Love You to the Moon and Back

The Unraveling of the Truth - Spring 2041

"Dad!" Nicky wailed over the phone. "Dad," he cried again. "They lied. They all lied." 

"Nicky, who lied?" I asked as panic was seizing hold in my heart. I was in another country and on the other side of the continent from him. 

"They all did," Nicky continued. 

"Son, take a deep breath and calm down," I became worried. Nicky had never been an overly emotional child. Something terrible had happened, and I needed to investigate. Nicky was in his first year of University and halfway into his second semester. "Who lied to you, and what did they lie to you about?" 

I could hear Nicky taking a deep breath on the other end of the line. "Are you sitting down, Dad?" He asked. 

"Yes," I replied as I went to sit on the kitchen bar stool. "Okay, what's happened." 

"So, I decided to do my genetic profile for my year-end project," Nicky began. My son had decided that his career path would be to enroll in the NYPD Academy and become a genetic detective. 

"Okay," I took a deep breath on the other side of the line.

"I had my DNA, and Aunt Bethany offered hers for me to study." 

"And what did you find?" 

"Aunt Bethany and I are not related genetically to each other." 

"Aunt Bethany is your mother's sister, Nick." 

"But we are not genetically related. We don't share any DNA. I ran the test multiple times and always came to the same conclusion." 

"Did you share this information with Aunt Bethany?"

"Yes, I did." 

"And what was her reaction?" 

"She is as confused as I am," Nicky replied. 

"Okay, did you ask Nana and Nonno Lucia?"

"No, not yet." 

"So, how are you sure they all lied to you?" 

"Dad!" 

"Please, son, what do you think this means?" 

"I don't know. Maybe Aunt Bethany is adopted. Maybe my Mom was adopted." 

"I think the most likely candidate is that your Mom was adopted," I suggested. 

It was all becoming clear to me. The sometimes standoffish attitude Anne Lucia had towards Clara. Anne had made excuses for why she could not attend Nicky's birth. I now understood that perhaps Anne had not wished to be there since she had not given birth to Clara. There was also the fact that Clara had the most beautiful almond-shaped eyes. No one else in Clara's family had those eyes besides Nicky, whom she had passed her genetics.  

"What did the genetic testing of your DNA profile say?" Perhaps we could solve the mystery by examining his biological makeup. 

"I'm not as Italian as I believed, and I'm one-eighth Asian!" There it was. The truth was in the double helix. I took another deep breath. "Please don't stop loving me, Dad...." Nicky cried. 

"Why would I ever stop loving you?" I asked him. "Dominick Roberto Carisi, you are my son. I can confirm that without a DNA test. I was present at your conception. I was there when you emerged from your mother, and I cut the cord separating you from her," I said. "I love you more than anything in this world."

"How do I prove Mom's true story?" 

"There's a few boxes of Mom's belongings in the attic," I began. When Nicky was five, we moved into a Manhattan brownstone from our Staten Island home. I had the difficult task of downsizing and sorting through Clara's things during that time. "There may be a hairbrush there." 

"Could you send it?" 

"Yeah, sure. Anything. Nick, we will get to the bottom of this, okay? For you, Aunt Bethany, and most of all for your Mom and her memory." 

Later that afternoon, I dug out the ladder and popped the doorway to the attic entrance. Through the dim light, I found what I was looking for, a stack of boxes containing a few items belonging to Clara, which I had never been able to give away. There were boxes with a few clothing items, unique pieces like her wedding dress, boxes of her vinyl records,