Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
Current Day
The weeks passed by, and Matilda fell into a routine. She liked to sleep, take a jog around the lake, then head into the cafe for work. She often worked the lunch and dinner shifts, which meant she got to bed later than she normally would. She’d gone from being an early bird to a night owl, which seemed a lateral ornithological move but meant she felt a bit lacklustre.
Winter was well and truly over now, and spring had arrived with a vengeance. Yellow pollen lay on every surface like a thick hay fever inducing blanket. Matilda had a perpetual sniffle and itchy eyes. The arrival of the humidity only made it all worse. She sat in the truck on the way to the cafe alone that morning. Rita was taking the day off, something she’d done increasingly over the past few weeks. Her surgery had been postponed due to issues with her heart, and she was feeling uncomfortable.
The traffic on the way to the cafe was always heavy. But this morning, it was at a standstill. They were about forty miles outside of the city, but Atlanta was a sprawling metropolis, and its traffic density impacted the lifestyles of people for miles in every direction. One reason being that there appeared to be very little in the way of public transportation, and even the bus and train lines that existed weren’t used by many of the city’s occupants. The result was a glut of six million people all heading out onto the roads at the same time and going in the same direction for the entire morning, then after lunch, they turned around and headed back together all at once.
She was grateful she didn’t have to commute into Atlanta each day, but today was bad enough to make her grit her teeth in frustration. It was as if the road had been cut up ahead, no one was moving an inch. And she sat in that traffic for at least an hour, not moving, until finally the cars in front of her crawled forwards. When she passed the minor accident, the cars had been moved onto the right shoulder of the road. And the steady stream of vehicles moving by were rubbernecking so badly that it took another fifteen minutes just to creep past them.
Finally, she arrived at the cafe, but later than she’d intended. She had to run in order to catch up on getting the tables ready for the lunch crowd. She stopped in the office to check on the supplies and invoices before they opened and found a letter addressed to her. She often got her mail sent to the cafe since it was easy for her to keep track of it there, especially if she decided one day to get her own apartment. It was something she’d been considering more lately, although Rita still needed her around while she was going through treatment.
She sat in the swivel chair behind Rita’s desk and opened the envelope with one finger. It was the results from the DNA comparison she, Rita, and Julie had sent to the lab. She’d slipped her sister Stella’s DNA profile into the packet at the last moment on a hunch. And now she wondered if she’d done the right thing—she hadn’t even asked Stella for permission. Her heart rate accelerated as her gaze skimmed over the words on the page. She glanced down at the graph below the text and saw something that made her stomach drop.
No familial connection between her and Julie.
There was no familial connection between Rita and Julie.
But Rita was indeed her aunt.
And Stella and Julie were sisters.
She stared at the results, her mind blank. It was overwhelming. Too much information. She couldn’t take it all in.
She pulled her phone out of her jeans pocket and called Stella. It was late at night in Australia, but Stella would probably still be awake. She was pregnant again and had nausea induced insomnia like she had for the first trimester of her first pregnancy.
Matilda really needed to talk to her.
“Hello?” Stella sounded sleepy.
“I’m sorry, did I wake you?”
“No, I’m awake. I’m trying to get to sleep, but I keep going over my to-do list, then running to bathroom in case I throw up. Nothing yet, but it’s driving me crazy. Sean is snoring too, so I’ve got no chance of falling to sleep.”
“That’s awful, you poor thing. I wish I could give you a hug.”
“I’ll survive. How are you?”
“I’m okay. I’m at the cafe about to start my shift. But I need to talk to you about something…”
“Before you dive into all that, can I tell you my news?”
Matilda hesitated. “Okay … I don’t have a lot of time.”
“You’ll want to hear this. Remember we went to see Auntie Flora? And she told us that she saw you being born?”
“How can I forget?” Matilda rubbed her hand over her forehead.
“Well, I called to check on her yesterday and she said something about how Mum and Dad had such a hard time getting pregnant with you—she called it secondary infertility—and they had to travel the States to get a round of IVF treatment done.”
“What?” Matilda sat up straight, her heart pounding.
“Yeah, I thought you might find that interesting.”
“I was an IVF baby?”
“Yep. They stayed there for months apparently. The clinic in Georgia was one of the best in the world. And they’d already tried everything back home. I do vaguely remember Grandma and Grandpa used to drive us to school, but we were all so little, it’d slipped my mind.”
“And when they came back, Mum was pregnant with me?”
“Yep.”
“I’ve just found out that you and Julie are sisters,” Matilda said.
This time it was Stella’s turn to be dumbfounded. “Who’s Julie again?”
“She’s Rita’s niece. Rita’s sister Helen’s daughter.”
“We’re sisters?”
“That’s right. And I’m Rita’s niece, but no relation to Julie.”
“This is all so complicated,” Stella said with a groan.
