We took a DNA test for fun at Sunday dinner, and within minutes my father was screaming at me to get out of the house. I thought the results had exposed some ordinary family secret. I had no idea they had just blown open something my family had been hiding for decades.
I was kicked out of my parents’ house because of a DNA test.
It happened in less than two minutes.
My younger sister, Ava, brought home one of those ancestry kits like it was a board game.
But my grandmother, June, went pale.
“We’re doing it,” she said at Sunday dinner, shaking the box. “All of us. I want to know if we’re Irish, Italian, descended from thieves, whatever.”
Dad rolled his eyes. “You paid money for that?”
Mom said, “Waste of time.”
But my grandmother, June, went pale.
I asked, “Grandma, are you okay?”
She was not fine.
She smiled too fast. “Fine.”
She was not fine.
All five of us had done them. Me, Ava, Luke, Mom, Dad.
Three weeks later, Ava brought her laptop to Sunday dinner and said, “Okay, results night.”
She was laughing as she clicked through the family tree.
“Dad, you’re less English than you think.”
“Mom, you actually do have Irish.”
Dad stood so fast his chair scraped the floor.
Mom smirked. “I told you.”
Then Ava clicked on me.
Her smile fell off her face.
Dad stood so fast his chair scraped the floor. Mom made a sound I had never heard before.
I laughed because nobody else was talking. “What?”
Ava stared at the screen. “That can’t be right.”
Nobody moved.
Leave a Comment