Find You First

by Linwood Barclay

  “Half.”

  “Huh?”

  “Half sister,” Chloe pointed out.

  “It still beats no sister.”

  They were sitting in a McDonald’s, around the corner from the ordering counter, a few steps from the washrooms. It was after the lunch hour rush, and they figured they could sit there for a while without anyone asking them to leave. They’d already polished off their burgers and fries, but Todd was still working on the last few drops of his vanilla milkshake. Chloe had gone back for a coffee.

  “What made you do it?” she asked. “Send in a sample?”

  “Okay, so, it wasn’t my idea. I wasn’t really all that interested. I never really thought much about who my biological dad might be or whether I had any half brothers or half sisters. I guess I’m not what you’d call a big thinker. I kind of live for the moment, you know? Like, what does it matter what happened in the past? I’m here now. And that’s the only shit I really have to deal with. But—”

  “Hang on,” Chloe said. “I should be getting this.”

  “Huh?”

  Chloe put her smartphone on the table. “I’m making a kind of video journal. About my family. Putting it all together. Documenting it.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  “You mind?”

  “No. It’s cool.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Do I look okay?”

  “You look fine.”

  “I got this one spot where my hair sticks up.”

  “It’s good.”

  “Is this an okay place to shoot? In a McDonald’s?”

  “It’s more authentic. I want to get you when you tell this story for the first time.” She raised the phone, framed Todd on the screen. “Okay, so, you weren’t thinking about sending in your DNA, but you did. How’d that happen?”

  “Okay, so, like I was saying, it wasn’t my idea. But my mom, she’s real interested in this stuff, and I think she’s been kind of wondering whose, you know, donation was used so that she could get pregnant.”

  “So she’s told you all about this. It’s never been a secret.”

  “Well, she didn’t tell me until I was like ten? I think it was? I mean. I had a dad. She was already married so I always assumed my dad was my dad. Right? But then, like, when I was nine, he got killed in this accident. He was an arborist.”

  “A what?”

  “Arborist. Tree guy. He cut down trees and shit. So one day, he’s chainsawing this huge tree, has it all figured out which way it was going to fall, but he kind of fucked it up. It went the other way and he couldn’t get out of the way in time and he got crushed to death.”

  “Jeez, I’m sorry.”

  Todd shrugged. “So, after that, my mom thought I should know that while he was still my dad, there was something she’d never told me. That when they were trying to have a kid, they couldn’t. My dad … he had like a low count or whatever they call it. So they went to this clinic outside New York and they did whatever they do and along came me and we all lived happily ever after until, you know, he got crushed.”

  Chloe had already said sorry once, so she said nothing.

  “So, we don’t have a whole lot of relatives or anything. My dad didn’t have any brothers or sisters and the same’s more or less the case with my mom. And she’s been worried that I don’t have any kind of extended family, and she knew there had to be some out there. So she ordered two tests—one for herself and one for me—and the next time I was over there she sprung it on me. Spit in this, she says.” He shrugged. “No big deal, so I did it. And she wanted me to say it was okay for anyone to get in touch. And you did.” Another shake of the head. “Mind blown.”

  “My mom was the exact opposite. She didn’t want me to do it. She doesn’t think I need to know.”

  “Everybody’s different, I guess.”

  Chloe tapped the phone to stop recording. “Good stuff.”

  “So let me ask about you, then. What do you do?”

  “Oh, I have a magnificent career. I wait tables in a shitty diner. I was going to school to study photojournalism but didn’t have enough money for the tuition. My mom chipped in what she could but she’s not exactly swimming in cash. If I had any money, you think I’d be driving a 1977 Pacer?”

  Todd glanced out the window into the parking lot at Chloe’s car, which looked more like a rusted fishbowl than something someone might drive.

  “When I have time,” she said, “I go to the old folks home where my grandfather lives.”

  “Oh?” The comment got Todd’s attention. “Like, to visit?”

  “Yeah, and also, I’ve been interviewing him. About his life, like I was just doing with you. There’s been this, I don’t know, void, not knowing who I really am. So I try to find out as much as I can about the stuff I am able to find out about. Does that make sense?”

  “Sure.”

  “Don’t you wonder about your biological father? Like, WhatsMyStory was able to connect us, but now we have this shared mystery. Who’s our daddy?”

  That made Todd laugh. “Who’s your daddy?” he said quickly, as though it were a rap lyric. “Who’s my daddy? Ever-body wants to know, who’s your daddy?”

  “But seriously, don’t you wonder?”

  Todd shrugged. “I guess. But even if I knew, what difference would it make?”

  “Doesn’t it make a difference knowing about me?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, but you’re, like, pretty much my own age. My dad, whoever it is, would just be some old guy.”

  Chloe drove the heel of her hand into her forehead. “Well, duh. Parents are always older.”

  He pointed to her head. “You did it again. So, tell me some more about your grandfather.”

  “He’s a veteran. Served in Vietnam. He wrote a book about his time there that he self-published. It’s really good. I mean, I’m no book critic, but I thought it was terrific. And he saw some awful shit, you know? Came back from that, got a job at Sears, spent the rest of his working life there. But talking to him, learning his story, it’s got me interested in talking to the other residents. They’ve all got stories. You think they’re these old people just sitting around waiting to die, but they’ve done things. They’ve seen things. Attention must be paid.”

