This story was originally written as a mid-term project for a creative writing course at CCAC. The assignment was to simply write my own short story from scratch, in which the main character learns something about themself.

Lineage

I arrived at the genealogy lab half an hour early. It was the first day of my internship and I was terrified of being late. A girl my age—probably another intern—was sitting behind a large white desk with the word LINEAGE in bold, green letters.

“Hi, welcome to Lineage Labs. Do you have an appointment?” she asked, smiling.

“Uh, sort of,” I said. “My name’s Amber Martin, I’m here for—”

“Oh!” the girl yelped. “Amber! You’re the new girl, that’s right. John told me you’d be coming. I’m Sarah. Let me show you around.”

Sarah got up and opened a door with her lanyard. I followed her as she gave me a tour of the building.

“So, are you a biology major?” asked Sarah as we walked down a sterile hallway.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m studying forensic biology.”

“Oh, cool! I’m studying molecular biology. I’m trying to get into med school.”

I nodded along as she talked and showed me different rooms and made small talk. Eventually, we landed in a small room filled with laptops, printers, microscopes, and all kinds of other equipment.

“So, this room is where you’ll be spending most of your time,” said Sarah. “It’s not usually empty, though. We just don’t have anyone here on Mondays.”

She sat down at one of the tables and gestured for me to sit next to her. When I did, she opened up a laptop and began explaining the database and what kind of work I’d be doing.

“Have you done a DNA test with Lineage before?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “I’ve seen ads for it though.”

“Well, everyone who works here gets a free DNA test, if you want one. Anyway, basically, our customers mail in their samples, we test them, send back the results, and then they can connect with people who match their DNA.” She typed something into the laptop and her picture appeared on her screen. “This is my profile. Here, I’ll show you how it works.”

As she clicked through, she showed me a map of her DNA origins, lists of genetic traits, and a catalog of family members who have also used the service. I watched her click through profiles of aunts, uncles, and distant cousins, each one showing how they’re related.

Eventually, I heard someone else enter the room. I turned around and saw John, the supervisor who hired me.

“Hey, how’s it going in here?” he asked cheerily.

“Great!” said Sarah. “I’m just showing Amber what the profiles look like when they’re finished.”

“Okay, cool,” he said. “When you’re finished with that, can you show her how to do data entry?”

“Yep!”

“Great. I’ll be in my office if you need anything.”

Near the end of my first day, I felt like my eyes were going to shrivel out of the sockets from staring at that tiny laptop screen. As I got up to leave, John approached me.

“Hey,” he said. “You heading out? How was your first day?”

“It was…” I hesitated to answer.

“A lot? Yeah, I know. Don’t worry, once you get into the swing of it, you’ll be great.”

I smiled weakly and nodded.

“Hey, did you get your free DNA kit?”

“Yeah, I already did it before lunch.”

“Eager, huh?”

I laughed. “Nah, just curious.”

We kept chatting as we walked out of the building and out to the parking lot. We waved to each other as we parted ways.

“See you tomorrow!” yelled John as he shut his car door.

When I got home, everyone was gathered in the living room, all staring at the TV. Mom and Dad were sitting on the couch close to each other. My brother, Blake, was next to Dad. My sister, Leah, was next to Mom.

I adore my little siblings, but sometimes I miss being an only child, cuddled up on the couch between my parents, having them all to myself. Blake was born just before I started high school and Leah came two years later. Sometimes I even get a little jealous of their bond with each other. But these thoughts are always extinguished when I see their little faces.

“Hey, what are you guys watching without me?” I yelled from the hallway.

“We didn’t think you were coming home!” said Blake.

“I thought you died!” squeaked Leah.

I walked into the living room and my parents moved apart so I could sit between them.

“How was your first day at your internship?” asked Dad.

“Ugh, it was fine, but my brain feels like scrambled eggs. So many spreadsheets.” I sunk into the couch.

“Did you catch any bad guys?” asked Leah.

“No,” I laughed. “Not yet.”

“Well, what exactly do you do there?” asked Dad.

“Mostly just data entry,” I sighed. “I don’t get to perform any lab tests yet. Basically, I read numbers and translate them into the system.”

“Are you learning anything by doing that?” Mom chimed in.

“Yeah, kinda,” I said, yawning.

I listened to the TV with my eyes closed until the sound faded away. Mom draped a blanket over me before everyone shuffled out of the room.

By Friday, I was starting to get into a groove at the lab. Near the middle of my shift, John came into the room while Sarah and I typed away at our screens.

“Doing good, Amber?” asked John.

“Yeah,” I replied casually.

“She’s doing great!” said Sarah. “She doesn’t even need a mentor! I’m just sitting here in case she has questions.”

“That’s awesome,” replied John, smiling. “Well, I have a customer ticket I was hoping you could help me out with.”

“Sure! What is it?” asked Sarah.

“I just sent you an email,” said John. “I guess some data got mixed up. If you can’t fix it, we’ll just have them send in another sample.”

“Consider it handled,” I said.

Pleased, John left the room. Sarah opened her email and showed me the file. We scrolled through the PDF together.

“Oh, I see the problem,” said Sarah, her eyes narrowing.

