Before the vows.
They had known I was compatible with Lenora before Thaddius Bromel ever introduced himself.
My marriage had not started with attraction.
It had started with a database query.
Dr. Oay swiped again.
Another document appeared.
A genealogical report.
“This was harder to explain,” she said.
“What is it?”
“Your genetic relationship to Lenora.”
I looked at her.
“What genetic relationship?”
She did not answer immediately.
Instead she tapped the screen.
The report opened.
Probability percentages appeared.
Kinship markers.
Autosomal comparisons.
Then one sentence.
RESULT CONSISTENT WITH BIOLOGICAL GRANDPARENT–GRANDCHILD RELATIONSHIP.
I stopped breathing.
“No.”
“Coraly—”
“No.”
My pulse monitor accelerated.
“Lenora isn’t my grandmother.”
“We repeated the testing.”
“My grandmother was named Alice Ashworth.”
“Your maternal grandmother, legally.”
“My mother was Claire Ashworth.”
“I know.”
“Lenora never had a daughter.”
Dr. Oay looked at me carefully.
“That’s not true.”
The door opened.
I jerked toward it.
Talia Brennan entered.
My lawyer was fifty-eight, five feet tall, and capable of making billionaires apologize for breathing too loudly near her clients.
She carried a leather briefcase.
Behind her came a hospital administrator and a man I recognized as an investigator from the state attorney general’s office.
Talia shut the door.
“Coraly.”
“Tell me she’s wrong.”
Talia removed a photograph.
Old.
Faded.
A teenage girl stood beside a young Lenora.
The girl had long dark hair.
A crooked smile.
And my mother’s eyes.
On the back, written in blue ink:
LENORA AND EVELYN, AUGUST 1972.
“Who’s Evelyn?”
Talia sat down.
“Your mother’s biological mother.”
My mind seemed to split in two.
“What?”
“Lenora gave birth to a daughter when she was seventeen.”
I stared at her.
“The child was taken from her.”
“Adopted?”
“Essentially.”
“What does that have to do with my mother?”
“The daughter was named Evelyn Rose.”
