new york city
july 2005
Outside the clinic, Rachel lingered next to a Mister Softee ice cream truck near the subway entrance on Sixty-Eighth and Lex and played with her Magic 8 Ball key chain.
Is Mat going to show up?
definitely.
Will the results show that he’s my brother?
my sources say no.
She ran her tongue along the inside of her mouth.
Five days prior, she’d come here alone to take her portion of the DNA test. Dr. Ramel, who was shorter than Rachel with dark skin and a pristine lab coat, had snapped on a pair of latex gloves, produced a small plastic box and a handful of paper-wrapped cotton swabs. He peeled one open and handed it to her.
“Open your mouth and rub this against the inside of your cheek until I tell you to stop.”
Rachel dropped her jaw to accommodate the stick.
“Other side.”
When she finished, Dr. Ramel stuck the wet cotton head into a little tube inside of the plastic box. He snapped it shut, wrote a number on the lid with a black Sharpie, and jotted something on his clipboard.
“You don’t need to draw blood?”
He shook his head. “This is just as efficient.”
They repeated the process with a second swab, then a third. By the fourth swab, her mouth was dry. Dr. Ramel finally peeled off his gloves and collected the supplies. “We’re going to do several tests.” His tone was flat, and his eyes flitted away from the potential obligation of her emotional response to any of his words. “Just keep in mind that sibling tests aren’t always fully conclusive. You’ll only have a statistical likelihood of whether you and Sibling B—Matías Ledesma—are biological relatives.”
“It’s not accurate?”
He nudged his glasses impatiently up the bridge of his nose, the corners of his mouth pointed downward. “It’s very accurate. It just might not be conclusive. The result will show us a DNA profile for each of you, and we’ll compare those. It’s not as certain as testing samples from your parents, but since they’re not available, it will give us an indication. You’re planning to come back with Matías for the readout?”
Rachel nodded.
“In terms of other biological relatives to substantiate the test—” He checked his clipboard. “It looks like Matías indicated having a maternal grandmother. I highly recommend that you retest against her DNA to confirm these findings.”
“But she’s not here.”
“Do you have any other biological relatives available to substantiate the tests?”
Rachel raised an eyebrow. “No.”
“Well, that would certainly give you more conclusive results.” Dr. Ramel glanced at Rachel. “If it’s feasible.”
Obviously it wasn’t feasible, she thought. Why would she be here if she knew her biological relatives? The fact that any of this was happening was scarcely believable—that Mari had managed to arrange for Mat to come to New York, and that Rachel was about to meet, for the first time, the man who could be her brother.
She looked around the street, eager, overly prepared. Her dad had insisted on running background checks on Mat Ledesma and Marisol Rey. Mat’s name didn’t produce a single record, and Mari’s showed one infraction—a speeding ticket for going sixty-three in a forty-five on highway A1A—which only made Rachel like her more. She toyed with her 8 Ball key chain again.
“Hello.”
Electricity coursed through her veins. A few feet away, Mat Ledesma stood about a foot taller than Rachel, examining her as though she were someone of great importance. He wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the word Pericos and an aqua baseball cap with a swooping swordfish on it. He glanced down, hands stuffed in his pockets, then lifted his head, the black brim of his hat revealing the dark, familiar expression that had haunted her from the photo. Their eyes locked, but he didn’t smile or look away.
“Hi,” she said.
He raised one hand. As they moved toward each other, Rachel studied his gait, his mannerisms. There was a spectral quality about him.
At close distance now, he pinched the brim of his cap and lifted it just enough to ruffle his dark hair with the other hand. A shadowy hue stained the complexion below his eyes. If he’d moved to embrace her, she would have allowed it, but he just placed his hat back on his head and glanced at his sneakers, then back up at her.
As he lowered his arm, the curve of his wrist made Rachel’s stomach drop. She felt a wave of déjà vu. Piano player’s fingers. She lifted her own hand inadvertently, then dropped it again. A passing roller blader narrowly dodged them both.
“I can’t believe it.” His accent was strong, his voice higher in pitch than she’d anticipated, and they realized at the same moment that they didn’t have a common native language.
Rachel slipped into Spanish. “I know. Where’s Mari?”
Mat scrunched his face up like he was trying to remember his lines. “She had to go back.”
“To Florida?”
He shook his head. “No, to Argentina. Something came up.”
Rachel felt a sting of irrational hurt. She’d somehow assumed that Mari would stay in New York until the test results came in.
“When?” she asked.
“Two days ago.”
