My Kind of Town
My Kind of Town
>> Queen's Medical Center Who's your daddy?
"And that was it?" Lily Ah Sun said, sharing the phone with her cousin Quinn, not to mention sharing his hospital bed and pressing close to him from cheek to thigh. "That postcard was the last time you heard from Bobo?"
"Yeah," Tony Martinez replied. "So more so I'm glad I saved it."
"Mr. Martinez, would you mind if I came over? I'd like to see that postcard."
"Shoots," he said. "I'm at the Marco Polo."
Lily said she was on her way. But she wasn't.
They heard a knock on the door and a nurse entered.
"Sorry to bother you, but the phone has been busy and, Miss Ah Sun, I'm afraid your father has suffered a heart attack."
"Is he ...?"
"He's in the cardiac unit."
"I'm on my way." But again she wasn't.
As she was kissing Quinn good-bye the male nurse who had earlier taken a pint of Lily's blood and her brother Laird's -- to give to Quinn -- entered with a look on his face like there was something he didn't want to tell her but had to. And all Lily could think was 'That stupid Marty! He slept with me after fooling around with the tourist bitch from Seattle, the one he left me for, and now I have HIV! Thanks, Marty!'
"Miss Ah Sun, if I could have a word with you." He motioned with his head toward the door and the privacy beyond.
Whatever he had to say, whatever his bad news, Lily did not want to hear it alone. "Here is OK," she said, squeezed Quinn's hand, held her breath.
"One of the tests we did on your blood sample and your brother's was DNA. And I see that in fact he's your half-brother."
"No."
"Different fathers."
"No!"
"That's what the lab report says."
"Well then, run it again."
"We did."
"I just can't believe this!"
"The accuracy of the testing is very high. And the same result twice."
Lily was too shocked to speak, but suddenly she understood so much. This explained why her father had been so distant with her -- she'd thought he just didn't know how to relate to a girl. It explained why she got UH and Laird got Stanford -- Lily thought it was just a first son thing. But if Sheets Ah Sun wasn't her father, who was?
After checking on the man who had raised her, learning he was doing OK and kissing his cheek, Lily was at last on her way to visit Tony Martinez.
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek.
His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin
with weekly summaries on Sunday.
He can be e-mailed at dchapman@midweek.com