DNA Matches. This was it. The people on the database with whom she shared a genetic link.
Breathe. Breathe. Click.
She’d read that it wasn’t uncommon to have up to half a million fifth to eighth cousins, so she was hoping for something a bit closer than that. A starting point. Maybe an aunt. Or a great-grandparent. Just some place to begin the search. She hadn’t dared to hope that there would be anything closer in there. After all, her adoption had been a closed one and there were no clues to go on, no background information, only the emphatic stipulation on her adoption file that the mother wished for no contact at any time in the future and requested that no information ever be released to Hope or her new family.
She’d grown up thinking she’d never have answers, had come to terms with that, but the advent of easily available DNA testing had changed everything.
Now it was a possibility. A chance.
Click.
One close match.
Her yelp had roused a sleeping Maisie from the couch in the lounge and she had charged through, hair wild, eyes blazing, ready to attack. ‘What? What is it?’
‘My DNA results,’ Hope had whispered.
Maisie had immediately sagged, adrenalin dissipating. ‘Holy shit, I thought you were getting mutilated in the kitchen by a masked intruder.’
‘Did you fall asleep watching Criminal Minds again?’
‘Yep.’
Just as the ridiculousness of the situation helped Hope’s heartbeat come down from the beat of a speeding train, Maisie had switched on to the gravity of the situation.
‘Oh my God, your results. What do they say?’
Hope had turned the laptop towards Maisie as she crossed the room. ‘Meet my biological link.’
‘Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.’ Every word was punctuated by a step towards the screen.
Hope’s hands were over her mouth as she’d watched Maisie read. There was just a name. Then the word FATHER.
‘Click on his profile!’ Maisie had gasped.
‘Argh, I didn’t even notice that bit. My brain shut down right about the same time as I screamed.’
With a shaky hand, Hope had clicked on the blank circle next to his name and was taken to another page, but there were no further details on there. No family tree. No other matches. Nothing. Except…
‘There’s a message button.’ Hope was staring at it as if it had the potential to self-detonate.
Maisie had slid onto the bench at the other side of the table. ‘How are you feeling?’
Hope had slowly shaken her head. ‘I’ve no idea. Gobsmacked. Happy. Excited. Fricking terrified. Anxious. Did I say gobsmacked?’
Maisie had nodded. ‘You did. Bugger, why did I have to give up smoking? I could so do with a cig right now. Sod it, Prosecco will have to do.’ In the few minutes it took for Maisie to retrieve a bottle of wine from the fridge, uncork it, pour generous measures into two glasses, and return to the table, Hope had simply stared at the screen in silence.
Maisie had grimaced a little as the large gulp of wine went down. ‘Right then, what are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know. I mean, I know I need to send him a message, but I just don’t know if I’m ready.’
‘You are!’
Hope had rolled her eyes, then settled into a rueful glare. ‘This comes from the woman who won’t even do the test.’
‘But I’m a born coward,’ Maisie had conceded. ‘You’re much, much braver than me. That’s why we send you in to get the spiders out of the bath. And, you know, to do medical stuff, like cut people up and fix broken folk. I’m here for entertainment and cocktails – nothing that requires balls of steel.’
‘Well, my balls of steel are having a think about this before doing anything rash,’ Hope had admitted, her voice uncertain.
‘Nope, do it now. If you put it off, you’ll psyche yourself out. And besides… not to pee on your parade, but you don’t really have a choice, do you?’
That had focused Hope’s mind. Nope. There was too much riding on this to let it go now. She had to see it through, had to try.
That’s what she was telling herself now, two weeks later, when she was getting ready to leave for Glasgow Airport, to meet the man whose name was on that DNA match.
Her fingers shook a little as she tied the laces on her white Samba trainers, then slung a denim jacket over her pale blue sundress. Layers helped add a bit of a shape to her frame.
Her stomach was rumbling, but she’d been too nervous to eat. His flight was due in just after 10 a.m., and it would take her around twenty minutes to drive to the airport from their Shawlands flat, on the south side of Glasgow, so she’d be there in plenty of time to pop into the Starbucks at the arrivals area for a coffee and something to eat, if she thought she could get anything past the huge lump in her throat.
She kissed Maisie, hugged her tight. ‘I love you, sis.’
‘I love you too. And I’ll be ready to rescue you.’
The front door clicked as Hope closed it behind her. She stopped, took a breath of warm summer air, let the sun soothe the frown lines between her eyebrows, then she started walking towards her Mini. She had so many questions, so many blanks to fill. And now she was closer than she’d ever been.
Today was the day Hope McTeer was going to meet her biological father for the first time. And she was praying that he’d be able, and willing, to save her life.
5
Agnetha
Aggs took a long, leisurely shower in the new gloss white en suite bathroom, a conversion of the old cupboard next door to her bedroom that had been home to decades of accumulated junk owned by her grandparents and parents before her. Usually, she’d just blast her hair with the dryer, then pull it up into a messy bun, from which more and more tendrils would escape throughout the day. But not today. Today she was going to make an effort.
Liberating the box from the bottom of her wardrobe, she took out the huge blow-drying brush that the girls had bought her for Christmas. She’d never tried to use it before, but how hard could it be?
It took a few false starts and a tangle situation that required five minutes of picking trapped hairs out of the brush using the metal handle of her comb, but eventually she got the hang of it.
Hair done, not exactly a smooth salon finish, but passable, she reached for the make-up bag. Another first. She wore make-up so infrequently that she was fairly sure she’d bought that Avon plum lipstick in the nineties.
Five minutes to eleven.
