I moved my face closer to the screen to read it.
“Aside from his dad’s name being the same as mine, not really. Please don’t tell me that you’re making something out of that coincidence. There are a million Jacks in the world, and besides, they both have different last names. We already knew that one of the names he went by was Jack. I don’t see how this is a big deal.”
“It’s not,” Adam said. “Until you look at the rest of the paperwork.”
He scrolled his finger down and pointed to the part that listed the address for Michael’s father, which was the address of my childhood home.
“What the hell?” I said under my breath.
“Yeah,” Adam said. “So now we have his father and your father both having the same name and the same address. See how it’s a big deal now?”
As weird as that was, there had to be some sort of explanation for it.
“Maybe it was a typo,” I said.
I knew that sounded absolutely absurd. How many typos were there on official birth records and what are the chances of my family’s address being the one used by mistake. There was just no way that was plausible.
“Come on, Lisette,” Adam said. “I love you and all, but don’t be stupid. There’s no way that was a typo.”
I shook my head. “Maybe there was some other reason. Michael said that my mom helped him when he was growing up; maybe there was a reason that they used my family’s address.”
“Okay, again I’ll say it; don’t be stupid. Michael was a newborn, and your families hated each other. There would have been no reason for them to use your address.”
“Okay then, Adam,” I said as I started to get pissed off at being called stupid. “What do you think the reason behind this, then? Please tell me all of your conspiracy theories.”
“I only have one,” he said as he turned around in his chair to face me. “And I honestly don’t think that it’s far-fetched enough to be a conspiracy theory.”
I waited for him to say it and hoped that he would just keep it inside his own head because I already knew what he was going to propose, and it was ludicrous and absolutely impossible.
“I think that Michael is your brother.”
“God damn it, Adam!” I screamed at him.
He was just doing this to create drama and drive a wedge in between us again. There was absolutely no way it could be true. There were way too many contradictory things that didn’t add up. Yes, it was all very strange, and the coincidences were unnerving, but that’s all that they were—strange and unnerving coincidences.
“What’s going on?” Michael said as he rushed out of the kitchen to see what I was yelling about.
“Nothing,” I said.
Adam quickly changed his computer screen to look like a blank internet search browser.
“I don’t think you’d be shouting at him if it was nothing,” Michael said as he looked suspiciously at us both.
He had a point.
Rob came out of his room when he heard the commotion as well.
“What did you do now?” he asked as he lightly smacked Adam on the back of the head.
It was more a gesture of brotherly and playful banter than it was ill will.
“Nothing,” Adam said. “Just trying to talk some sense into Lisette again.”
“About what?” Rob asked.
He was starting to look just about as suspicious as Michael was.
“Hey, I need to go to the store too,” I said to Rob quickly.
I didn’t actually have anything that I needed at the store, but I needed to get out of the house and get out of the bedroom that Michael and I were headed to. I just needed a second to breathe, not that I believed anything that Adam said about it, because I didn’t. I just wasn’t feeling quite in the mood right now to go and have sex.
“What do you need at the store?” he asked. “I can grab it for you if you want.”
“Nope,” I said as I grabbed my jacket off the back of the chair. “Girl stuff. I need to go look myself.”
“Sure thing,” Rob said. “Come along and get whatever you need. I’ll take the girl stuff answer over the I’m pregnant one any day of the week.”
I laughed, but it was more of a nervous laugh than an amused one.
“Do you really need to go right now?” Michael asked.
“Yeah,” I nodded quickly.
“I’ll come with you,” he said.
“No it’s fine, I won’t be long,” I said as I started out the door before Rob even had a chance to catch up.
I could feel Michael’s confused stare boring into the back of my head. It would be fine. I’d come up with some sort of story to tell him about why I needed to leave for the store so abruptly once I got in the car and had a second to think about it. I stood by the car door and waited impatiently for Rob to come and unlock the car. Once we were about a half a mile down the road, he turned to me in the passenger seat.
