Bury Me(73)

After a few minutes of deep concentration, Mavra finally sighs in annoyance and shakes her head. “I have no clue what that is, and I’ve never heard of it before.”

I pat the top of her hand in sympathy. “Don’t feel too bad. I’m sure we could count on one hand how many people in the world know what that word means.”

Sitting in the same spot for so long made my bones and joints ache, so I shift my body into a more comfortable position, turning to face Mavra and leaning my shoulder against the back of the couch.

“Did you know I still have a box in the attic with a few of Tanner and Ravenna’s personal items?” I ask her.

“You might have mentioned it one time. I think I needed a photo of my grandmother for a school project when I was little and you took me up there to get it,” Mavra remembers.

“I don’t even know why I kept some of the things I did. I probably just grabbed random items to pack away and trashed the rest of them,” I muse. “I never realized at the time that the things I packed away would come in handy many years down the line when so many new and incredible advancements in science would be invented.”

Mavra hangs on my every word and I make sure to draw it out so I can receive as much satisfaction out of this that I can. I’m sixty-eight years old and I take my thrills where I can at this point, even at the expense of my daughter’s temper.

“Even though DNA testing has been around since sometime between the late 70’s to mid 80’s, it wasn’t something you could easily request unless you were with law enforcement,” I explain. “Somewhere around 2008 this nifty little test was invented where you could send hair samples to a lab for DNA results. Would you like to know the items I just so happened to still have packed away in a box in the attic in 2008?”

Mavra keeps her mouth tightly closed, even though I’m sure she already knows the answer, allowing me my moment.

“Ravenna’s pale pink hairbrush and Tanner’s dark brown one,” I finish with a smile.

Mavra’s mouth opens and closes like a fish gasping for air. “Okay, but what does that have to do with supercala…whatever that word was you said and why would you need another DNA test when you already got the blood test results that Tobias was yours and Ravenna’s father?”

Pulling my hands out of hers, I fold them together in my lap.

“Superfecundation is the fertilization of two eggs from two different sperm donors. There haven’t been too many documented cases and the ones that were made public always resulted in fraternal twins, not identical twins.”

I pause and wait for it to fall into place.

“Do you get it now? Does it all make sense?” I whisper, repeating the same questions I asked when I finished telling the girls my story.

“Oh my God,” Mavra mutters. “OH MY GOD!”

Her voice grows louder and I can’t help but laugh.

“I just…OH MY GOD!” she yells again.

Raising my eyebrow, I let her be the one to finish it. I’ve had enough fun for the day.

“Tobias was your father and Tanner was Ravenna’s,” Mavra says, shaking her head back and forth in awe. “You probably really were fraternal twins, but since Tanner and Tobias looked exactly alike, even with the two-year age difference, you were born identical, with the exception of your birthmark.”

I watch as Mavra drops her head to the back of the couch and stares up at the ceiling.

“I think my mind is officially blown,” she mutters.

I laugh, shifting my body away from her and rest my head on the back of the couch, just like my daughter.

“You know, you lied about one thing,” she says, still staring up at the ceiling.

Turning my head, I study her profile in confusion. She quickly does the same and now it’s her turn to smile.

“Your name is Tatiana Duskin, and you STILL live in a prison,” she says, her smile growing wider until she bursts out laughing.

Proving her point, the doorbell downstairs chooses that moment to chime.

Mavra pushes herself up from the couch with a sigh, holding her hand out to help me up.

“I can’t believe you’re still giving tours of this place,” she says as we walk out of the living room in the family quarters of Gallow’s Hill and down the stairs.

“Where else was I going to go after my family was gone?” I ask, taking my time down the stairs so I don’t fall. “Besides, I was able to recite the history of this place backward and forward by the time I was ten. It was a fun little exercise Dr. Thomas made me do in between shock therapy sessions.”