“What lie?”

“We aren’t his birth parents.”

“You aren’t?” My mouth fell open, and I gaped at her in absolute surprise. “But he looks so much like you and Howard.”

“That made our secret so much easier to keep. We adopted him as a newborn. His real mother never saw his face, never got to hold him. We understand she was very young, and the father wasn’t in the picture.”

“I had no idea.”

“Nor did Mark.” Fran’s face was lined with guilt. “We denied Mark the right to know his family. I don’t want that to happen to the twins. They have a right to a relationship with people who share their genetics.”

“No matter what, you’ll always be their grandparents, genetics be damned.”

Fran’s eyes were unusually misty, and she dabbed at them with a napkin. “As a nurse, I’m fully aware genetics play an important part in a person’s health.”

I nodded, not sure what she was getting at exactly. Being a worrier, I immediately jumped to the worst conclusion. Had Mark had some kind of hereditary health issue I wasn’t aware of?

“Don’t panic, Caro.” Fran reached out and patted my hand, guessing accurately what I’d been thinking. “There’s one half of the twins’ relatives we know nothing about. I’d been meaning to have this conversation with Mark, but I’d put it off until too late. Now I can only fix it for his children. I think you need to have them DNA tested. I’ve looked into it, and via DNA testing on a popular genealogy site, you’ll be able to find out close matches for relatives, background, and possible genetic health concerns.”

“I don’t know,” I hedged, not sure why I was balking at this idea.

“Heath and Hailey most likely have another set of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins… They deserve to know them, especially considering we have such a small family unit. Why not expand that unit?”

“What if they’re not interested in knowing them?”

“Then that will be that. No harm done. Wouldn’t you rather know than not know? What if Mark has parents out there who wonder about him? Howard and I always thought there’d be time to tell Mark he was adopted. We waited for the right moment, and we waited too long. I don’t want to make such a mistake with his children. They deserve to know, and we need to know.”

Fran needed to know. I understood her guilt and her dilemma. Out there somewhere was a family we knew nothing about with their own life stories. I recalled filling out a form for my health insurance that asked several questions about the health of my relatives and known health issues in my family. My twins would be at a disadvantage as they’d only have one half of the picture. The more I thought about it, the more curious I was about these mystery people who shared a portion of my children’s DNA. Genetics played a larger role in our lives than many of us cared to admit.