Page 52 of The Little Provence Book Shop

It would be four thirty in the morning in England. She doubted her friend would be that pleased to speak to her now. And besides, she knew how busy Chris could get. But hopefully they could chat soon – re-establish the kind of closeness they used to have.

She wondered why it had taken her rushing to France and working in a bookstore with a possibly psychic boss to realise that she needed to start reaching out properly and restocking her life with people who cared about her.

With a jolt she realised suddenly that she hadn’t replied to Kevin’s email yet either. And he’d been so touchingly open about his feelings. She clicked on her email icon and began to scroll through the various spam missives she’d received over the past twenty-four hours, looking for his name.

Only something else caught her eye.

DNA RESULTS IN!the heading read.

Shaking slightly, she tapped the heading and opened the email which congratulated her again on her results, and gave her a link to find out more.

Taking a deep breath and glad, for once, that she was alone and Lili was asleep, she clicked on the link.

After ten feverish minutes of forgetting her password, trying different versions of it, being locked out and finally resetting the whole thing, she was able to bring up her report.

And her life changed the moment she read it. Because the email revealed that she had matches.

Genetic matches.

And there was a link.

It took her a couple of minutes to work up the courage to click on it. Whatever it contained would be a partial answer to the questions she’d had since finding out she’d been adopted. A sibling, a cousin… possibly even a parent. She hadn’t known, in the past, but Lili was the only genuine blood relative she had in her life. Now, there might be something new.

Two matches came up.

One, identified as a second cousin.

The other, as a parent.

A parent!

Her initial instinct was to throw her phone across the room – partially out of fear, partially out of shock. But instead, she steadied herself. This is what she’d wanted, wasn’t it? That her mother, or possibly her father, had taken a DNA test. Had opted to make their findings available to people who might show up as DNA matches. It was wonderful. But she was utterly terrified.

‘Sorry, Mum,’ she whispered to the woman who had raised her, as she clicked on the parent icon and waited for the page to appear. And there it was. A woman called Sophia; her mother. And there was more – a photograph and the option to get in touch. Somehow so very ordinary and everyday. Yet earth-shattering too.

Currently her settings meant her results were kept private from matches. Sophia wouldn’t yet be aware of her existence. Everything was still in Adeline’s hands. She could close the page, pretend nothing had happened; be one of those people who chose not to find out. Or she could enlarge the photograph and see her birth mother’s face – right now. And write her an email that perhaps she was longing for.

Sophia wouldn’t have taken a DNA test and made the results searchable if she hadn’t wanted to be found.

It seemed bizarrely easy, and utterly terrifying all at once.

Shaking, Adeline enlarged the photo.

The woman looked young – much younger than the mother who’d raised her. In her forties perhaps. But it wasn’t this that struck her first of all. It was the fact that the face – one she’dnever seen in her life – was almost as familiar to her as her own. There were similarities in their features – she could already see they shared the same eyes, the same lips. But it was something else. Something that went beyond the simple matching of facial characteristics. Something inside her, in her heart, a feeling that she’d known this woman her whole life. ‘Mum,’ she said, touching the woman’s face and feeling the tears come.

A sudden thudding made her jump and Lili entered the room, the door banging against the wall as she violently pushed it open. Instinctively, Adeline closed the window she was viewing and put her phone on the bedside table. She tried to smile.

‘Why you crying?’ Lili asked, more interested than sympathetic.

‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ she lied. ‘Just had a bad dream.’

‘About dragons?’

‘No. About… well, it’s complicated,’ she said, putting out her arm for Lili to nestle beneath.

It was still only six o’clock. In half an hour her entire life had been rocked on its axis. She had woken up without a mother, but now, suddenly, she had one.

She just wasn’t quite sure what to do about it.

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