Curt again considered asking how much it would take for Jordan to forget he ever received the letter as they walked toward the front door. But he didn’t do it. Whatever the paternity test revealed, Reese, Jordan, and Taylor deserved to know the truth.
“I hope you don’t mind. I started some coffee,” Priscilla called over her shoulder when they returned to the kitchen.
He’d told her on more than one occasion to make herself at home whenever she visited. “Not at all. I was thinking about doing that anyway. I’ll grab some milk and sugar.”
Priscilla set the French press on the table and went back to get some mugs. “Jordan turned out to be much different than I expected.”
“You and me both, Mom. I really expected someone like Brad to show up today,” Taylor said, pulling her chair out. “Did either of you see any similarities between him and Reese?”
He hadn’t seen any family resemblance between the two. But then again, his brain might have been only letting his eyes see what he wanted them to.
“I didn’t see any,” Priscilla answered.
“Yeah, neither did I. Curt, what about you?”
Curt shook his head as he poured coffee into all three mugs.
“And Jordan said she looked like Eliza, so maybe he didn’t see one either,” Priscilla pointed out.
As much as it pleased him to know none of them thought Reese shared any traits with Jordan, he knew the lack of a family resemblance didn’t prove anything. Although he looked a great deal like his dad and many of his cousins, his older brother, Brett, took after their mom’s side of the family.
“For now, I guess all we can do is keep our fingers crossed.” Priscilla added some milk and sugar to her coffee before taking a sip. “What time is Judith bringing Reese home?”
“Around six,” Taylor answered.
“Good. Then I have time to bring up the decorations and start wrapping Christmas presents.”
“If you want, we’ll come over and help you,” Curt offered. He wasn’t much into decorating for the holidays, but after last year he knew how much Reese, Taylor, and Priscilla enjoyed it. And if he required any reminding of that fact, all he needed to do was go in his basement where all the decorations they used in his house last holiday season waited to be used again this year.
“That would be great.”
Six
Although still in elementary school, Reese had reached a point where she missed a lot when not in class, so Taylor preferred not to dismiss Reese early from school. Today there had been no way around it. The laboratory didn’t offer evening appointments, and the first early morning one they had available wasn’t for another week. Since she refused to wait until then to bring Reese in for a cheek swab, she took the first opening they had, a two o’clock appointment Monday afternoon.
“Why did you pick me up early, Auntie?” Reese asked as they exited the building and walked toward the school’s parking lot.
“Because we’re going to Boston.”
During breakfast, Taylor let Reese know she’d be picking her up from school so that they could go into Boston. She hadn’t gone into all the details of why. While highly unlikely, she’d hoped Reese wouldn’t ask for more information.
Reese tossed her backpack in the car and then climbed in after it. “I know. You told me that. But why? Are we doing something for the wedding?”
When Taylor and Curt looked at the Harbor House, the establishment they’d picked for their wedding reception, they’d taken Reese with them. She’d also taken Reese along when she’d gone shopping for the bridesmaids’ dresses. Given those two things, Reese’s guess now made perfect sense. And she wished the wedding was the reason for their trip into the city this afternoon.
Putting the car in reverse, she checked the rearview mirror before backing out of the parking spot. “No, we’re not doing anything for the wedding. We have an appointment at a lab.”
Silence came from the back seat, and Taylor mentally kicked herself for not giving Reese all the details either last night or this morning over breakfast, because the lack of chatter meant Reese was thinking. When Reese started thinking, questions or comments soon followed.
“Is it a lab like the one next to Dr. Baker’s office?”
“Similar but not exactly the same.”
The laboratory next door to Reese’s pediatrician collected blood and urine samples and ran tests for all the physicians in the complex. Although they served different purposes, both facilities collected samples and conducted tests, which meant Taylor wasn’t lying.
More silence filled the car. This time, though, it didn’t last quite as long.
“Is there going to be a needle?” Reese asked. “I don’t want anyone taking my blood.”
Like most children, Reese hated getting shots. In fact, Taylor had to hold Reese on her lap whenever she got a vaccine at the doctor’s office. During her last physical, though, Dr. Baker had sent Reese over to the lab for routine blood work. It wasn’t an event either of them cared to remember or go through again.
“No needles.”
“Promise?”
“I promise. You won’t see any needles, and no one will take your blood. If you want when we’re done, we can stop at Ambrosia before we go home.”
Reese loved stopping at the Ambrosia Café located in Boston. Actually, she enjoyed stopping in any of the Ambrosia Cafés, but the one in Boston was the closest to them since the other two were both in Rhode Island.
“Can we get something to bring home to Curt?”
“Whatever you want.” Please just don’t ask me any more questions.
She heard Reese unzip her backpack. When she didn’t say anything else as Taylor headed toward I-93, she assumed Reese had started reading. Unlike Taylor, who became sick if she tried to read even a text message while in a moving vehicle, Reese could read for hours while in the car.
Either Reese finished the book, or she started thinking about their destination again, because before Taylor reached the highway, she asked, “Why do we need to go to a lab? I already had my physical, and I’m not sick.”
Taylor had tried to come up with a reasonable excuse in case Reese asked this very question. The only plausible one had been to tell Reese the lab was checking to see if she had any allergies. Ellie, one of Reese’s close friends, had recently learned she was allergic to the lactose found in milk products, so her niece might not find the excuse too strange. But one, she hated lying to Reese, and two, her niece might wonder why all of sudden Taylor was worried about allergies when nothing she ate ever bothered her.
“Do you remember what DNA is?”
In July, Reese had attended a two-week science camp. The instructors had all been certified science teachers, and they’d used experiments and other hands-on activities to cover several topics. One of the activities had been to build a representation of the DNA double helix using toothpicks, marshmallows, and gumdrops.
“It’s the stuff in your cells that makes you who you are.”
“The lab we’re going to today is going to collect some of your cells so that they can look at your DNA.”
“And they’re not going to use a needle, right?”