“She’s been busted a few times for credit card fraud and petty theft. Right now she’s housed in Central Michigan Corrections,” he explains, and my heart sinks.
“Don’t worry, she’ll be out in six months,” he says cheerfully. He pulls up another picture of a woman—she’s beautiful. She has hair the color of a penny and it’s in a ninja bun on the top of her head. It says her eyes are hazel and she was born four years before me. Her name is Mariah. I notice her last name is different from my parents.
“She was the oldest of you guys. Her story is a little more lighthearted than your baby sis. No jail stints, not even a parking ticket. She has a bachelor’s in Psychology from the University of Wisconsin, owns a house in Cleveland, married two years ago to a carpenter from North Dakota where they reside with their one-year-old daughter Bella,” he explains, and I look at him impressed.
“Wow, you were able to find all of that out?”
“Yeah, but once I found her name and date of birth I found most of the rest through LinkedIn and Facebook,” he admits with a wry smile. I roll my eyes.
“Can you pull up her page?” I ask.
“Already done!” he adds and in less than a few seconds her page is on full display. I scroll through her pictures. She has tons of friends. The past few years of her life is perfectly documented on the website. I see her graduation photos, pictures of her on various birthdays, one in Vegas, dozens of pictures hanging out with friends, her wedding photos. Her husband is handsome in a nerdy kind of way. The next picture is of her, her husband, and daughter who looks just like him.
She looks happy, fulfilled, normal—and for a moment I’m envious of her. I wonder how she got out without being emotionally screwed up? Obviously me and Olivia were scathed, but she seems just peachy. I continue to look through the page and I see one labeled “lunch with the ‘rents.” There’s a man and woman in their late sixties sitting at some sort of café with big happy smiles. I stare at it.
“Mariah was adopted. Which was lucky for her since she was almost nine when she went into the system,” Blue explains, noticing my lingering stare.
“Good for her,” I mutter quietly, sliding the laptop more in his direction.
I hate myself for being angry with her, jealous that she ended up in a good home with nice parents that let her live her life without any complications. That she made it through without being affected. I hate myself that I blame her for not looking for me and my newfound kindred spirit Olivia. I wonder what hell she went through to put her on the path that landed her in jail numerous times. I bet Mariah remembers our parents. She didn’t grow up without a clue of who she was or where she came from. I realize I’m being ridiculous because if just one of us was able to have a normal and happy life then that was great.
“Do you want to keep looking through her page?” Blue asks, finishing off his glass of ice water.
“No, you have all of this information saved for me?” I ask and he nods.
“It’s all on a flash drive.” He hands it over to me. I let out a deep long sigh and feel tears in my eyes.
“Are those happy tears or sad ones?” he asks quietly.
“Both,” I say with a nod, trying to tell myself they’re both. I shake my head as tears begin to come full force and more than anything I wish that Kam was here. He’d know how to pull the best out of this situation. He’d hug me and let me know that everything will be okay. But he’s not here.
“I just thought that if I knew all of this, who my parents were and what happened to me, I’d feel a weight lift off my chest. That I wouldn’t feel so lost and, I-I still feel lost.” I laugh to try to cover up my voice cracking and take one of the napkins on the table and wipe my face off.
“Hey, there’s one more left.,” he says in a upbeat tone. I let out a deep breath. I forgot he even mentioned I had a brother. He clicks on another file on the screen. A man in his late twenties with hair as dark as mine and matching grey eyes fills up the screen.
What’s more interesting is that on the screen where my sisters each have one ID, he has two. I move in a few inches closer and see that they’re from different states and have two different names on them. One has Calvin Scott in Illinois and the other Christopher Scott in Michigan.
“I-I have twin brothers?” I ask, a little confused. A wide amused grin spreads across his face.
“That’s what I thought at first. So we dug a little deeper and confirmed that your mother only had four children.”
“Soo…I don’t understand?”
“You, Olivia, Mariah, and a son. Guess his name?” he asks excitedly.
I shrug.
“Christopher Calvin Rice.”
I look at him bewildered.
“So is he like a con man?” That would make sense, maybe it’s in our blood, since Olivia is a thief and apparently so am I.
“Calvin Scott has a residence and utilities listed in Chicago. In premier real estate Chicago, not the shitty part like where I’m from. I’m talking about million-dollar apartments. Which he could afford seeing as he’s employed and seems to be extremely close to Dexter Crestfield Jr. the son and VP of Crestfield corporation, a multibillion-dollar company. The weird thing though is that Calvin Scott has no records prior to 2006.
“Christopher Scott, on the other hand, was legally adopted by two farmers in a little town called Madison, Michigan. He graduated from Madison High School and after some sporadic leaves of absence eventually received his bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University, and received w-2s from Madison High School, where he worked,” he explains.
“Soo…I don’t understand. He abandoned his life as Christopher Scott and began living as Calvin Scott?” I ask, confused.
“That’s what it looks like, but since I’m amazing and just for fun, I wanted to see what the correlation was between the two and after some more of doing what I do, I found out that one of those little Podunk farmers is actually Dexter Crestfield Sr.’s stepson,” he says, amused with his own cleverness.
“Which means…” I ask, waiting on him to divulge some grand revelation.
“Well, if anything, your brother is fucking loaded,” he says so loudly the people seated two booths away look over at us curiously.
“Not only that but if his granddad is Dexter Crestfield that would be the type of thing Kam’s extended family would lap up. No more being little Cinderella in their eyes, Uncle George and the lot will be so far up your ass you’d think you were getting a colonoscopy.” He laughs and I roll my eyes.
“Okay slow down,” I tell him, seeing his excitement growing.
“What if he doesn’t even know that he’s adopted? I can’t just walk right up to his door and say ‘Hey I’m your sis, can I have some money?’” I spout off, but Blue just shakes his head.
“Look, if nothing else, you need to find out what’s going on with you,” he whispers with hushed urgency.
“You need to call Kam,” he tells me and my eyes widen.
“No. I-I can’t drag him into this. I just got threatened by some psycho and it could be dangerous to be around me, but even if it isn’t I can’t put this on him. It’s his last year of school, he’d make me his focus and he can’t. I just can’t do it,” I say, my mind made up. He shakes his head in disagreement but there’s nothing to discuss.