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Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Are we going to eat all this food at some point today?” Franco shouted toward the women still in the water and gestured with his beer bottle toward the table.
I glanced toward the patio door where he stood and he tipped his beer bottle in my direction as well. I knew then he’d heard more of the conversation than either Lester or I knew and had come to his father-in-law’s rescue as our conversation had reached a natural ending.
All three women got out of the water, but Betty insisted on putting the finishing touches to the buffet table alone. After placing the food on the table, we all filled our plates and sat down to talk as a group.
During the conversations there were some minor disagreements when Betty tried desperately to impress me, but Marnie had quickly put her back into place. As an observing newcomer, it gave me much more of an idea of the family dynamic Tricia had negotiated as a sixteen-year-old girl in trouble.
After we’d eaten, Betty and Lester tidied the empty food dishes away, while Marnie, Franco, Tricia and I moved to the more comfortable sectional seating area to chat. I challenged both girls about not offering to help their mother and offered to do this myself. They’d both been quick to explain any offer wouldn’t be welcomed, as their father was barely allowed to help. Apparently their mother had certain ways of doing things, and set routines for clearing up, and therefore she had much preferred to do it herself.
“What made you choose the army?” I asked Marnie, wanting further insight into how Betty’s matriarchal force had influenced her girls.
“Honestly? My mom,” she replied in a low voice, her eyes darting toward the patio door. “I got out of their house in Ohio as soon as I could. We used to have some terrible fights. Nothing I did ever matched her expectations of me.” She tipped her chin toward her sister. “Unlike Tricia, who was pretty, popular, and exceptionally brainy. Great bragging material for Mom. My sister here was much smarter than me and had already planned her escape to college with an impeccable rolling GPA of 4.5, year on year. Not everyone can slide into an Ivy League college on full scholarship. I scraped the barrel with Mom’s manly looks and intelligence genes… except for the stick up her ass, and I was far better suited toward practical tasks.”
Franco chuckled. “Honey, you do not have manly genes, look at those babies,” he replied, pointing another beer bottle toward her very ample breasts. My eyes followed his gaze and Tricia cuffed the side of my head.
“Ow,” I replied, chuckling, “I wasn’t conscious what he was pointing at, until it was too late,” I laughed. “Sorry, Marnie.”
Marnie grinned and shook her head at her arrogant husband. “Anyway, the way I saw it, I had two choices. Prison for killing my mom, which offered a uniform, bunk, three square meals, and a possible psycho for a roommate. Or, a marginally better uniform, a bunk in a room full of potential killers, but with no criminal record on release and better career prospects in the army.” Tricia cracked up laughing at her sister and as Franco’s laugh was so amusing we all ended up joining in.
Marnie wiped tears of laughter from her eyes. “I love her, but in very small doses and from a distance,” she said in a conspiratorial whisper. “Plus, there was only room for one saint in the family home, and our dad’s application for that role was light-years ahead of any I could have made for that position.
After Marnie’s confession, the couple went on to tell us about some of the tours of duty they’d been on and the roles they had played in shaping our country’s new recruits, with Franco being responsible for their physical health and Marnie teaching communications. Later their questions turned to me and we spoke about how Tricia and I met. After this I gave them an insight into my family makeup, my siblings, and their families.
“Franco was adopted,” Marnie said, sitting up straight in her chair when I’d disclosed that my sister Caitlin’s young boy was the same. “Here’s a funny story for you,” she added, looking to Franco for permission who nodded.
“Franco’s always known Cilla and Dave weren’t his biological parents. The adoption took place through the Catholic Church, and although he knew which religion they were, they would never disclose which district to him. They moved through several states when he was small, so he had no idea where to start. Anyway, we got one of those DNA kits from one of those ancestry sites and did a test. As he was doing one, I did one, just for fun. After all, you’ve seen those stories where common folks like us are related to kings and oil billionaires, right? When did we do this again, Franco? Two months ago?”
“Yeah, around that time,” he confirmed.
“Then the day before yesterday the results were posted. Obviously, Franco was excited, but when we looked at the matches there were two matches of third cousins and almost four thousand fourth cousins. Nothing of note really, but here’s the thing, there was this weird hit on mine.”
“Yours?” Tricia asked, her voice rising with interest. “So we have twice removed cousins in some far-flung places?”
“Nope, much weirder than that. This girl has given her sparce ancestral tree on her page. There is nothing added for Franco’s family or mine. However this girl shows on my DNA matches as a maternal niece.”
“What?” Tricia shouted almost hysterically, and I slid my hand in hers. She stared at me for a moment as I smoothed my thumb over her knuckles. It helped her contain her shock, but fortunately Marnie read Tricia’s reaction as excitement.
“I know, right? So I thought what a load of balls and ignored it to concentrate on Franco’s loose leads, except this girl messages me in my email… there’s an option for that, and we’d agreed in case someone had information about Franco’s parents.
“Excuse me, that wine has gone right through me, I need a bathroom break,” Tricia said, standing and quickly making her way inside. I had wanted to go with her, but as no one knew Tricia’s situation, I stayed where I was and figured gathering as much information on this girl would either confirm or exclude our suspicions.
“How intriguing, Marnie. What else did your match say?”
“That’s another thing,” she gloated wide-eyed. She was clearly excited, judging by the short shallow breaths she took in between. “I read up on this stuff and our match says it’s 99.8% accurate that I’m her maternal aunt, apparently I share 25% DNA with her, which is a solid match. I told her it was impossible because, although I do have a sister, she wasn’t even seventeen when this girl was born, and although Tricia is the same age as her mom, she hasn’t had a kid at all.”
“Yeah, and I wondered if ol’ Lester had dipped his dick somewhere else and there’s a kid out there by someone else. I mean, Betty?” Franco chimed in. “Like Marnie said, the guy’s a saint putting up with that with no respite.”
I thanked God, in that moment, due to my misspent years; I’d developed an amazing poker face because it was needed for what I said next.
“How did you leave it? Are you going to dig further? I find it all fascinating,” I said, sounding very enthused by their story. “Tell you what, my father’s firm has a vetting department, much like the one the army uses, but we go a bit deeper than that, you know the kind of things, Departments of Health and Welfare, criminal records, education, if your contact is up for some digging I could ask someone to look into it as a mini project.”
“Wow, you’d do that?” Marnie asked, perking up in her seat again.
“I mean who knows what they’d find, so you and the girl would both have to brace yourselves for that, I guess. You too, Franco,” I said, nodding toward him, “that offer extends to you too. If you want to give me what you’ve got, and providing I have everyone’s permission, I could swing it by our guys and see if they turn anything up.” I scratched my head, hoping I sounded as genuine to them as I thought I had. “Come to think on it, I think there’s a genealogy department somewhere connected to them but run separately.”
“Sounds amazing, what do you think, Franco?”
