'Siobhan; don't be absurd –'
'For the last time Gloria; my name isn't Siobhan; it's Saoirse.' Saoirse almost yelled; her hands shaking as she hastily lowered her glass of untouched wine. 'And I'm pretty sure you're unsure concerning the definition of "absurd" as nothing I've so far said deserves to have that adjective employed in its description.' She added while thumbing through the DNA profiles sitting innocently on her lap.
'But Siobh- Saoirse, you're accusation comes as such a surprise –'
'And don't you dare lie to me, not with such incriminating evidence lying in front of you!' Saoirse spat while throwing the DNA profiles onto the table, her voice shaking almost as badly as her trembling limbs.
'Well, you've obviously misread these profiles, there's no possible way you and Caoimhe can't be related –'
'My intelligence is not the thing to be questioned Gloria. I want some answers. Now.' She added coldly. Gloria picked up the profiles, ran her uneducated eye over the bands in a lazy fashion before placing them delicately onto the table.
'So there are no similarities, what has that to do with anything?' She asked in a nauseatingly ignorant tone.
'Similarities in the bands are crucial for determining siblings or parents who share the same DNA, mother. If you were to compare our sets of DNA you would definitely find something of a similar nature; unfortunately.' Saoirse said icily.
'You're blunt charm never fails to astound me.' Her mother responded drily.
'How long have you known Caoimhe wasn't yours?'
'What an absurd conclusion you've drawn from a bunch of squiggles on some clear cellophane –'
'The truth, Gloria. I want to know the truth.' Saoirse spoke the words slowly, hoping to embellish each syllable with the seriousness of the situation.
'And what makes you think I'm hiding anything?' Gloria asked innocently.
'Science.' Saoirse said exasperatedly. 'You've got twenty seconds to start talking Gloria. And I'd be mightily careful about employing tongue-in-cheek answers with what you're about to tell me; these profiles may mean little to you but to a social worker and a judge, they would mean the end of your mother-daughter relationship with Caoimhe.' The colour abruptly drained from Gloria's face, her eyes sharpening when she realised what Saoirse was threatening. A furious pause spiralled between them, Gloria's pencilled brows contracting severely, complimenting the snarl which pulled at her lips. Saoirse matched her ferocious glare, willing her mother to break this tension-fuelled silence before she did.
'You just had to stick your nose where it didn't belong didn't you?' Gloria sneered.
'So I was right? Caoimhe isn't a blood relative?' Saoirse asked in a timid whisper, her shoulders sagging at the approval of her theory.
'No. She isn't.' Gloria said dismissively.
'Then… who is she?'
'Adopted.'
'Adopted…?'
'It was your father's idea.'
'He was trying to replace me?'
'No you silly little girl, he was trying to lure you home! And to give the old fool some credit, it almost worked –'
'Lure me home? Why would he –'
'If you would cease to constantly interrupt me with this stream of useless questions, I might be able to tell you the whole tale before I'm placed in my coffin!' Gloria spat vehemently. Saoirse bit back a scintillating retort before crossing her arms and waiting for her mother to continue. 'Despite your remarkable betrayal –' Saoirse could only just hold her tongue at this opening '– your father was still desperate to have you in his life. So using his imagination, he devised a method which would allow you to enter our lives once more without you understanding his intentions – by pretending you had a sister. You can only imagine the stressful time we had in order to procure such a girl. After much searching, eventually we found a suitable match. There only remained one problem; the securing of said child.'
'I thought you said Caoimhe was adopted?'
'What did I say about interruptions?' Gloria roared in a stage whisper. Saoirse held up her hands in mock surrender and signalled for her mother to continue with the story. 'Well… where was I? Ah yes. Caoimhe was around two years old when we initially found her but unfortunately, the teen who'd been knocked up with this red haired jewel seemed intent on keeping her. As you well know, your father is not a man used to having his will denied. In the ways typical of his customs, he produced some material of an incriminating nature which we could employ against Caoimhe's maternal mother, evidence which under no circumstances she would like to have brought to the attention of the authorities. Of course if such an event did occur, she would be stripped of her child who would in turn be placed in the unsettling and insecure environment of a foster home. So she was given an ultimatum. She could give Caoimhe to us where she was guaranteed a stable and wealthy life or she could refuse and Caoimhe would be transported to the world of foster care where not only would she never lay eyes on her daughter again, but understanding some statistics concerning such places, Caoimhe would undoubtedly grow up to become some sort of criminal or drug addict. I'm sure you're smart enough to deduce which of the options she picked.' Gloria finished with a smirk, refilling her now empty glass of red wine.
Saoirse watched the pungent red liquid slosh into the crystal glass, astounded at how her opinion of her parents which she'd originally thought could sink no lower, had done just that. She lifted her own glass and allowed some of the strong liquid to trickle down her throat, the strong kick of alcohol returning her to this unfortunate conversation.
'Does Caoimhe have any idea?' Saoirse asked in a raspy voice.
'No. And I plan to keep it that way. As I'm sure you've noticed; the darling has been through enough of late. Do you really believe she needs to have the very foundations of her existence, the one thing which she can take for granted at the moment, questioned? By all means Saoirse, go and break the news to the little girl, I will have no more to do with the harm which has been cruelly inflicted upon her. My plan is for her and myself to leave this horrible city, lick our wounds and get on with our lives. You are not so foolish as to fail to understand that delivering news such as this will do nothing but smash her fragile self into an unfixable mess.' Saoirse looked long and hard at her mother's carefree expression, not wanting to process the horrid information which had just passed her way but being unable of course to ignore it. Caoimhe had come into her parent's lives to lure her back into the Conlon household. Because of Saoirse's rebellious antics, Caoimhe had been uprooted from a loving mother and had been placed in situations too grotesque to comprehend for such a youngling. Saoirse's hand clenched around the glass and it took every ounce of will-power to abstain from smashing it into her mother's face, to watch her blood pour and mix with the silky red wine until the two were indistinguishable in the array of crushed crystal decorating her marred features.
She abruptly rose, snatched up the DNA profiles and stalked from the room, deciding in spite of the late hour to pay her dear little sister a visit.
