What Doesn't Kill Us--A McKenzie Novel by David Housewright (most read books txt) 📗

his head at his wife and returned his gaze back to Bobby.

“T had her DNA tested by one of those ancestry websites,” he said. “For the longest time she said I should do the same thing, track down all of our long-lost relatives, and I’m like, I have way too many relatives as it is. Finally, I gave in. The ancestry company, whatever, had a half-price sale around Easter; don’t ask me what any of this has to do with Easter. So I bought a kit.”

“You never told me this,” Barbara said.

“I bought a kit. What they do, they send you a vial and you’re supposed to spit up to this line—you’re not supposed to eat or drink anything, not even water, for a half hour before you spit. You spit in this vial and you pack it up in the return box they send you and then you wait, maybe six weeks or more. I think it was shorter in my case. Still, I kind of forgot about it. Then they sent me an email telling me that my report was ready. They sent it to me the Monday after Mother’s Day, do you believe that? I linked on to the website and followed the prompts. It turns out I’m forty percent French. I was always convinced I was like half Scottish; the name Deese having Scottish origins and the things my father told me. Remember I used to joke with McKenzie about being his long-lost cousin? We’re not cousins, by the way.”

“Uh-huh.” Bobby was becoming increasingly impatient, but he was a good investigator. Once he had a suspect talking, he knew it was often best to just let him keep talking until he said something important.

Suspect. Dave Deese was a suspect. Bobby nearly shook the thought from his head, only he didn’t want any abrupt movements to distract his friend, our friend, from his soliloquy.

“Turns out I’m not Scottish at all,” Deese said. “Not even one percent. Also my Neanderthal markers say that I’m more likely to have straight hair, which I do, and that I am not likely to have red hair, which I don’t. All this is important.”

“Okay,” Bobby said.

“What’s important…”

Barbara sat straighter on the sofa and leaned closer to Deese.

“What’s important—the website asks if you want to link to your relatives. There’s a family and friends link. If you say yes, you need to create a profile because they have a policy, the ancestry people. You can’t see your relatives without letting them see you. The profile can be anything you want, though. You don’t need to give your full name and address or anything like that. You can link on with just your initials, for example. And the amount of ID, age and sex, address—you can control all that, too. What I did, I signed on with my initials. Actually, not my initials. I called myself Dee Dee, what you guys sometimes call me at hockey.”

“They call you Dee Dee?” Barbara asked. “But not because of your initials?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Double D, like some women’s breast size?” Barbara fixed her gaze on Bobby. “Men are such jerks.”

“DD stands for Dunkin’ Donuts,” he said.

Barbara didn’t believe him.

“Jerks,” she repeated.

“Anyway,” Deese said. “I clicked on the DNA relative’s link. It turns out I have eleven hundred and sixty-four relatives.”

“Eleven hundred and sixty-four?” Bobby said.

“Yeah, but eleven hundred and fifty-seven matched less than three percent of my DNA so they’re like long, long, long-lost relatives and who cares? But there were seven who were linked much more closely. A first cousin on my mother’s side—he and I had an eleven-point-nine percent match. I had two second cousins, also on my mother’s side; we had about a six percent match. Except then…”

Deese brought his hands to his face and rubbed. At the same time, he began to blink rapidly. Bobby was fluent in body language and knew that Deese was anxious. Bobby leaned forward, indicating that he cared.

“T was on the list,” Deese said. “She used her full name T-H-E-R-E-S-A. We were only about a twenty-five percent match.”

“What does that mean?” Barbara asked.

“Siblings share around half of their DNA,” Deese said. “Half siblings share a quarter.”

“What does that mean?” Barbara repeated.

“Do the math!” Deese immediately reached out a hand and rested it on Barbara’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bark like that. It’s just—my sister whose hair is curly, my sister whose hair is red, is my half sister. That’s what the DNA results prove.”

“She’s not your father’s daughter?”

“More likely I’m not my father’s son.”

“Why do you say that?” Bobby asked.

“T is thirty-eight-point-five percent Scottish.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Bobby said.

Barbara did, though.

“Your mother had an affair with someone,” she said.

“You believe that shit?” Deese said. “My mother?”

“Do you think your father knew?”

“If he did, he sure as hell kept it secret for how many years? Forty-two?”

“Does T know?”

“My little sister who’s always acted as if she was my older sister? I have no idea what T knows.”

Barbara seemed surprised.

“You haven’t talked to her about this?” she asked.

“No. God no. If I didn’t tell you, do you think I’d tell her?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want you to act differently around her, make her think something was wrong. No, that’s not true. I didn’t want to have this conversation with you. I didn’t want you to know that I wasn’t…”

“What?”

“I don’t know. A Deese, I guess.”

“Who gives a shit?”

Both Bobby’s and Deese’s heads came up as if they were startled by a loud noise. Barbara was like Nina—they almost never cursed and when they did, you best pay close attention.

“Do you honestly think I care what your name is?” Barbara asked. “Do you honestly think I care who your father was or your mother or your sister or your great, great, great, great-grandfather from France? After all these years?”

“Barb—”

“Dammit, David, sometimes you make me so mad.”

Husband and wife stared at each other and Bobby thought he should get out of there. He thought that