by Loretta Lost
Sighing, I collapse on the backseat. There is something about dangerous and stressful situations that reassures me that Liam will be a rock solid husband. When life gets hard, he is always able to act fast, be a hero, and stay strong. I think that lately, because life has been a little easier, he has had too much time to think and stress himself out. Liam has had so much stress in his life that he struggles to operate without it, and needs to create it artificially.
It is so cozy here in the car, and I am almost tempted to curl up and take a nap until Liam finishes work. But the price of hospital parking is crazy and I need to try to get home before rush hour.
Who am I kidding? It’s always rush hour in New York City.
Chapter Fourteen
Three days before the wedding…
Liam lets out a low whistle as he drives up to the gorgeous house overlooking a small lake. “You really grew up here?” he asks in disbelief.
“I guess so,” I say in wonder. “At least part of the time. I remember running around and playing in the vineyards, but I didn’t have any clue how picturesque it was.”
“I thought your house in New York was impressive,” Liam tells me, “but this one puts it to shame. This house is basically… a castle.”
“You’re exaggerating,” I say, leaning forward to peer through the windshield. He’s really not. The stonework on the exterior of the house does remind me of a castle. My mother used to tell me that she thought this vineyard was the most romantic place on earth. I smile sadly. “Besides, we don’t own it anymore, remember? My parents sold it years ago to help with renovations to the house in New York.”
We both grow quiet then, thinking the same thought: the house that is now destroyed.
“Can you remind me what our schedule is like?” Liam asks as he parks the car and turns to me.
“Sure,” I say, looking at the list on my phone. “We have to go to the city hall to pick up our marriage license from the county clerk, meet with the caterers to try the sample dishes, and the cake shop. We have to pick up your tux, and meet with the photographer and videographer and discuss the pre-wedding photo shoot on Friday. Owen will be arriving with your mother on Friday before the rehearsal dinner, along with most of our guests. I need to get a manicure and pedicure and other spa prep with Carmen tomorrow. I need to call and confirm the makeup artist, the florist, the officiant…”
“Whoa,” Liam says. “I thought that by having a small wedding we’d escape all this red tape.”
“It’s not red tape. These are all the details that will make our wedding possible. Maybe even a little special.”
“Special! I think you’re aiming for magical. Did you really need to spend five thousand dollars on engraved champagne glasses?” Liam asks with a grin.
“They’re keepsakes for our guests,” I say defensively. “Besides, my last book has been selling fairly well and the publisher gave me a nice advance for the next one. Hey, we both loved those champagne flutes, Liam!”
“We did,” he admits. “They just seemed insanely expensive to me. Maybe one set of toasting glasses was okay, but you wanted to get them for everyone!”
“Because it’s such a small wedding. If there were a hundred people, we obviously couldn’t afford to go all out and get everyone the best stuff.”
Liam shakes his head. “There are so many things we have to keep track of and pay for—it really adds up. I know that we’ve been planning for ages, but now that we’re here, I feel like we are just hemorrhaging money. And all the appointments are kind of overwhelming—it feels like more work than I have at the hospital.”
“Still want to marry me?” I ask him teasingly.
“Heck, yes,” he says with conviction, turning toward me with a bright smile.
I am so glad that he has been taking the sleeping pills every night. He seems to have recovered from his nightmares, and he has been more energetic and cheerful this past week. He has also been eating better and hitting the gym more regularly.
When my phone dings with a message, I glance at it and see that it is an email from Dr. C. Nguyen and the subject heading says: Your DNA results are delayed.
We are currently processing your information through a quality review in our lab…
My stomach sinks in disappointment. I have been waiting impatiently for this email and checking my inbox obsessively dozens of times each day.
“Anything important?” Liam asks.
“No,” I say nervously, trying to act normal. “Just my publisher asking for an update. I’m going to have to sneak in as much writing as possible while we drive around and do chores before the wedding. Is that okay?”
“For now, Mrs. Larson,” he says playfully, sliding his hand over my thigh. “But I hope you’re not expecting to get any work done on our honeymoon. I plan to keep you tied to the bed the whole time we’re in Paris, and I won’t let you leave the hotel room no matter how much you beg for freedom.”
“I don’t think I’ll complain,” I say with a smile. “But what about all the cool things we planned to do and see on our trip?”
“They all cost so much money. I think it will be a lot more fiscally responsible if I just pound you until you feel paralyzed from the waist down.”
“Liam!” I say in surprise, but my stomach clenches with desire.
“What?” he says innocently. “These are the small details that make our wedding special.”
“Or magical,” I say with a smile.
Chapter Fifteen
One day before the wedding…
“What do you think of the sleeves now?” Liam asks me as his tux gets fitted.
I nod as I look up to see the tailor pinning the sleeves. “It looks good to me! I don’t know much about fashion.” Turning my eyes back to my laptop, I try to squeeze out a few more words of my chapter. It has been quite comfy to sit here in the shop and work while Liam gets his clothes sorted out. When my phone pings with the sound of an email, I glance at it expecting it to be junk.
My heart skips a beat when I see the words.
