Линвуд Баркли - Find You First

“They very well might. If they truly do want to know, there are steps they can take, and may have already taken. It’s a different world now. Maybe some of the people you hope to find have taken advantage of the services that are available today. They provide a DNA sample, learn about their ancestry, and are connected with family they didn’t know they had. You could take the same route. Who knows where that might lead?”

“That’s a shot in the dark,” Miles countered. “Too many variables. I could be dead before anyone I need to connect with does that.”

Gold’s shoulders briefly went up a quarter of an inch. “I don’t know what to say.”

He stood, signaling that the meeting was over, and extended a hand, which Miles took with little enthusiasm.

“Good luck,” the doctor said.

Miles said nothing on his way out. As he passed reception, he glanced at Julie, on the phone again. She had her head down and turned away, a hand partially covering the mouthpiece so that she could not be heard.

But Miles caught some of what she was saying.

“I don’t know, sweetheart. When’s the tuition payment due, again? Christ, can you get some kind of delay on that?”

On his way home, Miles got another ticket.

Springfield, MA

“Oh, my God, did you see what you just did there?” Todd Cox asked.

“What?” Chloe said. “What are you talking about?”

“The way you put your hand on your forehead.” He demonstrated, slamming the heel of his hand into his head, fingers splayed upward. A duh gesture. “I do that all the time.”

“Bullshit,” she said. “You do not. You’re just saying that, looking for things. Seriously.”

“No, I’m not fucking kidding. I do that all the time.” He gave his head a shake. “This is unbelievable. I’ve got an honest-to-God sister.”

“Half.”

“Huh?”

“ Half sister,” Chloe pointed out.

“It still beats no sister.”

They were sitting in a McDonald’s, around the corner from the ordering counter, a few steps from the washrooms. It was after the lunch hour rush, and they figured they could sit there for a while without anyone asking them to leave. They’d already polished off their burgers and fries, but Todd was still working on the last few drops of his vanilla milkshake. Chloe had gone back for a coffee.

“What made you do it?” she asked. “Send in a sample?”

“Okay, so, it wasn’t my idea. I wasn’t really all that interested. I never really thought much about who my biological dad might be or whether I had any half brothers or half sisters. I guess I’m not what you’d call a big thinker. I kind of live for the moment, you know? Like, what does it matter what happened in the past? I’m here now. And that’s the only shit I really have to deal with. But—”

“Hang on,” Chloe said. “I should be getting this.”

“Huh?”

Chloe put her smartphone on the table. “I’m making a kind of video journal. About my family. Putting it all together. Documenting it.”

“Oh, okay.”

“You mind?”

“No. It’s cool.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Do I look okay?”

“You look fine.”

“I got this one spot where my hair sticks up.”

“It’s good.”

“Is this an okay place to shoot? In a McDonald’s?”

“It’s more authentic. I want to get you when you tell this story for the first time.” She raised the phone, framed Todd on the screen. “Okay, so, you weren’t thinking about sending in your DNA, but you did. How’d that happen?”

“Okay, so, like I was saying, it wasn’t my idea. But my mom, she’s real interested in this stuff, and I think she’s been kind of wondering whose, you know, donation was used so that she could get pregnant.”

“So she’s told you all about this. It’s never been a secret.”

“Well, she didn’t tell me until I was like ten? I think it was? I mean. I had a dad. She was already married so I always assumed my dad was my dad. Right? But then, like, when I was nine, he got killed in this accident. He was an arborist.”

“A what?”

“Arborist. Tree guy. He cut down trees and shit. So one day, he’s chainsawing this huge tree, has it all figured out which way it was going to fall, but he kind of fucked it up. It went the other way and he couldn’t get out of the way in time and he got crushed to death.”

“Jeez, I’m sorry.”

Todd shrugged. “So, after that, my mom thought I should know that while he was still my dad, there was something she’d never told me. That when they were trying to have a kid, they couldn’t. My dad... he had like a low count or whatever they call it. So they went to this clinic outside New York and they did whatever they do and along came me and we all lived happily ever after until, you know, he got crushed.”

Chloe had already said sorry once, so she said nothing.

“So, we don’t have a whole lot of relatives or anything. My dad didn’t have any brothers or sisters and the same’s more or less the case with my mom. And she’s been worried that I don’t have any kind of extended family, and she knew there had to be some out there. So she ordered two tests — one for herself and one for me — and the next time I was over there she sprung it on me. Spit in this, she says.” He shrugged. “No big deal, so I did it. And she wanted me to say it was okay for anyone to get in touch. And you did.” Another shake of the head. “Mind blown.”

“My mom was the exact opposite. She didn’t want me to do it. She doesn’t think I need to know.”

“Everybody’s different, I guess.”

Chloe tapped the phone to stop recording. “Good stuff.”

“So let me ask about you, then. What do you do?”

“Oh, I have a magnificent career. I wait tables in a shitty diner. I was going to school to study photojournalism but didn’t have enough money for the tuition. My mom chipped in what she could but she’s not exactly swimming in cash. If I had any money, you think I’d be driving a 1977 Pacer?”

Todd glanced out the window into the parking lot at Chloe’s car, which looked more like a rusted fishbowl than something someone might drive.

“When I have time,” she said, “I go to the old folks home where my grandfather lives.”

“Oh?” The comment got Todd’s attention. “Like, to visit?”

“Yeah, and also, I’ve been interviewing him. About his life, like I was just doing with you. There’s been this, I don’t know, void, not knowing who I really am. So I try to find out as much as I can about the stuff I am able to find out about. Does that make sense?”

“Sure.”

“Don’t you wonder about your biological father? Like, WhatsMyStory was able to connect us, but now we have this shared mystery. Who’s our daddy?”

That made Todd laugh. “Who’s your daddy?” he said quickly, as though it were a rap lyric. “Who’s my daddy? Ever-body wants to know, who’s your daddy?”

“But seriously, don’t you wonder?”

Todd shrugged. “I guess. But even if I knew, what difference would it make?”

“Doesn’t it make a difference knowing about me?”

He nodded. “Yeah, but you’re, like, pretty much my own age. My dad, whoever it is, would just be some old guy.”

Chloe drove the heel of her hand into her forehead. “Well, duh. Parents are always older.”

He pointed to her head. “You did it again. So, tell me some more about your grandfather.”

“He’s a veteran. Served in Vietnam. He wrote a book about his time there that he self-published. It’s really good. I mean, I’m no book critic, but I thought it was terrific. And he saw some awful shit, you know? Came back from that, got a job at Sears, spent the rest of his working life there. But talking to him, learning his story, it’s got me interested in talking to the other residents. They’ve all got stories. You think they’re these old people just sitting around waiting to die, but they’ve done things. They’ve seen things. Attention must be paid.”