The Half Sister(18)
Rose starts at the sound of her name and looks around, as if seeing the scene for the first time.
‘Dad would never have had an affair, would he?’ Kate pushes. ‘It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.’
Rose’s hands are shaking so violently that Lauren puts her own hand on top of them.
‘Well, how else do you explain it?’ asks Lauren.
‘There’s nothing to explain,’ says Kate. ‘This is just a classic example of how badly managed these websites are. It’s just names in a hat that anyone can pick up and run with. I can’t believe you’ve allowed yourself to be taken in by it.’ She looks at Lauren scathingly.
Lauren swallows hard, wondering what part of this Kate is missing. ‘It’s not just names,’ she says bluntly. ‘It’s moved on from family trees. This is about science – this is about DNA.’
Kate looks at her blankly, her mouth slowly dropping open.
‘This isn’t a case of mistaken identity,’ Lauren goes on. ‘Or some fly-by-night who fancies their chances at infiltrating a random family. I uploaded my DNA profile.’
Kate stands up, looming over Lauren and Rose, gripping hold of the table that sits between them. ‘Meaning?’ she says in two slow syllables, her eyes flickering rapidly.
‘Meaning, Jess also uploaded her DNA profile, and we’re a match.’
Rose lets out an involuntary sob and puts a tissue to her mouth to absorb the sound. But little Emmy has already heard it and looks at her grandmother, perplexed, before standing herself up and waddling over to her, as if she knows that something’s wrong. The innocence of the moment makes Rose cry even more.
‘So, you knew she was coming,’ hisses Kate.
‘No, I didn’t know she was coming,’ says Lauren, the words catching in her throat. ‘I just knew that we’d been matched when she sent me an email.’
‘Saying what?’ demands Kate, her features twisted with anger.
‘It was just a couple of lines about who she was and that she’d been looking for her dad for a long time.’
‘And what did you say?’
‘I . . . I went back to her to say that I was shocked, but happy to hear from her and gave her our names. That’s all. The next thing I know she’s at the house.’
‘So, you didn’t give her our address?’
Lauren looks at her, shocked. ‘Of course not! I was intending to tell you both in the fullness of time. I just hadn’t found the right moment.’
‘So that’s it, is it?’ snaps Kate. ‘We’re all supposed to believe that she’s Dad’s secret daughter?’
Lauren has to stifle her surprise at Kate’s reticence to accept the scientific proof. Her sister is an intelligent woman, who never misses an opportunity to belittle her with her career achievements, so why is she finding this so hard to grasp?
Whilst Lauren worked twelve-hour shifts on nigh-on minimum wage, Kate had gleefully regaled her with her regular jet-setting jaunts to meet the stars. If she wasn’t in LA interviewing A-listers, she was on tour with pop stars. Lauren has lost count of how many times Kate had attended the red carpet at the Oscars, but she knows that she was loaned a couture dress on every occasion. Lauren doesn’t even own a dress, aside from her midwife’s uniform, as Simon only likes her to wear trousers these days.
‘But Kate’s life just looks more exciting,’ Rose had said, in an attempt to pull Lauren out of a downward spiral of low self-esteem when she was eight months pregnant with her third child. ‘What you do is far more worthwhile.’ But it didn’t feel like it, at two o’clock in the morning, when sick and hungry children had not yet let her sleep and she’d received a picture of Kate in a stunning red dress, holding a bottle of champagne in one hand and some kind of award in the other.
Woo-hoo! Guess who’s showbiz reporter of the year?!? she’d written on the group text.
Naturally, it was their father who had replied the fastest. That’s my girl!
Lauren looks at Kate now and battles the inferiority complex that always hits her whenever her sister’s in the room. ‘It is what it is,’ she says, and immediately regrets how laissez-faire she sounds.
‘It is what it is?’ repeats Kate irritably.
‘I didn’t mean to sound so glib,’ says Lauren. ‘But it’s up to each of us, as individuals, what we choose to do next.’
‘And you choose to do what?’ asks Kate.
Lauren clears her throat. ‘I’d like to get to know her, and I’d really like you to get to know her as well.’
Kate tsks and Rose looks from one daughter to the other. ‘You can’t honestly expect me to take on your father’s child with another woman.’
‘If that’s even who she is,’ says Kate.
‘For God’s sake,’ snaps Lauren. ‘Listen to the pair of you. We’re talking about a young woman who is trying to find her way in life. Trying to find where she belongs. Imagine looking for your father for years, only to find him ten months too late.’
‘Well, she doesn’t belong here,’ says Rose defiantly. ‘This is my family and I will not let some interloper come in and destroy it.’
‘I can’t imagine how hard this must be for you, Mum,’ says Lauren, going to Rose and crouching next to her. ‘But this doesn’t have to mean that everything will change. We’ve still got each other and you’re right, no one should ever be able to take that away. But getting to know Jess and letting her into the fold might do us some good.’