Chapter 28

It was impossible. But it was true.

The test didn’t lie—science didn’t lie. At the end of her results, in a section with the heading “Relatives,” it read:

Alder Madigan

Possible Range: 1st Cousin

Confidence: Extremely High

Shared DNA: 897 cM across 33 segments

Oak had no idea what “897 cM across 33 segments” meant, but she knew what “Extremely High” confidence meant.

And she knew what “1st Cousin” meant.

Facts were facts, and science was science.

She watched as Alder scanned her test results, his face wrinkling up in the way it did when he was confused.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” he said.

“Let’s open yours,” Oak suggested, “to make sure.”

Alder nodded. He handed Oak back her test results, and then he tried to open his envelope, but his fingers were shaking.

“Let me do it,” Oak said, and Alder handed the envelope over to her. They were still standing in the entry hall, and, Oak decided, Alder looked like he needed to sit down. So she led the way to his couch, and Alder followed.

When they were sitting, Oak tore open Alder’s envelope with a sharp rip. Out came his test results, folded neatly in thirds. She hesitated, then handed the paper to Alder. They were his, after all; he should see them first. He turned to the end, to the page that listed his relationships with other users of the service. Oak was sitting close enough that she could read the sheet too, and even though a moment ago she’d magnanimously thought that Alder should get to see his results before she did, it was impossible not to peek.

They gasped together:

Oak Carson

Possible Range: 1st Cousin

Confidence: Extremely High

Shared DNA: 897 cM across 33 segments

“That’s you,” Alder whispered.

Oak nodded. It was.

“How is this possible?” Alder asked. “What does it mean?”

“It means,” said Oak, “that somehow, one of your parents is the brother or sister of either my mom or my dad. It means we’re family.”

Alder lowered his results to his lap. He looked up at Oak, and the expression on his face made tears spring to her eyes, though she wasn’t sure what it meant.

“Family,” he said. “I’ve . . . never had much family before.”

Oak laughed, and it was strange how her throat felt so thick. “Me either,” she said.

“Cousins,” Alder said, like he was trying out the word.

“Cousins,” Oak answered.

Alder grinned. “And imagine,” he said, “how much we hated each other at first!”

Oak laughed. “Families fight sometimes, I guess.”

Alder laughed too, and he tilted back his head just the way Oak knew she did when she laughed . . . just the way her mother did as well.

How had she never noticed it before? Was it because she hadn’t known to look? Alder’s hair—it was dark and curly, the way Oak’s mother’s had been, before she’d started to wear it shorn so close to her head. And hadn’t Oak’s mom told her that she used to live here, in LA, that she’d grown up here even?

“Alder,” said Oak, “I think my mom is your aunt.”

“Really?” said Alder, blinking. “Are you sure?”

Oak nodded. “Pretty sure,” she said. “But there’s only one way to be certain.”

Alder immediately knew what she was suggesting. “We can’t ask her,” he said, horrified. “If she wanted us to know, she would have told us.”

“My mom isn’t big on telling me things,” Oak said. “She didn’t even tell me that we were moving down here until the day she started bringing home boxes to pack.”

“Do you think . . . ,” Alder began, “that your mom is related to my mom, or to my dad?”

Oak shrugged. “I’ve only met your mom that one time. What do you think? Do I look more like your mom or dad?” She squared her shoulders and tried to make her face as blank as possible so that Alder could imagine his parents onto it.

He looked at her for a long time. It was sort of uncomfortable, honestly, to be looked at like that. She saw his eyes look into hers, and then up across her forehead, and over her hair, and at her nose and mouth and chin, and the whole thing was disconcerting.

Finally, “Can you sing?” Alder asked.

“Nope,” Oak answered.

At this, Alder sighed a little, as if he was disappointed. And Oak maybe understood why; if she were Canary’s niece, then Alder would have another connection to his dad in the world.

“It’s got to be my mom,” Alder said at last. “Maybe you guys have the same nose? I don’t think you look like my dad.”

Oak nodded. That’s what she’d thought, too, though she didn’t want to be the first one to say it. “Either way,” she said, “it means we’re cousins.”

Alder nodded. “Cousins,” he echoed. “Wow.”

They sat on the couch together. Together, they thought about family. It was a while before either of them spoke.

“I wonder what happened that made our moms not talk to each other anymore,” Alder said at last.

“Well,” said Oak, “my mom can have a pretty bad temper. Sometimes she says things she doesn’t mean.”

“My mom tends to be kind of a hermit,” Alder admitted. “She mostly likes to hang out with me and be at home, unless she’s volunteering or working at the co-op. She’s not good about having friends and stuff like that. I don’t even remember the last time she went out to dinner with someone other than me.”

“My mom is kind of a workaholic,” Oak said. “When she’s not at her work office, she’s in the bedroom that she made into a home office. She’s not really great with friends either. She says there are things she misses about San Francisco, but I don’t even know if that’s true.”

“Wow,” said Alder. “Wow.”