“Tell me about it. I need to talk to Rita. I’ve got to go.”
The shift at the cafe lasted as long as Methuselah. She thought it would never end. Finally, Matilda jumped in the truck and screeched out of the parking lot to head for the lake house. The after-school traffic was an absolute disaster, and she sat in the truck, chewing her fingernails, her stomach twisted into knots, while she waited impatiently to get through a four-way stop by the local school.
She needed to have this conversation with Rita in person. It wasn’t the kind of thing you could talk about over the phone. She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, then when the traffic eased up, she hit the accelerator, the truck’s V6 engine grumbling to life.
By the time she reached the lake house, she was sweating, despite having the air conditioning on blast. She really should convince Rita to get the truck serviced. She hurried into the house, casting her purse aside on the hall table, and found Rita in the kitchen frying chicken.
“There you are,” Rita said, with a wide smile. “I’m making fried chicken and biscuits. Do you think we need gravy? Or should I do something healthy for a side, like a salad or baked beans?”
Matilda sat on a bar stool and leaned her elbows on the counter. She felt tired. Bone tired. This wasn’t a conversation she was looking forward to having. But she needed to say the words, to get to the truth. To know for certain that she wasn’t crazy. That all her life, she’d been different for a reason.
“I like salad, I think that would be nice.”
“Great idea, we need more greens around here. Oh, and Julie’s coming to visit this weekend. Isn’t that great? I convinced her it’s time for her to come home. Plus, it’s spring break.”
“Perfect, I’m so looking forward to meeting her,” Matilda said. It was high time she and Julie met and had a discussion face-to-face.
“She’s excited about it too. This is going to be so great. I’m gonna make some ribs and potato salad. Maybe we should invite Ryan too, since he is your husband, after all.” Rita peered at Matilda over the top of her glasses.
Matilda huffed. “You know why we did that. Don’t make it weird.”
“Me? Make it weird? Y’all set sail with that ship long ago.”
“I need to talk to you about something,” Matilda replied suddenly. She wasn’t sure how Rita would take the news. But surely, she suspected something like this. They’d been talking the situation over for months, trying to figure it out. But there was still one piece of the puzzle missing. And Matilda needed to hear it from Rita’s lips.
“Okay, shoot. Should I sit down for this?”
“I think that would be wise.”
Rita arched an eyebrow, then switched off the stove. She lumbered into the lounge room and sat with a grunt. “My feet are killing me.”
“You’re supposed to be taking better care of yourself. Getting some rest. Your surgery is coming up.”
“I know. Problem is, I can’t sleep much at the moment. I’m so uncomfortable all of the time, and I’ve got the worse reflux.”
Matilda sat in an armchair across from her. She inhaled a deep breath and explained what she’d discovered to Rita whose face grew more and more pale the longer she spoke. Finally, she finished her monologue and waited for Rita’s response.
Rita nodded slowly, taking it all in. “I thought it would be something like that. It’s been on my mind a lot lately. You know, I always knew it could be an issue. Ever since Julie was born, people always said she didn’t look anything like her momma or her daddy. But they said it innocently, you know. Just the way people do. It didn’t mean anything. Or at least, I didn’t think so. But then you showed up and it made me think.”
“Do you know if Helen ever had IVF?”
“Oh yes, she surely did.”
Matilda gasped and leaned back in her chair. “Well, that settles it then. There was a mix-up at the IVF clinic. I have to confirm they attended the same one, but that’s the only logical explanation. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“It does seem that way, honey. The only thing is, I’m worried how Julie will take it. She doesn’t know about any of this. I’ve told her a little about you visiting and looking for your family, that you think we’re connected somehow. But this will be a blow to her, there’s no getting around that. She loved her momma so well. And you say your parents are gone?”
“Both died over the past five years, I’m afraid.”
“So neither one of you got to meet your folks.”
Matilda’s heart clenched. “No, that’s true. Although I’m very grateful to have met you.”
Rita reached out a hand and squeezed Matilda’s. “Me too, honey. Me too.”
The next day, Matilda rose early and drove to the immigration office downtown. She stood in line forever with a million other folks who wanted answers. Finally, her number was called.
She soon discovered that she could apply for a green card given her parents were US citizens, and she didn’t need to be married to get the visa. She requested they make the changes to her application on the spot. She would be a green card holder within six months, they assured her, if all the supporting paperwork was supplied by the deadline.
As she drove home, she thought about Ryan and how he’d feel about that. Likely he’d be relieved to finally be rid of her after the way she’d left things with him. So, she resolved to tell him the next time she saw him. She wouldn’t make a big deal of it. It wasn’t something either of them should spend any time worrying about. They were never really married, after all. They could get an annulment, forget about their fake marriage and move on with their lives. It wouldn’t impact them in any way. So, why did the thought of telling him put a stone in the pit of her gut?