  “Attention what?”

  “‘Attention must be paid.’ It’s from Death of a Salesman.”

  Todd looked at her blankly.

  “The play? Death of a Salesman?”

  “I don’t go to a lot of plays. Concerts, sometimes. I saw Metallica one time. They were awesome.”

  “I haven’t seen the actual play, either,” Chloe said. “But I read it. In school. And it’s been made into a movie a few times.”

  “I like the Avengers movies. All the Marvel ones.”

  A brief look of disappointment crossed Chloe’s face. Just because you were related to someone didn’t necessarily mean you were going to have similar interests. But she wasn’t going to stop looking for common ground.

  “You still got grandparents?”

  “They’ve passed. I never really got to know them. They all died before I was, like, five years old. My mom’s got an old aunt. We used to visit her every year. My mom still does, but when I got a bit older I found some excuse to get out of it. And now, well, I moved out a couple of years ago. I’ve got a trailer, which sounds kind of shitty, but it’s nice. I like having my own place.” He grinned. “And I’m right next to the fire station, so if it blows up or anything, they’ll be there in no time.”

  “You in one of those parks, with a bunch of retired people?”

  “No, I got my trailer on its own lot. Just me. No old people.”

  “Oh.”

  Todd sensed some disapproval in Chloe’s tone, so he added, “But I talk to them on the phone.”

  “Who?”

  “Old people.” He forced a grin. “Sort of like sales calls. Talk to them all the time.”

  Nine

  Seattle, WA

  Marissa Pritkin thought h
er brother would be excited about her news. Instead, he lost his shit.

  After all, it wasn’t every day you discovered new relatives. Wasn’t that something to celebrate? Or, at the very least, be somewhat curious about? He didn’t even ask her who she’d connected with.

  Maybe, she told herself, she’d caught him at a bad time. He did tell her he was in the middle of throwing a party. For anybody else, that would be like interrupting someone when they were watching TV. Her brother was always hosting one event or another. Some fundraiser with Bill Gates to fight malaria, an opening-night celebration for a Broadway show he’d invested in, or a bash to raise money for some political candidate—didn’t matter which party; her brother was always looking to make friends on both sides of the aisle. Jeremy always had something going on. She Googled him about once a week to see what he’d been up to, what TV show he might have appeared on, what think piece he might have written for the Times or the Post.

  They’d kept in touch, Marissa and Jeremy, even if they didn’t see each other all that often. If work took him to Seattle, he might invite her and Walter, her husband, out to an expensive dinner, if time allowed. He did all the talking, dropping names like geese dropped turds. There wasn’t a president, prime minister, king or queen, or famous entertainer Jeremy hadn’t met at some point.

  Marissa would wait all through dinner, wondering, will he ask me even one question about our lives? How we’re doing? Where we went on vacation last year? What show we’re binge-watching these days?

  The closest Jeremy got to being inquisitive about their lives was when he asked how their portfolio was doing. Because that was really a question about himself, and whether all the insider tips he’d passed along to them had paid off.

  Of course, they almost always had. Often, big-time. Marissa had to admit she and Walter wouldn’t be in the house they were in now, in Seattle’s North Beach neighborhood with a drop-dead-amazing view of Puget Sound, if it weren’t for some of the tips Jeremy had passed along. And, to be fair, he had been more than generous where she and Walter and the kids were concerned. Not that Marissa and her husband didn’t do okay. She ran an insurance brokerage and Walter was an orthodontist. But even with a good income, sometimes your children’s interests could cost you more than you’d budgeted for, like when their son Zachary became obsessed with everything horse related.

  Well, Jeremy had always loved horses, too, so what did he do? Bought Zachary a horse, paid to board it at a stable, and even covered the cost of all the riding lessons. You didn’t have to ask Zachary who his favorite uncle was.

  So, when Marissa got her results back from WhatsMyStory, she felt she owed it to her brother to call him first with the news.

  “According to this,” she said, “I share about 25 percent of my DNA with this other person, which suggests it’s a niece or a nephew. Now this other person and I just have to agree to disclose our identities and we can connect. A niece or nephew? How is that even possible?”

  Of course, Marissa had already considered the fact that Jeremy might have gotten someone pregnant years ago and that this person had never disclosed this fact to him. All the more reason to tell him, she figured, and all the more reason why she figured he would be curious.

  Jeremy had not responded well.

  Accused his sister of meddling in his affairs. How could she do something like this without consulting him first?

  And then he’d said he couldn’t discuss it any further, that he would be in touch later. Later turned out to be the following night, after Walter got home from work. They were both on the deck, sitting down in their comfortable chairs, each with a glass of wine, looking out over the sound, when Marissa’s cell rang.

  Jeremy was only a minute into his rant when Marissa put the phone on speaker so that Walter could hear how upset her brother was.

  “What were you thinking?” he asked her.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she said, keeping her voice level and controlled. “Lots of people have done this. Millions of people have done this.”

