Page 86 of Savage Lover

I pass her Vic’s toothbrush in a plastic baggie. I could have gotten a swab from inside his mouth, but I didn’t really want to tell him what I was doing, any more than I told Bella. Vic is insistent that he doesn’t care about his biological father. And maybe he really doesn’t want to know. But he needs money for school. We’re too poor to be prideful.

“I want to know the familial relationship,” I tell the technician. “If there is one.”

“No problem,” she says. “It’ll take a couple hours. Assuming we can gather enough DNA to run through the system.”

“That’s fine,” I say. “I’ll wait.”

I snag a chair in the waiting room, one positioned in the corner so I can lean my head against the wall and try to take a nap. Several times I nod off, only to be jerked awake again when the receptionist calls someone’s name at about ten times the volume necessary for the tiny space.

At least they have a water cooler. I drink about eight more cups of water, then visit the bathroom several times.

“You part fish?” an old man teases me, after my fifth or sixth drink.

“I wish,” I groan. “Then I wouldn’t be able to hear Nurse Ratched over there.”

“NAGORSKI!” the receptionist bellows at the top of her lungs, making the windows rattle.

“That’s the benefit of going deaf,” the old man says serenely. “I just turn down my hearing aid.”

It takes another hour for the receptionist to shout, “RIVERA!”

As soon as she does, I jump up to pay my $149 fee to receive my results.

I’m out of cash, so I have to put the charge on a credit card. It takes a couple tries to find one that’s not already maxed out.

“You should really pay those off,” the receptionist tells me, as my MasterCard finally allows the charge. “Carrying a balance is bad for your credit score.”

“It’s this fun game between me and the bank,” I tell her. “I like to keep them guessing.”

She narrows her eyes at me, trying to decide if I’m joking.

“Financial accountability is nothing to joke about, young lady.”

“You’re right,” I say, snatching the envelope of results out of her hand. “I’ll pay off those cards the moment I win the lottery.”

I take the envelope outside to open it.

My hand is shaking a little, and I feel a sense of dread.

I went to all this trouble to prove my theory, but the truth is, I’d rather be wrong. For the last fifteen years, Vic has belonged to me and my dad, and nobody else. He was the center of our world. We loved him like crazy. My dad built him a Transformers Halloween costume that really could transform from a robot to a fire truck. I made his lunch every day for school and drew little cartoons on the bag to make him laugh. We planned his birthday parties, his Christmas presents. We all went to Cubs games together—sitting in the shittiest seats, but it didn’t matter, because we were the perfect little family unit. Happy with our nosebleed seats and our hotdogs.

I don’t know why I ever thought it was a good idea to fuck that up.

Except that my dad and I are sinking. I can’t bear to drag Vic down with us. If we can’t give him the future he deserves, then somebody else has to do it.

So I rip open the envelope and I pull out the results.

It takes me a minute to understand what I’m looking at.

Subject 1: Victor Rivera.

Subject 2: Unknown Female.

21.6% shared, 29 segments.

Possible Relationships: Uncle/Niece, Aunt/Nephew, Grandfather/Granddaughter, Grandmother/Grandson, Half-Siblings.

Right. The test can’t tell the age of the subjects, so it’s just guessing how they might be related. But I know Victor and Bella. Bella’s not his aunt, or his grandmother. Which means . . . she’s definitely his half-sister.

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