“We have to ask them,” Oak said. “We have to know.”

Alder chewed on his lip. But then he said, “Okay. We’ll ask them tonight.”

The best time to ask a hard question, they decided, was over a good meal. And so they set to work.

Oak went home to get four potatoes and butter and cheese (and Walnut, and her other shoe); then she set the potatoes to baking while Alder heated up water to make boxes of macaroni and cheese. While the water was boiling and the potatoes were in the oven, they worked together to make a salad. The kittens sat side by side on Alder’s kitchen table and watched, their eyes flicking back and forth as Alder and Oak moved about the kitchen.

“Did you leave a note for your mom?” Alder asked.

“Uh-huh,” said Oak. “Right on the fridge, where she couldn’t miss it.” She grinned. “I wrote that the neighbors invited us over for dinner.”

“Well, if you count me and Fern as ‘the neighbors’ and leave my mom out if it,” Alder said, laughing, “then it’s true!”

The kitchen was warm with cooking and music—Alder had set one of Canary’s records to spinning—by the time Alder’s mom pushed through the door just after six o’clock. “Alder,” she called, “are you cooking?”

Oak heard the clickety-clack of Alder’s mom’s clogs as she crossed the living room and entered the kitchen. She wore a big bright smile; a lavender scarf looped around her neck, clashing prettily with her light-red hair, which fell in waves across her shoulders.

My aunt, Oak found herself thinking, and her face split into a big dumb grin.

“Oh,” Alder’s mother said, faltering, when she saw Oak standing in her kitchen. “Alder, I didn’t know you had a friend over.”

“Hi, Mom,” Alder said. “Remember our neighbor, Oak? She and her mom are coming over for dinner.”

Oak noticed that Alder had made it a statement rather than a question.

“O-oh,” said Alder’s mom. “Hello.”

“Hi,” said Oak. She stuck out her hand to shake and then noticed that some of the cheese she’d been grating for the potatoes was stuck to her fingertips. She wiped her hand on her jeans and then stuck it out again.

Alder’s mom shook it, and her face softened into a smile. “I should have invited you over sooner. I’m glad my son is more . . . neighborly than I’ve been.”

“Oh, that’s okay,” said Oak.

“No, it’s not,” Greta said. “I really should have introduced myself to you and your parents—your mother?—sooner.”

“My dad is moving down pretty soon,” Oak explained. “He had to stay back in San Francisco for work, so Mom and I moved first, because of her job and so I could start school with everyone else.”

“Oh, I see,” Greta said, and then, “Alder, can I help with anything?”

There was a knock at the door. “I’ll get it,” Oak said. “It’ll be my mom.”

And it was—still wearing her suit and heels from the office. She hadn’t even stopped to take off her earrings. “Oak,” she said. “What’s going on? You left me a note?”

Oak opened the door more widely, as if this was her home. There was, she noticed, a patch of lavender paint on Mom’s wrist, left over from yesterday’s project. It was exactly the shade of Alder’s mom’s scarf. Maybe it was a sign. Maybe it meant something. “Mom,” she said. “Hi.”

Behind her was the sound of Greta’s clogs, and then there was Greta. “Hello,” she said to Oak’s mom. “Won’t you please come in?”

Oak’s mom hesitated, and for a brief moment Oak was filled with sick dread at the thought that she might rudely refuse. But then her mom put on her work voice—the tone she used when someone from the architecture firm called—and she said, “Thank you so much for the invitation. I’m Olivia. It’s lovely to meet you.” She crossed the threshold and held out her hand to shake.

Oak felt as if the room was spinning. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to go—they were supposed to recognize each other. She looked toward the kitchen to find Alder in the doorway, looking as confused as Oak felt.

“I’m Greta,” said Alder’s mom, and she gestured to the kitchen. “It seems our kids made us a meal. Shall we?”

And Oak and her mother followed Greta through to the next room, where Oak’s mom introduced herself to Alder, and the four of them filled their plates. As they did, the moms asked each other polite questions about what they did for work.

“I . . . I don’t think they’ve ever met,” Alder whispered to Oak as he speared a cheese-covered baked potato half.

“Clearly,” Oak whispered back, piercing the other half and plopping it on her plate.

The four of them went into the dining room, where Canary’s croon filled the space, and the cats meowed and purred and wound in and out of the table legs.

They all sat down, and Oak’s mom and Greta laughed about what a coincidence it was that they’d adopted sibling kittens. This, Oak decided, was as good a segue as they were going to find.

“Mom,” she blurted, “do you have any siblings?”

“Don’t be silly, Oak, you know I’m an only child.”

“Me too,” said Greta. “I’d always hoped for a brother, but no luck.”

“To only children,” Oak’s mom said, raising her water glass.

“To only children,” Greta echoed, raising hers, and Alder and Oak had no real choice but to follow suit.

“To only children,” they muttered, and the four glasses tinkled as they all brought them to the center of the table and clinked them in a toast.