Then the laughter died in my throat.
Uncle David was not some distant family member. He was my father’s younger brother—tall, red-haired, green-eyed, and well known in the family for vanishing to Seattle years earlier after what everyone vaguely referred to as “a misunderstanding.”
My hair was red.
My eyes were green.
My parents, Robert and Linda Harris, both had dark hair and brown eyes. They had always explained the difference with a single word: adoption.
For twenty-six years, they claimed they had chosen me through a private agency in Sacramento. They told me my biological mother had been a college student who wanted to give me a better future. They said there were no documents because the adoption had been closed.
Whenever I pushed for details, my mother started crying.
Eventually, I stopped asking.
Across the reception room, I looked toward my parents. My mother was glaring at Aunt Marlene as though she wanted to pull her outside by force. My father’s face had turned completely gray.
Aunt Marlene blinked, suddenly aware of what she had revealed.
“Oh,” she whispered. “You don’t know.”
My heartbeat accelerated. “Know what?”
She released my wrist. “Forget it.”
But forgetting was impossible.
One month later, I ordered a DNA test using a fake email account and mailed it from a post office three towns away.
