“How are the kids doing?” She’d seen them a few days ago, so she was well aware, but always hopeful, she lived for the day I’d say they were doing well.
“Not much has changed. Heath is noncommunicative and sullen except when he’s playing hockey. Hailey is the opposite, acting out and demanding attention.”
“I’m so sorry they’re going through this. If I could take on their pain, I would.”
“I know. We all would. Only time will heal the wounds for all of us.” If I had a dollar for each time I’d said those very words in the past three months, I’d be a wealthy woman.
“Mark’s life may have ended, but ours continue on,” she said.
“Fran,” I said, saying the one thing that’d been on my mind for the past month. “I don’t want to hold you guys back. Don’t stay here on my account.”
“You’re family, the only family we have left. We’re here for you because we want to be. Your happiness and the twins’ are our number one priority.”
I so wanted to be worthy of their devotion, but I also had to stand on my own two feet and find my way in this world. “I appreciate your concern. You know I do. I can’t let the two of you continue to sacrifice for me. I’m a big girl. Mark’s life insurance will cover expenses for a while until I get things on track.”
“I wish Mark had left more or that there was something we could do.”
“You gave birth to and raised an outstanding man who cared for us, made sure we didn’t lack for anything, and kept us safe. You’ve done more than most parents.”
Fran’s stricken expression caught me off guard. I searched my statement for something that might be upsetting to her and came up with nothing but confusion.
“Fran? What’s wrong? What did I say?”
Fran stared at the hands clenched tightly in her lap. When she met my gaze, her expression was guilt-ridden. “I never gave birth to Mark.”
“What?” Her voice had been so low I’d barely heard what she said and had obviously misinterpreted her words.
“There’s something you should know, something we never told Mark, and I live with that mistake every day.”
I frowned, and my stomach clenched as my imaginative brain ran through the possibilities. “What is it?”
“Don’t look so stricken. It’s not bad, just something you should know. Mark should’ve known, too, be we never found a way to stop perpetuating the lie.”
“What lie?”
“We aren’t his birth parents.”
“You aren’t?” My mouth fell open, and I gaped at her in absolute surprise. “But he looks so much like you and Howard.”
“That made our secret so much easier to keep. We adopted him as a newborn. His real mother never saw his face, never got to hold him. We understand she was very young, and the father wasn’t in the picture.”
“I had no idea.”
“Nor did Mark.” Fran’s face was lined with guilt. “We denied Mark the right to know his family. I don’t want that to happen to the twins. They have a right to a relationship with people who share their genetics.”
“No matter what, you’ll always be their grandparents, genetics be damned.”
Fran’s eyes were unusually misty, and she dabbed at them with a napkin. “As a nurse, I’m fully aware genetics play an important part in a person’s health.”
I nodded, not sure what she was getting at exactly. Being a worrier, I immediately jumped to the worst conclusion. Had Mark had some kind of hereditary health issue I wasn’t aware of?
“Don’t panic, Caro.” Fran reached out and patted my hand, guessing accurately what I’d been thinking. “There’s one half of the twins’ relatives we know nothing about. I’d been meaning to have this conversation with Mark, but I’d put it off until too late. Now I can only fix it for his children. I think you need to have them DNA tested. I’ve looked into it, and via DNA testing on a popular genealogy site, you’ll be able to find out close matches for relatives, background, and possible genetic health concerns.”
“I don’t know,” I hedged, not sure why I was balking at this idea.
“Heath and Hailey most likely have another set of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins… They deserve to know them, especially considering we have such a small family unit. Why not expand that unit?”
“What if they’re not interested in knowing them?”
“Then that will be that. No harm done. Wouldn’t you rather know than not know? What if Mark has parents out there who wonder about him? Howard and I always thought there’d be time to tell Mark he was adopted. We waited for the right moment, and we waited too long. I don’t want to make such a mistake with his children. They deserve to know, and we need to know.”
Fran needed to know. I understood her guilt and her dilemma. Out there somewhere was a family we knew nothing about with their own life stories. I recalled filling out a form for my health insurance that asked several questions about the health of my relatives and known health issues in my family. My twins would be at a disadvantage as they’d only have one half of the picture. The more I thought about it, the more curious I was about these mystery people who shared a portion of my children’s DNA. Genetics played a larger role in our lives than many of us cared to admit.
“Okay, what could it hurt? How do we do this?”
“I took the liberty of sending for kits. They’re on the desk.” She smiled gratefully at me, and the guilt lines on her face softened. “Mark would want this.”
I nodded agreement. I didn’t know what Mark would want, but he wasn’t here to tell us.
Easton point of view
We were the young guys.
The guys with our entire NHL careers ahead of us.
We were cocky. We had the world by the tail, and nothing and no one could stop us. Our mutual love of partying and women had brought us together, along with our complete and total disinterest in long-term relationships. It was safe to say that every one of us had been burned before and learned our lessons. I knew I had. I might’ve been a one-woman man before, but now I played the field, didn’t stay with one woman more than a week, and didn’t get attached.
We were also wasted drunk and worried as hell about who would make the final cuts tomorrow, but none of us expressed our doubts. After all, we were invincible.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.
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