Family of Lies by Mary Monroe Page B

grandma, she was all I had left in the world. Now, if this man is my daddy . . .” Sarah sniffed and looked at the floor. When she looked up again, there was a strange smile on her face. “Maybe I won’t be so alone in the world now.”
    “All right,” Brother Whigham grunted. The hard look on his face had softened, but he was still a man I didn’t want to tangle with.
    Right after Brother Whigham slunk back toward the rest of the mourners and the food, Sarah looked at me. “You can prove you’re my real daddy, you know. That DNA thing I keep hearing about on TV would prove it.”
    I nodded. “I didn’t want to have this conversation here. Not right after your mama’s funeral,” I began.
    “Then how come you didn’t try to find out sooner?” Mrs. Cooper asked.
    “Like I told you just a few moments ago, I didn’t even know Lois had a daughter until yesterday when I saw last Friday’s newspaper. I came as soon as I could.” I placed my hand on Sarah’s, covering and gently squeezing it. “I want to do a DNA test as soon as possible. I’d like to get on it today if you don’t mind.” I was so anxious to find out the truth, I knew I would not sleep again until I had at least put the wheels in motion. “I’ll take you to a facility where we can have it done. One of my closest buddies is the head technician there, and I’m sure he’ll accommodate us without an appointment. It could take a few weeks or even months to get the results, but I’m going to do all I can to speed it up.” Then I turned to Mrs. Cooper. “If Sarah is my daughter, I will take care of her and I will make sure you are well taken care of too.”
    “You still operate all them computer stores?” Mrs. Cooper asked dryly.
    “Yes, I do,” I said proudly.
    “Brother, you gots to be real rich, then. Where you live at? Not in the hood, I bet!” Mrs. Cooper hurled the words at me like rocks. “You probably live in the Marina district or up on Nob Hill or one of them other uppity neighborhoods with a bunch of white folks. You want your friends to know about us?”
    “I live in Pacific Heights. And if Sarah is my child, I want the world to know about her,” I stated.
    “You got any other young’uns?” Mrs. Cooper asked. “You got a wife? What about them?”
    “I don’t have any other children—that I know of. Most of the family I have left still live in Houston where I grew up. I have a very beautiful wife. She’s very understanding and supportive.”
    “I hope you still think your ‘very beautiful’ wife is ‘understanding and supportive’ when you tell her about Sarah,” Mrs. Cooper quipped. “My husband left me for a girl who was working as his secretary almost thirty years ago. I’m still mad enough about it that if I ran into her on the street, I’d kick her tail from here to Timbuktu.”
    I wondered just how understanding and supportive Vera was going to be when I told her I’d had an affair with a teenager and possibly fathered a child. I wasn’t going to say anything to her about it until the DNA test was completed. If it proved that Sarah was my child, then I’d beg Vera to forgive me. If she did, I would spend the rest of my life making this up to her.

CHAPTER 11
SARAH
    I MISSED MY MAMA. S HE WAS ON MY MIND DAY AND NIGHT. A ND WHEN she wasn’t on my mind, Mr. Lomax was. I liked him. I would have been proud to claim him as my daddy, even if he wasn’t.
    Mr. Lomax had told me that it would take a while to get the results of the DNA test. We didn’t hear from him until two weeks later.
    Grandma Lilly and I had just come home from church that Sunday afternoon about twenty minutes before he knocked on the door.
    Our apartment was located in a twenty-unit building in the crime-ridden district called Hunters Point. We lived on the fourth floor, and every window in our apartment had bars. But that still didn’t stop the thieves. Our door had a dead bolt, but a thief had still pried it open one night when we