans across twenty segments—and three decades’ worth of molecular biology research, she’d concluded that Quinnlynn’s mother and her own birth mother had been first cousins.