“Holy shit! What’s wrong?” I could hear her spring into friend-emergency mode through the phone.

“I think I’m having an anxiety attack. Or is it a panic attack? What is it when your heart feels like it’s beating in your head?” I raced down the street toward the subway, power walking.

“What happened?”

“That DNA-test thing we did? I just got mine back. I have a fucking half sister.” The words were coming out of my mouth at twice their normal speed.

She let out a drawn-out “Holy crap.”

“In Italy. I’m not half–Italian American. I’m half–Italian Italian.”

The lady standing in the doorway of the Laundromat gave me a strange look as I passed by, still shouting.

“Wow, your mom got knocked up by an Italian dude. Way to go, Diane.”

“Cleo! He’s dead.” There was that tightness in my chest again, crawling back up my throat.

“Oh my god,” she gasped. “Okay, look, where are you? I can hear outside sounds.”

“I’m going to spin class! I already paid for it, and I don’t want to eat the cost.”

“Franny, what? Can you just stay where you are and I’ll come find you? You don’t need to go to a spin class right now.”

“I’m going to that place on Atlantic. I need to pedal out this energy.”

“What time does class start?” she asked, her breathing suddenly huffy, like she was running.

I whipped the phone away from my ear to check the clock. “Thirty minutes.”

“’Kay. I’m on my way.”

“What? Seriously?” I shouted as I jaywalked across the street. But all that was left on the other end of the line was silence.

*  *  *

Twenty-seven minutes later, I was clipping my shoes into the pedals on a bike, Jay-Z pumping from a speaker that was turned up entirely too loud for an 8 a.m. class. Here, in this dark room full of bikes and sweaty strangers, I could avoid the unsettling reality that awaited me. I didn’t just have new genetic info to wrap my head around.

I had a sister. And a dad I’d never get to meet.

I was already breathing heavily and was only sitting on the bike, barely moving my legs. The panic was still here. My plan to pedal it out of me was beginning to seem absurd, and I leaned my head onto the handlebars and watched as a petite woman in bright striped leggings hopped on the bike next to me.

“Excuse me, would you possibly mind switching bikes?”

Cleo. I would know that determined voice anywhere.

“I was hoping to be next to my friend,” she continued, talking to the woman next to me. “She’s getting over a terrible case of food poisoning, and I want to make sure she doesn’t pass out in class. Or barf.”