The doctor explained that the genetic evidence showed a very close maternal relationship, and the additional confirmation established that we were full biological sisters.
I started shaking.
Twenty-five years.
Twenty-five years of friendship.
Twenty-five years of birthday celebrations, holidays, sleepovers, arguments, laughter, and tears.
We had called each other sisters for as long as I could remember.
And now we were discovering that we really were.
Emily began sobbing.
“Who was she?” she whispered. “Who was my mother?”
I looked at the doctor.
“Her name was Mary,” I said quietly. “My mother was Mary.”
Emily looked at me.
Then she began crying even harder.
We left the clinic holding each other.
But neither of us could stop thinking about the same question.
Why had our families allowed us to grow up without knowing the truth?
I drove directly to my father’s house.
He was 74 years old and had been living alone since my mother’s death.
