I ordered a DNA test.
Technically, I ordered it last week. Today I spat into a small plastic tube, sealed it in a bag, and entrusted several generations of unanswered questions to the postal service.
Yes, I did it on DNA Day.
I am not above symbolism.
I was adopted at birth. This has never been a secret, a confession, or the moment in a story when the music changes. My parents told me before I was old enough to understand what they were telling me. By the time I understood adoption, it was simply another thing I knew about myself.
I knew my father chose Lorelei.
I knew my mother chose Anastasia.
I knew I was born in Romania and carried home by two people who had named me and already begun loving me before they met me.
Everything I know about the woman who gave birth to me fits inside a single sentence:
She died bringing me into the world.
I do not know her name. I do not know what she looked like, what made her laugh, whether she read in bed, or whether any part of her face survived in mine.
I know even less about my biological father.
For most of my life, that was enough.
I had a wonderful childhood. An unusual one, perhaps. We moved often. My father’s work placed us in countries whose languages I learned just well enough to embarrass myself in public. My mother filled every house with German stories, old warnings, and rules about what should never be invited across a threshold.
I have never wondered whether I belonged to them.
I have wondered what came before.
Those are not the same question.
The forms ask you to build a family tree. Mine seems to begin in two places: one with the people who raised me and another somewhere beyond the edge of what I know.
I am not looking for different parents.
I am looking for the part of the story that existed before Everett and Anneliese Lassen gave me a name.
The test is in the mail.
Apparently, the past takes six to eight weeks to process.
—Lore
P.S. It feels strange to send part of yourself away and wait to see whether it comes back with stories attached to it.