It's One of Us(22)

“It doesn’t matter.”

“If it hurt you, honey, it matters. People talk, people say things, because they don’t understand other people’s choices, especially on something as personal as building a family.”

“Didn’t you want a husband? Or a wife? I mean, a partner of some kind?”

Scarlett claps a hand over her mouth. This is as close as she has ever come to inquiring about her mother’s sexuality.

“I assume there’s been talk?” Darby asks evenly.

“Speculation is more like it. Because people are cruel and can’t mind their own damn business. But I never knew what to say. Not that it matters, Mom. People were just curious.”

Darby runs a long finger across the top of her water glass. It sings a tiny note of squeaky joy. “I wanted kids. I wanted you. You know my dad wasn’t the greatest, right? I’ve told you I had a rough upbringing. He drank, and he hit, and he threatened, and my mom wouldn’t walk away, and she was always so miserable. I couldn’t do that to myself. I never wanted to be beholden to someone else for my happiness. I decided early on that I was going to be a single mother, and I never strayed from that.”

“But aren’t you lonely? I mean, it would be so hard to be alone all these years.”

“How could I be lonely when I have you and your brother? You’re my world, and always have been.”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. I have a bigger problem.”

“All right,” Darby says, leaning back in the chair. “Shoot.”

“It’s about the group. The match to the murder. I think we need to go to the police. Normally I would have said it on the page because the Halves—that’s what we call ourselves—we’ve been making most of the decisions together. But if the killer is a part of the group—”

“Slow down. Back up for me a moment, all right? You want to run me through how in the world you got hooked up with them—the Halves—in the first place?”

“Through the DNA website. You know, the one you send off your DNA and they send you your history?”

“I’m aware of such sites.”

“I did a lot of research on the science of this before I jumped in, and I used the DSR—that’s the Donor Sibling Registry—for advice, too. Anyway, right away I had a match that was, like, too close to be a cousin. It had to be a sister. I reached out, and she told me she was a donor kid. Several more had popped up by then. I sent them each a message, asked if they wanted to talk. It got unwieldy in the program, so I suggested we create our own server on Discord, where we could talk as a group.”

“So you did this publicly?”

“No, of course not. It’s a private server. It’s totally unfindable unless we give the link.”

“And you were the ringleader? You set all of this up?”

“I mean...technically?”

Darby sighs and shakes her head. “I don’t know whether to kill you or be proud, Scarlett. What have I told you about talking to strangers online?”

“These aren’t strangers, though. Not really. They’re my blood. They’re my siblings. We all have the same dad. We all want to meet him.”

“Not going to happen.”

Scarlett gives her mother a small smile. “Well, technically, it’s not your choice.”

Darby’s face darkens. “This isn’t about what I want or don’t, little darling. This is a legal issue. He—the donor—signed away his rights and was very specific that he didn’t want to be contacted by any potential offspring. You must respect that, Scarlett. You can’t meet him. He doesn’t want to meet you.”

“Harsh, Mom. You don’t know that. He might have changed his mind. He—”

“Is an anonymous donor. You know what the word means, yes?”

Scarlett bites her lip. Her mother isn’t usually sarcastic with her. Darby rubs the spot between her eyebrows with a thumb. She looks so tired. There are new lines around her eyes, and a sprinkling of silver in her curls. Scarlett puts a hand on her mother’s arm. The skin is papery and dry; she needs lotion.

“Listen, Mom, this is a bad situation, and I don’t want to fight with you. But I think we need to go to the police and tell them about the Halves.”

Darby drops her hand. “And paint a target on your back? No. Absolutely not.”

Then: “Who even figured out that there is a DNA match between someone in the group and Beverly Cooke? Tell me that?”

Scarlett sits back in her chair. “I don’t know. It was in my messages this morning.”

“You don’t know who that person is?”

“We’re all there under fake names. Just to keep us safe in case someone from our real lives gets wind of things before we’re ready to say anything.”

“Scarlett. Darling. This goes from bad to worse. Anyone can be posing as a sibling. Do you not get that?”

“Just...quit being so judgy. They can’t, we actually do have some controls. And it seemed smart at the time. There were some people who were worried about their names getting out on social media. I can probably cross-reference a few of them who I’ve gotten friendly with, just based on location and stuff. So we can check them out and see if they’re legit.”