Page 39

Sierra

T he phone rings beside me on my desk, and I look down, seeing his name flash across the screen. I press the green button before leaning back in my chair, “Hello.”

“Hey, baby”—his voice goes soft—“whatcha doing?”

“I’m about to have tea with the queen,” I joke, and the way he chuckles makes me smile even more.

“Oh, I didn’t want to interrupt tea with the queen. I was just calling to see how your day was going.”

“It’s going good.” I smile as I look out the bay window. “I finished a redesign of one of the contracts I got a couple of months ago. So it’s been a relaxed sort of day. But now I guess it’s better since you called.” I smile, thinking of him.

“Is it?” he questions. “Do you know I’m always the one who calls you?”

“What?” I shake my head. “That’s not true. I call you all the time.”

“Name once,” he pushes, and I look up at the ceiling, trying to think back. He’s right, I don’t think I’ve ever just called him. “I’ve been busy.”

He chuckles, and it makes my stomach flutter and certain parts of me tingle, parts that after almost two months should stop fluttering already. “Which is why I call you every day, just to say hello.”

“No, you call me every day so you can be ‘I’m the one who always calls you,’” I mimic his voice horribly.

“I’ll be home around five,” he says, laughing. “We can argue then.”

“You just want to argue with me so we can have make-up sex,” I point out.

“Baby,” he murmurs softly, “don’t make me hard when I’m on my way to meet my guys.”

“Goodbye, Caleb,” I snap, “I love you.”

“Love you too, baby,” he replies softly, and I hang up, putting the phone beside my keyboard.

It’s been two weeks since I told him I loved him, or better yet, he told me he loved me, and it’s been smooth sailing ever since.

Mind you, nothing has been happening with my birth parents.

No more mysterious phone calls, no more notes telling me to leave.

Nothing. It’s been crickets. I guess no news is good news.

I’m about to get up and maybe go start making dinner, when my phone rings.

I look down, thinking it’s him again, but instead, it’s an unknown caller.

“Hello,” I answer, putting it on speakerphone.

“Is this Sierra?” the male voice asks me.

“This is.” I sit up in my chair, looking down at the numbers, counting how long we are on the phone, ticking by.

“Hi,” he says, “my name is Brendan Frisby.” I try to place his name but come out blank. “You hired me through the DNA site to trace your ancestors. I’m a forensic genealogist.”

“Oh, hi,” I reply, suddenly getting nervous.

“I’m calling you today because I have some news.” The hair on the back of my neck starts to stand. “I’ve been working on your DNA matches, and I’ve found a close relative.”

I close my eyes. “How close?”

“I will email you right now, and we can go over the tracing at the same time,” he states, and a ping shows me a new email has come in.

My hand hovers shakily over the mouse as I click on it and open the attachment. The top of the tree has my eyes hovering over it. “I have traced your ancestors back to the eighteen hundreds.” The names are totally new to me and not at all the ones I have on the whiteboard, which is weird.

“These aren’t the names I have on my board,” I tell him.

“That would probably be your paternal side, which is what I’ll be working on next, but I did your maternal side.” If I thought I was going to throw up before, it’s nothing like how I feel right now.

“If you go down the tree, you’ll see that you have a parent relation with one of two people.

” My eyes roam to the bottom of the tree.

“Chester had five sons,” he starts to talk about my great-great-grandfather as he works his way down the tree, but my finger is already moving the document down to the bottom.

“Frederick had three kids, two sons and a daughter.” He is just talking, and I’m not even following him at this point.

“Your grandfather’s name is Rob Dyson.” I think I gasp out, or maybe it’s in my head.

The only thing I can hear is the way my heart is thumping in my ears.

“Rob had three children: Peter, Fiona, and Sonia.” My eyes blink a couple of times as I look at the names at the bottom.

“Now, you are either Fiona’s or Sonia’s daughter. ”

“Oh my God,” I whisper, putting both hands on my cheeks, “are you sure?”

He laughs. “I am. None of them have anything in the system, but their cousin did, so that is how I started tracing it back.”

“I’m—” I try to catch my breath. “I don’t know what to say. Thank you so much.”

“You are very welcome. I’ll be starting on the other side tomorrow.”

“I don’t know how to thank you,” I say.