From Dr. C. Nguyen. Your DNA reports are ready.
Glancing up at Liam furtively, I tilt my laptop screen away from him so he won’t be able to see what I’m looking at. Using my phone to create a hotspot, I open my email on the computer and skim over the instructions. Without hesitation, I click the link in the email that leads to our DNA results.
My heart begins to race as I wait for the page to load. My skin feels very cold and goose flesh causes all the hairs on my arms and neck to stand up.
When the page loads, it looks like a normal website. I have to enter my birthdate and my mother’s maiden name to gain access, information I had provided in the package. Once I am in, I hold my breath. There are questions that I need to answer before I can even see the information! Do I consent to viewing health information? Yes. Do I consent to viewing ancestry information? Yes. Do I consent to—yes, yes, yes! I click furiously until I get to the end.
Finally. There are a few categories on the screen, and my eyes rapidly scan the information. The medical jargon blurs together in my brain—dozens of diseases float across the screen in two columns, one for me, and one for Liam. I don’t know where to look first. There is a category about genetic risks, and it looks like I have a high risk of developing Celiac disease, which surprises me. I’ve never experienced any issues with digestion, or sensitivity to gluten. I remind myself that the information indicates that there is just a risk, and nothing is for certain.
I exhale. Some of the information is locked, and I need to click on a little padlock symbol and agree that I would like to see it. The first one is for ovarian and breast cancer. I hold my breath until the information pops up on the screen, and it takes me a moment to read that my risk is typical, and not heightened. That’s a load off my shoulders—but I quickly click away to read more.
The next bit of locked information is for Alzheimer’s disease. I click on the link and give permission to unlock it once again, and
my heart sinks to see that Liam has a high risk of developing Alzheimer’s Disease. It’s just a risk, I tell myself. Knowing this now will allow us to take precautions, perhaps. I am relieved to see that my own risk for Alzheimer’s isn’t heightened. Although it could explain his mother’s poor cognitive function…
After a moment, I realize that I am looking at the wrong category. My eyes were pulled to the column with the risk factors, but what’s really important is the section about inherited conditions. It’s in alphabetical order, listing a bevy of dangerous conditions from A to Z, or from Autosomal Recessive Polycystic Kidney Disease to Zellweger Syndrome Spectrum—and ultimately, it seems that neither of us are carriers.
Variant absent. Variant absent. Variant absent.
I close my eyes, and exhale. It’s okay. I have barely looked at the information, but I know that it’s okay. There is nothing glaring that jumps out at me. There are no red flags or sirens telling me that I can’t have children with Liam. Our DNA is mostly fine. It’s flawed, of course, and we both have the potential for various illnesses, but I know that we’ll get through them—or even avoid them by trying to live a healthier lifestyle.
I am sure that the data on this website is incomplete. My LCA isn’t even on here. There must be a frightening number of genetic problems that aren’t identifiable in our DNA yet. There could be new illnesses to arise, or infections and accidents that have nothing to do with our biology. There could be war or famine, or global warming in our lifetime, but somehow, none of that seems to matter anymore. Everything is going to be okay.
We will probably have a healthy baby.
I feel like I am instantly twenty pounds lighter. This is great, because I do want to look good in my wedding dress. I somehow feel like I could fly, or walk on air.
“Helen? Helen, are you listening to me?” Liam asks curiously. “What are you doing? You’ve been totally glued to the screen.”
“I’m sorry,” I tell him quickly. “What were you asking?”
“The hem of the pants. Does it seem like a good length?”
“Sure,” I tell him with a nod, not really knowing or caring. “It looks good, Liam. You look great.”
“Thanks,” he says with a smile, turning back to the mirror.
He is handsome, and I sigh a little in contentment. I wish I could rush over and jump on him in excitement to tell him all the good news about our DNA, but he can never find out about how I lied and tricked him. When I look back down at the computer screen, I scan over the information for several minutes until I notice a blinking blue button on the website. Relative match. My head tilts to the side curiously, and I can’t resist clicking.
Close family: 1
Second and third cousins: 3
Fourth cousins: 15
Distant cousins: 86
My curiosity grows, and I click the “close family” button to see if Dad or Carmen, or one of Liam’s parents, might have done a DNA test at some point without my knowledge.
“Oh my god,” I whisper, as a cold sweat instantly covers my shoulders. The words flash across my brain. Find your relatives... other DNA matches... registered in our system… Female… Age 25… California. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Dozens of snippets of information click into place quite suddenly. One word stands out on the page, with startling clarity.
Sibling match.
“Helen!” Liam says with a little frustration, reaching out to shut my laptop so he can get my attention. “Are you ready to get going?”
I look up in surprise. When did he take off the tux and get dressed in his jeans? Are the alterations already complete? Have I been really been so oblivious, and staring at this information for so long?
“We have to meet with the photographer before the family starts arriving!” Liam tells me, grabbing my laptop and offering his hand to help pull me out of my chair. “Come on, up, up! We have a rehearsal dinner to prepare for.”
