“What’s the difference?”
“In a legal test option, the sample collection is witnessed, which, I assume, is the one you’d want. It’s the one that would stand up in court.”
Caroline looked to Lili. They nodded in unison.
“Okay, so, you go to the clinic and they take a buccal swab specimen—don’t know if I’m pronouncing that right—which is a fancy way of saying a mouth swab, from each of you. Painless, relatively non-invasive, takes just a few seconds, you’ve seen it a million times on TV. ‘This sample contains cells, and most cells in our body contain a full set of genetic information in the form of DNA.’ That’s short for de…oxy…ribo…nucleic acid,” she said, struggling with the long word. “For sure I didn’t pronounce that one right. Anyway”—she continued reading from her notes—“?‘DNA is essentially a genetic blueprint, much like a fingerprint, and is unique to each individual.’ You know that already, right?”
Again Caroline and Lili nodded together. “Is there more?” Caroline asked.
“Oh, yeah. Lots more. ‘At the lab, the DNA is extracted from the cell and specific regions of the DNA are amplified by a process known as PCR, also known as polymerase chain reaction’—how’s that for a mouthful?—‘which are then examined carefully. The DNA pattern of the child is then compared to the alleged mother,’?” she continued, putting her own emphasis on the word “alleged.” “?‘Because a child’s genes are inherited from her biological parents, examination of the child’s DNA will conclusively determine whether the alleged mother is the true biological mother of said child.’?” She took an emphatic bite out of the apple in her hand. “So—how do you like them apples?”
“Very interesting.”
“Just thought you might appreciate knowing what you’re in for.”
“Thank you.”
“Yeah, sure. Anytime.” She leaned forward, resting her chin on the high back of the kitchen chair she was straddling. “So, potential sister-of-mine, has being in the old house tweaked any new memories?”
“Michelle…”
“What? That’s a perfectly natural question. I’m just curious about whether or not being here, in this house, has jogged her memory.”
“I wish it had,” Lili said. “I was actually hoping it might.”
“Yeah? No such luck. I mean, you were only a baby, right? I don’t have any memories of being two either. You want to know what my first memory is?” The question was obviously rhetorical and she continued without waiting for a reply. “It’s being in Disneyland. I was three and we were in the Magic Kingdom and I wanted to go on one of the rides—think it might have been Pirates of the Caribbean—but Mother here said the line was way too long and she couldn’t stand for hours waiting.”
“For God’s sake, Michelle, I was pregnant.”
“Oh, right. Forgot about that. Anyway, I threw this major tantrum. I screamed so much that we had to leave. And that’s my first memory.”
As well as her first grudge, Caroline thought. A grudge she’d been nursing ever since. God, did her list of grievances never end?
“You want to know what else I remember?”
Another rhetorical question. Another long-standing grudge about to be revealed. Another example of Caroline’s failure as a mother.
“I remember the day she brought you—well, maybe you, maybe not—home from the hospital, and you were so small and beautiful and I wanted to hold you, but she wouldn’t let me.”
“I wouldn’t let you hold her because you said you were going to throw her in the garbage,” Caroline interrupted, angry now.
“Really? I said that?” Surprisingly, Michelle’s face broke into a wide grin.
“In no uncertain terms. Let me have her. I’m going to throw her in the garbage.”
And then suddenly Caroline was laughing at the memory of Michelle’s angry, scrunched-up little face, and Michelle was laughing with her, and soon even Lili was laughing. And the three women sat at the kitchen table, laughing until they cried.
“How come you never moved?” Lili was asking.
She and Caroline were sitting on opposite sides of the sofa bed, the bed having been pulled out and outfitted with clean white sheets and a lightweight rose-colored blanket. Lili was clutching one of two down-filled pillows to her chest, her eyes continually moving up one off-white wall and down another, skittering across the surfaces of several abstract lithographs, like a spider.
Caroline shrugged. It was a question she’d asked herself many times over the years. “I don’t know. I thought about it a lot, even came close to selling a few years ago. But something always stopped me. Guess I just got used to being here.”
What if Samantha came back? What if she were to come looking for me and I was no longer here?
“I think Michelle hates me,” Lili said.
“No. It’s me she hates.”
“She doesn’t hate you. She loves you.”