“Well, I have even more news for you,” he replies, and I laugh.

“I don’t know how much more you can possibly have.”

“I reached out to Tina, who is the second cousin, and she gave me both phone numbers. She also said if it comes out she gave it to me, she’s going to deny it.”

I think I stop breathing when he says that. “The information is in the email that you probably didn’t read.”

I belly laugh now, out of nerves, out of happiness, out of everything. “Guilty.”

“Figured you wanted to get to the end of the story and not read the beginning.”

“Next time, I’ll start at the beginning,” I assure him.

“Sounds good. I’ll call you once I finish on the other side.”

“Thank you so, so much,” I say as he hangs up the phone. I stare down at the phone and then go to the email and see the numbers there. I don’t know how long I sit at my desk; I don’t even feel the tears that run down my face. I don’t feel the way my body shakes. I feel nothing.

I pick up my phone and dial his number. “Oh, now you want to call me because I pointed out the obvious.”

“They found her,” I whisper, and then the sob rips out of me. “He found her.”

“Baby,” he soothes, and I can hear him running on his end, “breathe for me, yeah?” I hear the sound of his truck door slamming shut and then turning on. “I’m going to be there in four minutes.”

“He found her.” It’s the only thing I can say over and over again until I hear the front door swing open and his boots on the floor.

He finds me in my office, the phone to his ear now moving down.

“He found my mother.” I can see the exact moment he registers what I just said.

“He found who my mother is.” I get up, and his hands are there to hold me up because my knees give out.

I bury my face in his neck as he wraps his arms around me.

“That’s amazing,” he murmurs in my ear. “It’s going to be okay.” He kisses the side of my head. “Tell me everything.”

I tell Caleb everything that Brendan found. “So now it’s either Fiona or Sonia who is my mother.”

He holds my face in his hands. “Well, what are you waiting for?” He smiles as his thumbs dry my cheeks. “You’ve been waiting for this for a while.”

“I know.” I look down. “I’m scared.”

“There is no need for you to be scared, baby,” he assures me softly. “You got this.”

“I got this,” I repeat his words. “Who should I call first?”

“Sonia,” he says, “start there.”

I sit back down in my chair, and he squats beside me, holding my hand as I dial her number.

“I’m so nervous,” I admit to him as I dial the number and press the green button before I lose my nerve.

The sound of ringing now fills the room, and I look over at Caleb, who holds my hand in his and brings it to his lips.

“You got this,” he whispers right before someone picks up the phone.

“Hello.” The female voice fills the room, and I feel like I’m going to throw up.

“Hi, I’m looking for a Sonia Dyson.” I try to get my voice under control and not have it come out shaking.

“This is she.” I want to say her voice is warm, but it’s not. It’s the sound of a voice that I would hurriedly rush to get off the phone with. It’s filled with attitude and something else I can’t put my finger on. “Who is this?”

“My name is Sierra Davidson,” I say, and she interrupts me before I finish.

“I don’t know anyone by that name,” she snaps, “and if you are calling to sell me something, I’m not interested.”

“I’m not calling to sell you anything,” I reply quickly before she hangs up on me. “I was wondering if”—I look over at Caleb to gather the strength—“if by any chance you gave up a child for adoption twenty-five years ago.”

“Who is this?” Her voice goes down into a whisper. “Who gave you this number?”

“I’m looking for my birth mother.”

“Stop looking.” She doesn’t give me a chance to finish.

“You need to stop looking. We don’t want you looking into things.

” My blood runs cold. “We’re not interested in having anything to do with you.

Forget this number. Forget my name. Just like I have tried to forget you.

” I don’t say anything else because the phone disconnects.

My mouth opens but then quickly closes. “That—” Caleb stands up, not sure what to say. I can see his jaw getting tight.

“Well, that answers that,” I say, trying not to feel crushed. I shake my head. “I did my part.”

“You did,” he agrees as I look up at him, the tears making it hard to see.

I get up, trying to be as strong as I can be. “There you have it,” I state, and he wraps his arms around me while I sob out. In the comfort and strength of his arms, I let go of the pain from finding out I was adopted, from the pain of finding out my birth mother wants nothing to do with me.

He rubs my back. “It’s her loss, baby,” he soothes softly. “It’s her fucking loss.”