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The sound of crying is distinct and clear. June reacts immediately, is soon rushing up the stairs to the room she shares with her sister, heading directly to the source. Opening the door, she sees Jade sitting at their shared computer, bawling openly at... something. The contents of the screen come into focus as June approaches.
It is the May of 2013, and a journalistic tour-de-force long in the works has finally reached the public: A Lifetime of Lies: The Many Secret Families of Jacob Harley. Quite a hefty volume, detailing the journey to uncover the details as much as the details themselves. Available wherever books are sold.
Jade's gaze breaks away from the article onscreen, a promotional piece for the book in question, recoiling from it like a hand from a hot stove. She looks right at June and tries to say something but can't quite get it out, the stream of tears and feelings drowning out whatever words she tried to conjure. June puts her arms around her, picks her up from the chair into a tight embrace.
"Hey, hey. Jade. I'm here, it's ok." June's words are full of love, though there is a confusion creeping into her words. Now she's the one staring at the screen, over the shuddering shoulder pressed right below her chin. Secret families? Jeez.
After a few seconds, Jade is just composed enough to sputter out a few words, "It's... It's not okay!" June can still feel the torrent of tears wetting her shirt. "He's.... He was..." Emotion swells back up, and Jade is not quite composed enough to finish.
The pair sink into silence, but for the ambient noise of the home and Jade's heavy, sobbing breaths. They stand together, crying and comforting, until at last enough tears have been spent to buy a calm recollection of faculties. June eases Jade over to her bed, and they both sit down on the edge.
Jade sniffles. She wipes away what may or may not be the last of the moment's tears. And finally, after one last deep breath, she begins again to speak. "He never said anything. He never said anything about other kids, or family, or secrets."
June nods slowly. "Your grandpa?"
Jade gives her a weak punch in the arm. "Of course my grandpa, you dork." It's not quite the accompanying laugh such an accusation would normally be part and parcel with, but her mouth quirks into a fast-fading smile.
June rubs at the deep and grievous wound, and shares the brief smile, humor tempered by sisterly concern. "So... somebody wrote a book about him?"
She flings her amrs in the air, gesticulating at some frustrating notion. "It's not just a book, it's like, an investigation! A whole investigation into my grandpa," she sniffles a bit more, "and they never told me about it."
An investigation. June makes a mental note down to recommend the book to Jane. Then she thinks that's maybe not what she should be focusing on right now? "Okay, so somebody snooped around. I mean, you and me being family was so secret that an alien had to tell us about it! So, I doubt he was really lying about it by not saying anything, he might not have known."
"Yeah, but..." Jade stops and blinks a few times. "Wait, what? That's, um, that's not what this is about."
"Oh. Then what IS this about?" June, admittedly, had not been able to read very much of the article in the midst of that hug.
Jade sighs, a little bit at June's cluelessness, but mostly at the upsetting situation that this book presents. She didn't want to have to think about this at all, let alone explain it. But she's got too much self-respect to ignore it, and she really needs to organize her thoughts anyways, so explain she does. "So um, basically some journalists looked into my grandpa and found a bunch of people who claimed to be his kids. Not just a few of them, but a lot. Dozens of them. And so they got to talking with these people and," Jade hesitates. She's starting to feel that tugging sensation in her chest again, that hardly held-back heaviness, "and they didn't have a lot of nice things to say about him."
June considers this. "Well, he's famous, right? World famous explorer and rich guy and all of that stuff. People claim to know celebrities or be related to them or whatever all of the time. Especially dead ones. Maybe this is like those guys who say Elvis abducted them into an alien space ship?" After a pause, she feels the need to amend, "not real aliens like the chess guys or trolls either."
In comes sigh the second, this one more lighthearted than its predecessor. "I sorta thought that too, but the article talks about evidence, and, it's, well," she doesn't want to say it. But, based on what she read, "it sounds pretty conclusive. They had DNA tests and everything. They didn't have any of his DNA, but they were able to show that all these people they found were almost definitely half-siblings."
June rubs Jade's back, up and down. This seems to soothe her a bit. "And they're sure he's the dad?"
Frustration flares up again. "Who else would it be?" She stands up now, and stomps to the middle of the room, hands pressed to the sides of her head, keeping her irritation from bursting out. "Who else travelled all over the world, and had the money to keep it all hushed up," she stops pacing suddenly and nearly screams, "and was identified as the dad by all of the mothers!"
"Ah." So much for the soothing.
"They... god! I haven't even read the book, I don't even know that much right now but, they, god, they all," she slows down to collect her thoughts. "Everything I saw, they're being so mean to him! And, and," another sniffle, "the worst of it, the," she spits the words, "the worst is that it sounds like he deserves it."
June stands up with her, offering another embrace. Jade does not immediately reciprocate. She's struggling with something, her face tight with an emotional effort.
"I only knew him for five years."
There's a layered mournfulness to the statement. It's a pained admission of how little she really knew that man who meant so much to her. It's an uncomfortable reminder the sudden loss of the only adult presence she'd had in her waking life at that point, the only one she'd have for years more still. It's a recognition of those years after, the years alone.
Jade allows herself to fall against June, collapses in her embrace. Here, now, she is with her sister, she is in the house of her adoptive father. She is not alone. Here, now, no more words are said, as comfort is delivered through closeness.