She studied him openly now—his lean build, silky hair—and smiled with curiosity and newfound pride. Mat reached into the pocket of his shorts and pulled out his cell phone, an older model with scratches obscuring the outside. He flipped it open and held the screen out in front of Rachel. He thumbed a key and, in the square window, a low-resolution image of him with an older woman appeared.
“This is my grandmother,” he said, clearing his throat. “Esme. She’s seventy-four.” The sunlight made it difficult to see the picture, but Rachel was distracted by Mat’s fingers, the knobs of his knuckles, the veins along the back of his hands, the tenderness with which he touched the screen. “She still does this walk every Thursday, searching for you.”
Rachel’s chest tightened. Mat snapped his phone shut and gently stuffed it back in his pocket, exhaling with a puff of his cheeks.
“What’s she like?” Rachel asked.
He layered both hands on his chest. “She has a very strong heart.”
Rachel smiled, then checked her watch. They had fifteen minutes before their appointment.
Mat pointed to the upper stories of the clinic building. “Should we go up?”
Rachel shrugged, then glanced at the man in the Mister Softee truck. “We could have an ice cream first.”
The man looked to Mat for an answer. Mat reached into his back pocket for his wallet, ordered two cones, and handed one to Rachel.
“Thank you.”
Mat licked around the base of his ice cream, a clump of rainbow sprinkles melting on his knuckles. Here, right in front of Rachel, was the most beautiful open doorway to a biological family—but to pass through, she first had to acknowledge that her own parents were hiding, lying, involved. She couldn’t fit both truths in her mind at once. There was happiness here, in this moment, but there was also a wound. Extracting the truth from it would be excruciating; the prospect of healing seemed inconceivable. The best she could do was cauterize it and focus on the joy.
She watched Mat bite into the rim of his cake cone. If she was standing next to her brother, if she kept a forward momentum toward other new discoveries—like her grandmother—perhaps she could outpace the dread. If she just kept moving forward, perhaps she could lift off somehow and would no longer need the footing she was losing on the only solid ground she’d ever known.
They took a few steps toward Third Avenue when his cell phone rang. He glanced at it.
“It’s Mari.”
They stopped to linger near a brownstone. Rachel eavesdropped on his side of the conversation. There was concern in his voice; he was repeatedly asking Mari if she was safe.
Mat put the call on speaker.
“Rachel?” Mari’s small voice cut through the afternoon sounds of the city, speaking English. “I’m sorry I can’t be there for this.”
“It’s all right,” said Rachel, her eyes finding Mat’s. “Are you okay?”
“Oh—yes, it’s fine,” she said. “Everything will be fine. Let me know how it goes, all right?”
“Sure.”
“Take care of yourself,” said Mat. “Send everyone my love. I’ll call you when I get back to the hotel.” Gently, he ended the phone call.
Mat tossed the stump of his ice cream cone in the trash, and they headed upstairs to the clinic.
* * *
From the ceiling of the waiting area, jewel-colored balls hung on wire cords—like cells, Rachel thought, or whatever essential particles connected every person in the world to their ancestors. Biology had never interested her. She’d avoided family trees and medical history forms her entire life.
“Rachel Sprague,” Dr. Ramel emerged. “Mat Ledesma. This way, please.”
A beam of sunlight caught the green acrylic of one of the decorative balls and fell across the tiled floor they stepped on. They followed the doctor down the hallway into an exam room, where a nurse joined them. Dr. Ramel sat on a rolling stool and crossed his slender legs. He took his clipboard from the counter and lifted a page.
“Okay. Looks like we have some results.”
Mat lifted a hand to the back of his neck, then crossed his arms. Rachel raised her eyes to her reflection in the metal paper towel holder on the wall, where a warped image of her own face looked back. A warm, carbonated sensation flowed through her body—this body she’d lived in for twenty-eight years, her only true inheritance—and she was filled with a sudden, private excitement she could hardly contain.
“We tested all the genetic markers we could, but the primary test was, of course, for full siblingship,” said Dr. Ramel.
Rachel eyed the exam table, the crisp paper liner, and brought a hand to her mouth to conceal the grin that was forming.
Dr. Ramel tapped his clipboard with his pen. “Unfortunately, the index isn’t high enough to confirm that relationship. You’ll have to do more testing.”
“What?” asked Mat.
A dry lump caught in Rachel’s throat.
Dr. Ramel raised his eyebrows and pulled his lips into a tight, I-don’t-know-what-to-tell-you expression. When he crossed his arms, the gesture created a chasm between them.
“Statistically, these results don’t substantiate siblingship,” he said.
Mat’s mouth was agape.
“I don’t understand,” Rachel murmured.
Dr. Ramel looked at the nurse, then lifted a splayed palm as if to say, I’m just the messenger.