Page 18 of It's One of Us
None of the answers were satisfying to Scarlett, who yearned for the whole story.
Plus, there was one glitch in her otherwise detailed and well-executed plan. Peyton and Scarlett were supposed to have the same father, but technically, she and Peyton are only half siblings.
Scarlett asked, but why not use the same guy for both? Isn’t that the normal thing to do?
The answer was another one of cool logic—“I wanted to, but his sample had been retired. They only allow the samples to be used a very limited number of times so a client doesn’t end up with five hundred kids.”
“You hear of that happening all the time, though,” was Scarlett’s argument, and her mom would simply smile and say, “I worked with the best clinic in town, one that was extremely ethical and would never do something like that.”
Whatever DNA Peyton’s father and Scarlett’s had provided, clearly her mother’s was the stronger of the two, because both of them look just like her.
Which is another strange thing. Her friends with fathers all have elements of both their parents. No one is a dead ringer, but both Darby and Peyton have their mom’s heart-shaped face, cleft chin, lime-green eyes and thick, dark curls, though Scarlett’s are auburn.
What her mom doesn’t know is the management of her extremely ethical best clinic in town isn’t quite as aboveboard as she thinks. Scarlett hasn’t broken the news to her just yet, because there’s going to be huge fight when she finds out Scarlett went behind her back, got her DNA checked, and discovered the truth: there are a whole bunch of kids out in the world with the same dad DNA. She has been conversing online with her half siblings for the past few months. Unethical or illegal, whatever it is labeled, Scarlett knows there are a lot more siblings than there should be. Now she has a lifetime membership to the Donor Sibling Registry, and any matches that pop she invites to a Discord server so they can talk freely in a safe, private environment. More matches seem to pop up weekly.
The first step every one of them took was to try and secure the DNA of their own siblings, if they had any. Scarlett has broken the rules and hasn’t reached out to Peyton. She really needs to tell him what’s going on and do it in person. But Peyton will tell their mother, and Scarlett can’t let Darby know what’s happening just yet. Her mom’s going to hit the roof.
Scarlett had always been driven by sussing out information about her donor. Peyton had always shrugged it off. He didn’t want to know. Didn’t want a dad. He was perfectly fine without one, always had been. Handsome, gregarious Peyton, with that curly hair just the same shade as their mom’s, the matching dimple in his chin a little more pronounced, his laughing baritone and string of girlfriends. He is a junior at MTSU and loving every minute of school so far. She needs to drive to Murfreesboro to talk to him about this—FaceTime won’t do. The rest of the bio-kids are pushing her to get him tested. She doesn’t know how much longer she can put them off. But really, what does it matter? She’s been in her mom’s filing cabinet. She’s seen the donor profiles and all the paperwork. She and Peyton have different biological fathers. There is no need to involve him in this part of things. The science part.
She has half an hour before she needs to leave for school. Mom isn’t due home until 9:00 a.m. at the earliest, so she can log into Discord and check in with the group, see if any more people have popped up as matches.
Morning, she types in the small box to the right of her photo—a cartoon owl, a wise owl. She isn’t dumb enough to put her face on this profile. She knows there are creepers out there who love to chat up pretty teenagers. Even if she controls who enters this server, that doesn’t mean one of the halves couldn’t get hacked.
How’s everyone today?
Did you hear?comes an immediate comment from the other group moderator.
Hear what?
There’s been another DNA match to our dad.
Scarlett feels the adrenaline rush she always gets when a new kid pops up.
Who is it? Did anyone reach out?
Uh, yeah. The police. It’s at the crime scene of a dead chick. It’s all over the news.
What dead chick?
Cooke.
Beverly Cooke? Holy cow. She’s from here in Nashville, she’s been missing for a while.
What’s happening hits her. A DNA match.
Are you saying our dad killed someone?
No, comes the answer.
It’s one of us.
9
THE MOTHER
Darby Flynn, all five-feet-three of her, five-five with her curls loose, stands on the ladder in the nurses’ station, stringing the farewell sign for little Patti Finley, who is officially in remission and going home after months in the oncology unit. In that time, they’ve lost five kids to the insidiousness of cancer, but Patti is their success story, a darling six-year-old cherub who’s borne all her treatments with a smile and a kind word for the people around her, even when the medicine made her violently sick.
Patti has been a personal favorite of Darby’s simply because she reminds her of her own daughter at that age. Scarlett was—is—feisty as hell, full of deep questions, quick to smile and laugh. There is no physical resemblance, but their spirits are the same.