  “Well, now you’re as foolish as the rest of them.”

  “I don’t understand what’s foolish about wanting to know where you came from, who you are, what other relatives you might—”

  “Jesus, Marissa, don’t the relatives we already have give us enough grief? Why ask for more?”

  At this point, Walter could no longer remain silent. He didn’t much care for the way his brother-in-law was speaking to his wife.

  “Jeremy,” he said. “Walter here.”

  Silence from the other end of the line for a moment. “Hello, Walter.”

  “Do you think maybe you’re overreacting to this a bit? Marissa meant no harm.”

  This time, Jeremy was quiet for so long they thought the connection had been lost.

  “Jer?” Marissa asked. “Did we lose you?”

  “I’m here,” he said coolly. “Walter, could I talk to you a second, off speaker?”

  Walter glanced at his wife, as though looking for permission. This was her brother, after all. She shrugged, allowing Walter to pick up her phone, hit the button turning off the speaker, and put the phone to his ear.

  “I’m here, Jeremy.” Walter got out of his chair, stood at the railing, watching what looked like a whale breaking the surface of the water.

  “Good. Walter, listen closely, and try not to give away anything by acting shocked or startled.”

  “What? What are you talking—”

  “See? You’re already acting shocked and startled. So put your game face on and listen to what I have to say.”

  Walter took a moment to compose himself. “Okay, then,” he said.

  “I know where the money’s going.”

  Walter suddenly felt a shiver run the length of his spine, and he nearly blurted out a What? but instead managed to remain calm and said slowly, “Go on.”

  “You may be doing your best to hide it from my sister, but I’m aware of the addiction.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t—”

  “Walter, please, don’t interrupt. You have a problem. You should talk to someone. Gamblers Anonymous, maybe. The only reason Marissa hasn’t noticed a cash flow problem is because I’ve been helping you out when I can. But the online gambling, hitting the casinos, you need to get a handle on that.”

  “Yes, yes, that’s very interesting,” Walter said.

  Marissa looked at her husband and mouthed, What’s he saying? Walter held up his index finger.

  “You’re probably wondering, how could I possibly know this?” Jeremy continued. “How could I have learned that my brother-in-law is throwing his money away? It’s my job to know things, Walter. Information is my currency, whether it’s about you, or Marissa, the New York Stock Exchange, or the fucking king of Siam. So this is what’s going to happen. You’re going to tell Marissa to stop researching her family tree. I’m not going to get into why, but you can tell her that this course of action she’s taken could open me up to strangers harassing me, making claims against me. I’m in the public eye, and vulnerable to all sorts of charlatans. How does that sound?”

  “That sounds good.”

  “And the reason I’m having you persuade her is because I’m only her stupid brother and she’s never wanted to listen to me before, so why would she listen to me now? How about that?”

  “Absolutely,” Walter said.

  “So we’re clear. You’re going to make sure she abandons this new little hobby of hers, or I am going to tell her all about yours.”

  “I understand,” he said. “I totally see your point.”

  “Now put Marissa on so I can say goodbye.”

  Walter slowly took the phone from his ear and handed it to his wife. “He, he wants to say goodbye.”

  Marissa took the phone. “Jeremy?”

  “You take care,” he said. “Let me know, next time you’re coming to New York, we’ll all go to a show. Just tell me what you want to see. I can get tickets to anything.”
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  “Okay, but—”

  “Gotta go,” he said, and ended the call.

  Marissa put down the phone and said, “What the hell did he say to you?”

  Walter had an answer ready. “Well, first he apologized for his outburst. I think he was genuinely sorry about how he spoke to you. And then he calmed down and said—and I may have lost some of the details here about how it all works—but that he has so many people trying to make some kind of claim against him, that any sort of loose connection to him could lead to all sorts of legal entanglements.”

  Marissa made an oh, I never thought of that kind of face. “Gee,” she said. “He’s probably got a point.”

  “So he’s hoping you’ll drop it. And you know, it’s totally up to you. It’s your life. But—” and he stepped forward and encircled her in his arms “—I don’t think it would kill us to honor his wishes. Let’s face it. He’s been awfully good to us.”

  “Okay,” she said, returning his hug. “I think he’s overreacting, but if that’s what he wants, then fine. I won’t take it any further.”

  “Probably for the best.”

  “I’m still pissed,” Marissa said, “but you’re right. He’s been pretty good at watching over us over the years.”

  And I had no idea until now, Walter thought, just how closely.

  Ten

  New Rochelle, NY

  Even in good times, Julie Harkin didn’t have the money to go out for lunch. Every morning, before she left home to go to her receptionist job at the ReproGold Clinic, Julie would make herself something. A simple sandwich, or a salad. A few crackers and some sliced cheddar. A handful of grapes. She shopped carefully, bought items on sale, sometimes went from one grocery store to the next to take advantage of weekly specials. She figured her homemade lunch probably cost her less than two dollars a day—a peanut butter sandwich was only pennies—while even the cheapest meal at a fast-food place would set her back at least five or six. And she never, ever, bought bottled water. What sort of fool paid for something you could get out of the tap for free?