later, Agnetha would always remember that moment as being the start of the unravelling of the day that changed her life.
4
Hope McTeer
‘Hope, are you absolutely, positively, completely sure you don’t want me to come with you?’ Maisie asked, eyes wide and pleading. ‘I mean, he could be a complete fraud after your money. Or a serial killer. Or one of those catfish guys.’
Hope stopped applying her mascara at the mirror on the kitchen wall and responded with pursed lips of cynicism that eventually broke into a smile.
‘First, I’m twenty-two, not twelve. That makes me a grown-up who is allowed out on her own. Secondly, he’s not a fraud because it was me who tracked him down, not the other way around. And even if he was, all he’d get from me is my shoe collection and a payment plan for my student loan. Same goes for the catfish stuff. And he may be a serial killer, but if that’s the case, it’s better that I know before I start shelling out for Christmas cards.’
Over at the white IKEA dining table, a shadow crossed Maisie’s face. ‘Fine. But if you don’t come back, I’ll hunt him down. And I want a call or a text every hour.’
‘Deal. I’ll also keep my phone on so you can track me. And if you get a text that says SOS, you can commando crawl in and get me out.’
Maisie nodded. ‘I’m on it.’
Hope went back to applying her make-up. Not that there was much of it. A coat of mascara, a bit of blusher so that she didn’t look like the walking dead, and a clear lip gloss to finish it off. Growing up with her mousy brown hair and pale skin, she’d always been beyond jealous of Maisie’s dark complexion and thick ebony hair. They’d got used to the raised eyebrows of surprise when they told people they were sisters. Mum and Dad had equipped them with all sorts of answers when they were younger, but they’d soon realised that it was far more effective to throw back a defiant stare and watch the curiosity turn to an embarrassed squirm.
They were sisters. Adopted a couple of years apart, but sisters in every sense of the word that mattered. The fact that they didn’t share the same DNA was irrelevant and always would be, regardless of what happened today.
Maisie reached over to the biscuit tin in the centre of the table and liberated a chocolate digestive, just as her mobile phone rang. ‘It’s Mum.’
Hope felt another explosion of butterflies in her stomach. Her mum had been supportive from the start of this journey, but that didn’t mean that it had been easy to navigate the emotions of such a difficult and complicated situation.
‘Hey, Mamma,’ Maisie said, with a sigh, unable to mask her mood as always. ‘Yep, she’s just getting ready to leave.’
Hope chimed in from the other side of the room. ‘Tell Mum I’ll buzz her on the way there.’
‘Did you get that, Mum? Hope will call you on the way. She won’t let me go with her. I mean, what if she gets kidnapped?’
Hope could only hear one side of the conversation, but she could guess what her mum was saying. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. She’ll be fine. She needs to do this.’
Always the voice of reason. Their dad had been the same. Both teachers, her mum, Dora, in English and dad, Tim, in Chemistry, neither of them were prone to drama or over-anxiety. That was Maisie’s role in the family. Handy, given that she’d been a jobbing actress since she came back to Scotland after studying at RADA for four years. It had made perfect sense for her to move into the spare room in Hope’s flat. She contributed to the rent when she was working, and when she wasn’t, Hope’s wages from her job at the hospital and her student loan made up the slack until Maisie paid her back when she landed another job. Hope didn’t mind. Studying at university for the fourth year of her medical degree while moonlighting as a part-time care assistant on a paediatric ward at Glasgow Central didn’t leave her enough time to spend her money on a social life any way.
Mum had offered to come with her today too, but Hope had declined. This was something she had to do on her own. There was no plan. No script. She wasn’t even sure how much she’d tell him or whether this was going to be a twenty-minute meeting with a full stop and no further contact at the end. All she knew was that she had to try.
‘Mum, I have to go,’ Maisie said into the handset. ‘Stay near a phone in case we need you to identify her body.’
That actually made Hope giggle. ‘You are shameless, do you know that?’
Maisie disconnected the call and tossed her phone on the table. ‘I do.’
‘Fine. I see you trying to get Mum onside and I raise you this.’ Hope opened the kitchen drawer, the one below the cutlery that was full of miscellaneous stuff like batteries, bulbs, Sellotape and pens, and pulled out a small white box. Crossing the room, she placed it in front of Maisie. ‘Here’s the perfect thing to distract you while I’m gone. Get this done.’
Her sister stared at the box. ‘Man, you fight dirty.’
Hope shrugged then snaked her arms around Maisie’s neck and leaned down to kiss her on the cheek. ‘Yup. Only because I know you want to, but it’s only fear that’s holding you back.’
They both stared at the box for a few seconds. The logo on the front said ‘Ancestry’.
They’d both received them on their twenty-first birthdays from Mum – her way of telling them that if they ever wanted to track down their biological families, she supported their decision. They both knew Dad would have too. His passing the year before had devastated them all.
Neither of them had done the test immediately. They’d lain in the drawer until the day, a couple of months ago, when Hope learned just how important it was that she find someone with a genetic link.
Doing the test was easy – just a case of spitting into a tube, then sending it off for analysis. Getting Maisie to do the test proved more difficult. Hope tried to persuade her to do it at the same time, but her sister resolutely refused, claiming that she had no desire to know more about her heritage. Realising she was fighting a losing battle, Hope went ahead and did it by herself. Last weekend that decision paid off.
On Sunday, she’d just got home after a twelve hour shift at the hospital and all she needed was her bed and to sleep. Trying to combine studies with work was exhausting, but she was determined not to live off her mum, especially now that her dad was gone. She was so tired, she was tempted to ignore the ping of an email dropping into the inbox on her phone. A quick glance had changed everything. The headline read:
Your Ancestry results are in!’
Suddenly awake, she’d grabbed her laptop and opened it on the kitchen table, fingers trembling as she logged on.
The first result she clicked on was her ‘Ethnicity Estimate’ and her eyebrows had immediately knitted together in confusion. She’d expected to see the Scottish heritage. It was where she’d been born and raised. But the shock? 44 per cent North American.
What?
She was almost half American?
As far as she knew, her only connection with the USA was a couple of trips to Disney World when she was a kid. The revelation