“Yeah,” I said. “Three copies of chromosome seven.”

“Alright,” Sarah sighed. “Let’s go back in and see if someone missed something. This kind of thing is as close to actually testing samples as we can get.”

“Finally, something interesting,” I said.

After about half an hour of combing through data, Sarah spoke up.

“There,” Sarah pointed at the screen. “That’s what they missed.”

“Okay, so the sample wasn’t contaminated,” I said.

“Nope. Now we just send this back to John.”

“That wasn’t as interesting as I thought it would be.”

Sarah laughed.

Over the next week, I started to settle into a rhythm. I’d come home from the lab and Mom would already have a plate saved for me from dinner. Dad would usually be passed out in his chair, a Miller Lite in his hand. Mom would sit at the kitchen table with her tea while I ate, asking about my day, filling me in on whatever drama Blake and Leah had gotten into. I didn’t always have much to say, but she never seemed to mind.

One night she rubbed my shoulders while I hunched over my laptop doing homework.

“You work too hard,” she said.

“I get it from you,” I said. “I don’t think I’ve seen you sit down this much since Blake and Leah were babies.”

She smiled, got up, kissed the top of my head, and went upstairs to bed.

At the lab, John started giving me more responsibilities, and I stopped feeling like I was going to break something every time I touched the system.

It was a Tuesday, the start of the third week of my internship, when I got the notification.

Your Lineage results are ready.

I wasn’t in a hurry to look, but I didn’t have much to do. Sarah seemed more curious than I was.

“So what’s it say? What’s it say?” Sarah was practically pressing her face against my screen.

“Hold on, let it load,” I laughed. “Okay… it says… I’m very, very white.”

Sarah laughed loudly. “Let me see your map! England, Scotland, Germany, Russia…”

“Huh. I didn’t know I was Greek,” I muttered, zooming in on the map.

The website let me create my own family tree, and showed me relatives who’ve also taken a DNA test through Lineage. I recognized a few as my second or third cousins, and a couple of aunts and uncles.

After playing around on the site for about fifteen or twenty minutes, I decided to get back to work.

After my shift, I got in the car and looked at my phone. I had a notification from the Lineage app. It was a message from a young man, about my age—maybe a little older—named David. The text below his name stated that we were likely first cousins on my maternal side.

The message read, “Hey, I don’t believe we’ve met. I wonder how we’re related?”

I looked at his profile picture. His eyes resembled mine. I drove home and waited until my parents were in bed before messaging him back. I realized I’d forgotten to tell them that I took a DNA test, and didn’t want to drop them into this rabbit hole this late at night.

“Hey,” I wrote back. “Should we compare our trees?”

A few minutes later, my phone buzzed again. Then again.

David sent you a connection request.

David shared his family tree with you.

I tapped the notification and accepted David’s ‘connection’ request—Lineage’s equivalent to Facebook friends. A screen popped up with David’s Lineage results on the left, mine on the right, and a Venn diagram of our shared DNA in the middle. It even included the percentage. Underneath, it read: “Predicted Relationship: First or Second Cousins.”

We continued chatting as I scrolled through David’s tree. But something was off—I couldn’t find a common relative. I sat up in bed.

“This is weird,” I typed. “It says we share DNA on my maternal side, but I’m not seeing how we’re related?”

“Me either,” replied David. “What’s your mom’s name?”

My thumbs hovered for a moment. “Her maiden name is Flynn.”

“Hm,” he responded. I pictured him pausing before he typed, the same as me. “I’m not related to any Flynns.”

I stared at the words on the screen in disbelief. I scrolled through my DNA matches again and realized every person I recognized was on Dad’s side. I scrolled back up and filtered the results to only show matches from my maternal side. But I only recognized a single name: David’s.

Then, I remembered something, and I texted my favorite cousin on Mom’s side, Lauren. Her dad is Mom’s brother, and she’s only four months younger than me. She was the closest thing I had to a sister growing up.

“Hey, remember when you were talking about doing that Lineage DNA test?” I tapped send, assuming she’d be up late like me. I went back to scrolling the Lineage app, and within minutes, she replied.

“Yeah! Why do you ask?” Lauren wrote back. Then a second text. “Ooooh, did you get one, too?!”

“Yes, but I don’t see you in my matches. Is your profile private?” My legs twitched while I waited for her response.

“I don’t think so! Hold on!”

A text from a five-digit number popped up with a link to Lauren’s profile. I tapped the link, and then tapped the plus sign under her picture, and held my breath.

Lauren accepted your connection request.

I stared blankly at her profile. Our DNA still wasn’t showing up as a match, and yet, her family tree was built the same as mine.

Lauren texted, “I don’t see that diagram thing of how much DNA we have in common. Must be a glitch or something lol”

“idk. I’ll check it out tomorrow.” I added a ‘shrugging’ emoji.

I hit send. My body went cold, and my phone fell from my hands.

I stayed awake for hours, just staring at my ceiling.

On Wednesday at the lab, I combed through my DNA results, trying to find any hint of a mistake. Sarah asked me at least twice if I was okay, and I don’t remember if I answered.

