Page 22 of Close Match

“Thanks,” I mutter, racing out of the store.

It isn’t until I get outside that I realize what I’ve done.

I’ve taken the first steps to find my birth father.

Holy shit.

Twelve

Evangeline

July

“I’m still pissed you didn’t buy me one too,” Bristol bitches right before she spits into the tube.

“Shut up and save your saliva.” I pause before doing the same.

At first, Bristol and Simon freaked out when I got back and told them what I did. Then Bristol thought about it. She said, “It’s not like you have to use your real name, Linnie. I mean, you can be Eva Brogan, Angel Brogan, Lynn Brogan, and no one but us would ever know.”

Simon was incredulous. “I can’t believe you’re encouraging this. The smart way to do this would be to hire a private investigations firm. Marco knows one who would do a fabulous job.”

“With what?” I demanded. “We only know a name, and we don’t even know if that was his real name or if Mom gave him her real name.”

Abashed, he agreed. “True. Okay. So, we do the crazy first, and then if you get any hits, maybe we have him checked out through the firm?”

I acquiesced. “Maybe. If I end up meeting him and if—that’s a big if—I feel something wonky.”

“You’re wonky,” he griped. I merely smiled beatifically.

“Aren’t you glad your baby only has a quarter of a chance of inheriting these genes?”

He threw the sealed test kit at me.

Now, it’s a week later, and Bristol and I are spitting into tubes. “I don’t think they’d appreciate if I hocked a loogie, do you?” I laugh. It’s either laugh or cry, and I’ve decided to go with the former.

I spend too much time at night crying.

We all decided the best course of action was to wait until we wrapped the final show in our contract onMiss Me. I needed my head free and clear of anything but this. I have the recording of the children’s album to do in LA, but I’m not leaving until the week after next for that.

Next week is reserved for all things Bristol. She and Simon are quietly getting married to avoid the media fanfare so close to our mother’s death. Since it’s just the three of us plus Marco who will be in attendance, it’s mainly finding her the perfect outfit, reminding Simon to buy flowers, and deciding on a lavish place for all of us to go to dinner on such short notice. She wants it to be a quiet event, just family. It’s going to be beautiful—a perfect memory to take with me when I leave for Los Angeles.

“Shut up and keep going,” Bristol tells me. I realize she’s almost all the way done with her tube.

“You know, the last time you had spit running down your face like this, you were blowing bubbles at me. I think you were around one and you were teething. You should get used to that.”

We grin at each other before resuming our respectivesppptsounds. Fiercely, I realize I don’t care what a DNA test says. Bristol could have no blood relation to me and she’d still be my sister.

“How long does it take to get a match?” Bristol, not one to do things halfway, got me a second brand of DNA kit so we could compare results. “After all, what if your father only is on one site?” So, we’ve had to set up two profiles and expunge our DNA into a tube two times. We decided for an alias; I should go with Lynn since I’m so used to being called Linnie by my closest family. I agreed because I’m more likely to react to it should I hear it. She even listed her office as the address for both of our kits. “Just in case some schmuck decides to try to find you.”

She’s seriously crafty.

“I have no idea,” I say in response to how fast it takes to get a match. “Hell, I may never know. I may be getting dry mouth for nothing. But if nothing else, I’ll at least get information about the medical stuff since now we can’t be sure about that.”

Bristol is already capping off her sample. “With Dad dying of cancer and Mom of a heart attack, I’m right there with you.”

Holding the now filled tube away, I reach for her hand. “You know I love you for doing this for me. I just wish we didn’t have to.”

“Stop looking at it like that, Linnie. This changes nothing between us. I only wish Mom would have told you while she was alive.”