Travis looked back at me. ‘So, did you get the computer?’

I gave him a sly smile. ‘Yep. And the world cracked open for me.’ I spread my arms out wide before dropping them back in my lap. My smile fell as my current reality came rushing back. ‘So, you can see why this is especially hard. I’m at this roadblock and I don’t know how to get through it. How do I connect with my biological family if no one is responding?’

‘Well, you could try doing some more kits. Maybe you have family who tested through different DNA companies and you can find more relatives that way? Could be worth a shot,’ Andie said, before taking a swig of her own cider.

‘Have you ever heard of GEDMatch?’ Travis chimed in, stretching one long arm around Andie’s shoulder as he looked across at me.

Andie and Travis had been dating for over a year and the three of us had become pretty close. Travis had proven himself worthy of infiltrating my and Andie’s tight knit bond, graciously letting me be a third wheel on some of their dates once I became single.

‘GEDMatch?’ I asked. ‘No, what’s that?’

‘I heard some people talking about it at my law firm recently,’ Travis said. ‘Apparently it’s this website where you can upload your DNA profile and check for any matches across all ancestry platforms without actually doing every single company’s kit. Other relatives would have to have uploaded to GEDMatch in order for them to show up in your results, but you might be able to track more of them down.’

‘Wait, really?’ I said, my heart beating faster. ‘Andie, hand me my laptop, let’s check it out.’

Andie grabbed my laptop off the wooden shelf under the coffee table and handed it to me. I quickly navigated to the GEDMatch homepage.

Hastily scanning the introductory page detailing how to use the website, I said out loud, ‘Oh, amazing. There’s a free version you can use. Why not, right?’ I looked up at them, seeking affirmation.