Lauren and I texted back and forth casually, until the conversation faded on its own.

Thursday, I only had one class, and I was home before noon. I stood in my bedroom trying to brace myself for what I was about to say.

Blake and Leah were still at school. My parents were sitting on the couch in the living room. I came downstairs and they smiled at me. I asked them to turn off the TV.

“What’s wrong, hon’?” asked Dad.

“I, um… I need to ask you something,” my voice was shaking as I sat down on the recliner across from them.

“Take your time, sweetie,” said Mom, shifting in her seat. Her eyes softened.

I took a deep breath and looked at my hands. “Okay. You know the place I’ve been interning? The genealogy lab?”

“Yeah,” said Mom. She leaned towards me.

Dad nodded.

“I didn’t tell you this part,” I cleared my throat. “On my first day, they offered me a free DNA test, and I took it.”

I paused to glance up at my parents. A frown ran across Dad’s face. Mom pursed her lips. As I explained my interaction with David, I could tell they were getting more and more upset.

“Marcus, please tell her,” said Mom. She looked like she was about to cry.

“Cheryl,” whispered Dad. Then he said something too quietly for me to hear.

“What?” I demanded. “Tell me what?”

Dad sighed heavily and his face fell into his hands. After a moment, he sat back up and said, “Amber, there’s something I haven’t told you.”

I stared at him, numb. I saw a tear crawl down Mom’s cheek. Dad looked like a dog who was caught peeing on the carpet.

“Honey…” Dad’s voice changed. “Mom’s not your biological mother.”

Time stopped. I stared at my parents. Mom’s knuckles were blanched, and tears were dripping from her face. Dad looked me in the eye. I didn’t understand. How was this possible? I listened to Dad as he started to speak.

“When I was in college,” he chose his words calmly and deliberately. “I was with a girl for about six months. When she told me she was pregnant, I was so excited.” He paused and let out a sigh. “But she wasn’t sure.”

My throat was tight as I swallowed. I couldn’t speak. I let Dad continue, unsure if he was even telling the truth.

“It took her some time to decide, but eventually she agreed to carry you and give me full custody once you were born.” His voice broke, and a single tear fell from his cheek. “I was a single father in college, and it was so hard. But you were worth it.”

Mom put her hand on Dad’s knee and rubbed his leg.

“Right after I graduated, I met Cheryl,” he leaned into Mom, and she kissed his cheek. “She just loved you right off the bat.”

“I did,” Mom nodded, speaking quietly.

“You’ve been keeping this from me my whole life?” I blurted out the words before I realized I was speaking. I realized I felt betrayed and lied to.

“Not on purpose,” said Mom, frowning. Her shoulders slumped.

“Cheryl came into your life when you were barely two years old, and she’s been your Mom ever since. I… I didn’t want to break that bond, honey.”

My parents kept talking, but I could barely listen. A flash of images ran through my mind.

It was the summer before my first year of high school. Mom was pregnant with Blake, sitting at the kitchen table and crying. When I’d asked her why, she said she was scared I’d feel replaced by the baby, or that I’d think she didn’t love me anymore. I’d reassured her that I wouldn’t feel that way, and that I was excited for my brother’s arrival.

“I wanted to tell you, but I was so scared,” I heard Mom say.

At my high school graduation party, Blake was three and Leah was one. My aunts and uncles were more focused on them than on me. I’d lost count of how many people commented on how much Blake and Leah look alike. It was the first time I’d ever felt jealous of my siblings.

“So, she didn’t want me?” I finally muttered.

“It’s more complicated than that,” said Dad. “But if you boil it down… she just didn’t want children.”

The gold glint of Dad’s wedding ring caught my eye as he spoke. I stopped making sense of what he was saying. My entire life felt suspended in the air. She didn’t want children? The words looped in my mind as I replayed my entire life. Every moment I’ve ever spent with Mom, with Dad, with both of them, with my whole family—was it all a lie?

I heard Mom chime in. “It has nothing to do with you specifically, sweetheart.”

I shook my head. “What’s her name?” The words came out quietly.

Dad hesitated. “Melissa Harris was her name when I knew her. She may have married since then. Honey…”

“If you want to look for her, we completely understand,” said Mom, squeezing Dad’s knee again.

I remembered seeing that name on David’s family tree. Melissa was his aunt. That’s how we were cousins. I couldn’t think. My whole body was numb. My world was turning upside down with each word my parents spoke. For a moment, I panicked. I felt lost, like I didn’t know who I was. Then, I felt alone, like an outsider in my own family.

I took a few deep breaths as my parents sat silently. It was quiet for a long time. Too long.

“Amber,” said Mom softly.

I looked into her eyes, and I recognized something. A yearning to belong. We looked at each other silently, knowingly.

Then, I heard the groan of a schoolbus and the hissing of its brakes. Blake and Leah came bursting through the door. They threw their backpacks on the floor and ran straight to me.

“You’re home!” Blake jumped into my lap and wrapped his arms around me. Leah dove on top of both of us, causing the recliner to tilt back.

“Yay! We never see you anymore!” she squealed.

I wrapped my arms around my siblings and breathed a sigh of relief.