In a futuristic society where people are differentiated and valued based on the purity of their genes, can a person define for themselves who they really are? Or does The Gene Test provide the answer for them?
Depression... Addiction... Criminality...
I walk into the living room, seeing the wooden floor littered with photographs, articles and scribbled notes. Juliette sits cross-legged in the middle of the organized mess, lips pursed and fiddling with her furrowed eyebrows as she reads through something.
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I crouch down into a squatting position and nudge her gently, placing the mug of hot chocolate into her free hand, but she's too concentrated on her reading to notice.
"May 25th, 2137, 27-year-old Invalid woman coded with manic depression commits suicide jumping off bridge, leaving behind her husband and 3-year-old daughter," she recites in a monotone voice. She turns to look at me, "That's a day after my third birthday. The one printed on my birth certificate, at least."
"You think that's your mom?"
"It matches up. The age... The year... The date..."
I rub her back in soothing motions. "How do you feel about it?"
"I don't know... I mean, I knew from the start that my biological mother was gone, and anything I found out about her would just be to satisfy my curiosity, but I feel... disappointed, for some reason. Is this it? Is this all there is to the story — She wasn't happy in her life with my father and I and ended it? The end?"
"Nobody's story is that simple, Juliette." I blow on the hot chocolate in her hand, guiding the mug to her lips, and she takes a slow sip. "I mean, if you're satisfied with that story, then we can just stop here, we don't need to dig deeper." I take a glance at her face, which looks a little troubled as she mercilessly chews on her bottom lip, the folded skin between her scrunched eyebrows looking like they're about to meet in the middle very soon. "But I have a feeling you're not."
"When I went to look for Sara, I found out where she lived, but she was living with her grandmother. I think her— our mother works somewhere a little further from the island, and she only goes to visit every once in a while. Here's a list of potential cafes she could work at in that area." I pass her a tablet which she begins to scan through carefully. "Also, there's the issue that my deduction that Sienna is Sara is purely based on gut feeling and a necklace, which can't be entirely relied on. I'm not going to waltz in declaring myself as the long lost abandoned son of a random woman who has no idea who I am, so we need to find a way to confirm that she really is my mother. Then, we can meet her and get the full story, for both of us."
I check for her reaction, but she still seems to be dutifully pouring through the list I showed her as if it's an encyclopedia, when there are only nine cafe names on the list.
She seems tired. There are slight eye bags below her eyes, probably from staying up doing research, or from overthinking about it at night and not being able to fall asleep.
I reach forward and pluck the tablet out of her hand, which seems to bring her back to earth. She turns to look at me in a delayed reaction of surprise.
