True to Me - Kay Bratt

Chapter One

Quinn held the small box in her hands, so focused on the contents that even the busy Savannah traffic outside the condo couldn’t penetrate her thoughts. The box felt weightless. Other than the tiny molecules painted on the side, it was plain and unassuming.

But it could be the link to her future.

Or her past.

At this point in her life, both were uncertain.

The only thing she knew for sure was that she needed to begin living again. Before she could do that, she needed to put her mother to rest. In her latest self-help book, she’d read that grief never ends, but it changes. That it’s a passage, and not a place to stay. Quinn needed to pull herself out of the pit of sorrow she’d been living in before she drowned in it.

An hour earlier, she’d watched the final episode in the latest season of Long-Lost Family, a series that highlighted family reunions between people who’d never met, and she couldn’t help but think of what results the small box could bring to her own life.

After checking the activation code, she scanned the terms and conditions, noting that whether she was pleased with the results or not, she couldn’t sue. That meant even if they turned up a serial killer for a father, too bad, the company wasn’t responsible. The consent form was especially entertaining, asking for her signature to better understand the human species.

Quinn could definitely use some assistance in that department.

She filled the small tube with her saliva and capped it. The motion felt strange. Sterile. Such a scientific method for an enormously emotional subject. Quickly, before she could change her mind again, she dropped it into the envelope and sealed it shut, then packed it back into the box. Tomorrow she’d drop it off on her way to work.

Her heart thumped in her chest, beginning the countdown. One second gone, two seconds, three. The waiting would feel endless. But hadn’t she already waited her entire life? What was a few more weeks?

This was it. If all went well, it could mean the end to a lifetime of wondering and longing. Weeks, the advertisement said. In only weeks she would, or could—or maybe only possibly—have a match. A match didn’t necessarily mean she would have what she needed dropped into her hands. Possibly not names, or even explanations. But it meant information. Information could lead to the truth, and the truth to her father.

Her stable, comfortable life had turned complicated. How does a woman come to grips with the fact that the mother she’d known and loved for thirty years had kept such a huge secret from her?

It was a slow progression from the onset of illness to her mother’s death. Quinn had been there for her as much as any daughter possibly could. There had been time. More than enough time. So why had her mother waited until her very last moments to confess?

“Wesley Maguire isn’t your father,” she’d whispered, holding Quinn’s hand to her face before telling Quinn her final wish. “Take me back to Maui.”

In her shock, Quinn hadn’t had time to process the proclamation, much less to ask if he wasn’t her father, then who was? The confession was startling, and her mother’s eyes had begged for forgiveness, even as the light in them faded away.

The weeks that followed were heavy with grief, and in the moments when Quinn could set her sadness aside briefly, she’d searched through every document she could find in her mother’s apartment, sorting through the tangled yet mundane details of a life now gone.

While part of her struggled through the realization that she was truly alone in the world—or at least had no family to speak of—the other part of her felt the need to find some clue as to who her real father was. And why had her mother kept it a secret? To give herself the illusion she wasn’t behaving obsessively or erratically, she told herself that she was simply putting her mother’s affairs in order—ripping off the Band-Aid before she even had a chance to heal.

With an intensity that would make her fiancé, Ethan, proud, Quinn sorted through years of hospital bills and treatment summaries. Lists of medications and books filled with fantasies of alternative medicines.

Receipts. So many receipts. At the end, her mother had made sure to leave no bills behind for Quinn to have to deal with. No unpaid mortgage or car loans. No outstanding medical bills. All of it prepaid, even with a