‘Okay, let’s see …’ I said, glancing at her out of the corner of my eye, not sure why she was fidgeting all of a sudden. I navigated to the screen showing my complete list of relatives in the 23andMe customer database. ‘Where are you?’ I said, scrolling down the first page of results. I didn’t recognize any of the names listed. Andrea Catalano was nowhere to be seen. ‘We have the same last name, how are you not on my list?’

‘Yeah, this is crazy,’ Andie replied, a look of confusion and worry etched deep into her warm brown eyes.

‘I’m calling my mom,’ I said as face recognition unlocked my iPhone. ‘Clearly something weird is going on here.’

‘Yeah, good idea,’ Andie said as I quickly typed out a message asking my mom if she had time to talk. In typical loving-but-overbearing mother fashion, my phone immediately started ringing in my hand.

‘Hey Mom,’ I said as I answered the FaceTime call.

‘Hi sweetie, how’s everything going? Did you see that article I sent you yesterday about that new dating app everyone’s using that matches you with friends of friends of friends? Maybe you should give it a try? You know I worry about you girls being all alone in that apartment. I know Andie has her boyfriend, but it would be nice if—’

‘Yes, Mother, I saw it,’ I interrupted with an exaggerated sigh, cutting her off before she really got going.

Ever since I’d dumped my last boyfriend Evan for cheating on me three months ago, my mom had nagged me about dating and her desire for grandchildren every chance she got. I’d caught Evan cheating with a coworker of his and that was the end of that. I didn’t even cry when he tried to explain that he’d fallen in love with this other woman and that he hadn’t meant to hurt me. Instead, I’d smashed his phone under my foot and stormed out. I’d told my mom countless times that I wasn’t ready to date yet, that I needed more time, but Catalanos had a history of marrying young and my mom was anxious to become a grandma. I hadn’t told her about the couple of dates I’d gone on in the last month for fear of her getting too excited about dates that would probably go nowhere. I had found something fundamentally wrong with each of them: too clingy, too messy, too boring. No matter how much my mom wanted me to be in a relationship, after dipping my toe in the dating waters I knew I just wasn’t able to let anyone in yet. Keeping the dates from her had been nagging at me, as that was so out of character for our relationship, but I couldn’t bear the full court press after each failed date. I would fill her in eventually.