Now, weeks later, the results arrived. She couldn’t get past the one that matched her with Isabel. Nearly fifty percent shared DNA. Suggested relationship: daughter. Molly stared at the word until it seemed absurd. “No,” she said aloud. Her husband was still trying to convince her that it was all a mistake.
They went through every possible explanation. Molly had never had any medical procedure — nothing that could explain an eleven-year-old child. Her husband frowned at the number. “It just comes back to the company messing up.” Molly agreed that was the reasonable explanation, but she wasn’t certain.
She clicked through Isabel’s profile again, but it gave her almost nothing. The girl’s account was private, and Molly could not see enough to understand the connection. She finally sent a careful message, explaining that she had been adopted from South Korea and was confused by the result that Isabel could be her daughter. Then she waited. Hours passed. No reply. By evening, Molly had read the result so many times she nearly knew it by heart. Either the test was really wrong, or something buried in Molly’s past was still waiting to be uncovered.