“I’m sorry,” I tell him quietly. “I was just…”
“Engrossed in book research? Helen! That’s fine, but you can surely give it a break for a few hours so that we can get married. It’s kind of important!”
“You’re right,” I say, carefully taking the laptop back from him. “I should take a break and just focus on us.”
“We’re only going to get married once,” Liam says, sliding his arm around my waist and kissing my shoulder. “Might as well enjoy it.”
Chapter Sixteen
When Owen arrives, I stand by the house and wait impatiently as he hugs Liam and two men share some words. It looks like Liam’s mother did not make it to the wedding. I wonder why? As Owen moves closer to the house, I fix him with a grave look, and cross my arms over my chest.
“Hey, little lady,” Owen says as he approaches me and gives me a hug. “You doin’ okay?”
“I need to talk to you,” I tell him in a whisper. “Now.”
He pulls away slightly and looks at my face to gauge how serious I am. “Is it about… the thing?” he asks.
“Yes,” I tell him. “Come on.”
He nods and begins following me obediently.
Liam calls after us. “What are you two planning? Owen, if this is Magic Mike-related, I’m not going to be happy! No one wants to see what you have under your shirt.”
Turning back, Owen flashes a grin at his friend, but continues to follow me. I start moving faster into the house, startled by the memory of my feet. Looking at the stairs and doors actually trips me up a little, so I do something that most people would consider a little bizarre.
I close my eyes.
Suddenly, the strange house is familiar again. With my eyes open, this is a house I have never seen before. With my eyes closed, this is a house I have been in many times. This is the house where I spent all the lazy summers of my childhood, and it feels like no time has passed. Even though it is not summer, I can smell the scent of the thousands of grape vines growing around us, and I know exactly where to step.
My hand reaches for the door leading to the basement effortlessly, and turns in the right direction. I am elated as my feet carry me below the house and down to the wine cellar, where I know we will have some privacy. I open my eyes and turn around to look at Owen, who has barely kept up with me. He stares around in surprise at the gorgeous wine cellar, and I am also distracted for a moment.
Everything is familiar, and the nostalgia is overwhelming. But I have business to attend to.
“Where’s Liam’s mother?” I ask. “Weren’t you supposed to drive her here?”
“She wasn’t feeling well,” Owen explains sadly. “Her husband wouldn’t let her leave. I tried, but he nearly gave me a black eye.”
“Okay,” I say with a nod. “It doesn’t matter. Did you do your research? On Liam’s dream?”
“I gave it a shot,” he says softly, “but I didn’t find anything.”
“What exactly happened in the dream?” I demand.
Owen hesitates. “Liam was ranting and drunk when he told me about it, but from what I understand… he killed a baby.”
“Details, please.”
“I don’t really know, Helen. It sounds like he was pretty young when it happened, but his mother had a baby girl… and I think she made him leave it at the side of the road to die. Probably some kind of postpartum depression thing. It was cold, and he’s not sure what happened to the child. I did some research, but I couldn’t find anything. I also didn’t have a precise year or a location to go from, and I didn’t want to ask him about it again and set him off.”
“I found her,” I tell Owen. “I found his sister.”
“What?”
“The DNA tests we did. They had this feature where they could search for relatives who were in the database. I figure if she was abandoned, or rescued, she must have done the DNA tests searching for her relatives.”
“Helen,” Owen says with wide eyes. “If we hadn’t done that test, we never would have found her.”
I nod, feeling tea
rs prick the back of my eyes. “I didn’t contact her yet. I don’t know what to do. I want to invite her to the wedding, and buy her a ticket. She’s around my age.”
“That means he would have been around four when she was born,” Owen muses. “We still don’t know anything about her. She could be really messed up. If she grew up as an orphan, we don’t know if she was adopted or left in foster care. We don’t know if she’ll hate Liam for what he did and blame him for everything. We don’t know…”
“She’s Liam’s sister,” I tell Owen. “That’s all we need to know. Isn’t this what’s been eating him up all this time? He doesn’t know what happened to her. He thinks he killed her! Don’t you think it would make him happy to know she survived—to meet her and see what she’s like?”
“I don’t know,” Owen says. “Helen, I don’t know if you should do this right now. Why don’t we wait until after the wedding and sit down and talk to him?”
“Because then she’ll miss coming to her brother’s wedding,” I say softly. “You couldn’t get his mother to come, so Liam has no other family here.”
“He has me,” Owen says stubbornly, “and James.”
“Blood relatives,” I tell him. “That’s important, too. I have my dad and my sister here, and that means the world to me. Even if Liam and his sister have never met each other—they are family. They are connected, and they both deserve to have each other in their lives. To be reunited.”
“Helen… you’re crazy,” Owen says hoarsely. “This could either go really well, or be a complete disaster.”
“I’m willing to risk it.”
“Do you… do you even know her name?” Owen asks.
I smile. “Yes. It’s Sophie.”
Chapter Seventeen
I smooth out my cherry-red dress as I walk down the stairs to join the gathering of my friends and family. There are waitresses walking around and serving hors d’oeuvres and glasses of wine on little platters.