I can’t say the phone call surprised me. I half expected I would get it one day, but even with that trepidation, it still unnerved me.
It started out like any other afternoon telemarketing interruption. I wonder if I could have ended the encounter before it started by simply letting that initial call go straight to voice mail. I go weeks without checking my messages, it could have easily been among the casualties of a bulk ‘delete all.” Instead, I answered. The area code was familiar, I assumed it was someone I knew.
When she asked for me, she butchered my first name. One of the perks of having an odd name is strangers always mispronounce it. Keeping with the telemarketer assumption, I was about to hang up when she said those four fateful words, “I am your sister.”
Good ol’ dad, you horn-dog. Your lecherous ways are haunting me still.
I couldn’t even stammer an answer. I would rather have stabbed myself in the eye with the fork in that road than pick the wrong path. I should have listened to the Jiminy Cricket voice in my head, the one that sounds remarkably like my husband, that kept saying… nay… screaming, “Disengage! Disengage!”
“You must have the wrong number,” as if a noncommittal response would’ve worked.
For the next 15 minutes, without taking a breath, my caller went through her ‘begats,” listing off facts, dates and historical characters in a wholly believable tale that was Lifetime Movie worthy.
When she finally paused, I jumped in with a single question that could settle the matter.
“When were you born?”
My chance at having a baby sister was dashed when she gave a date some 12 years after my birth.
“My father had a vasectomy when I was 10, two years before you were born,” I said.
The click on the other end of my phone was deafening.
Thin spiral notebook 
perhaps both of the women’s dreams were dashed, tragic. fantastic.. great ending.
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Uh oh… I think that younger girl’s mother has some explaining to do…
Great story.
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You had me all the way until the last line! I would have given anything for it to be true. I grew up with two brothers, and although I considered a cousin my sister, we lived 3,000 miles apart. Fabo job!!!
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I love the way the narrator shut that down, without being the one to hang up first.
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I love that final line. Well done!
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Gripping writing. “My chance at having a baby sister was dashed…” Amazing line and so telling. Thanks for sharing.
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o.k. So it took me a minute to realize this was not true. Oh my. I feel sorry for both ladies.
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Whoa. I am glad to read horn-dog today!!!
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Oh so close. But I love the way the piece ends with the narrator grieving a sister she never had. God how manipulative.
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you know, vasectomies do fail…so I’m not sure if that can for sure prove this isn’t a relative.
I would have liked a clue as to WHY this was such an expected call but obviously not legit. Was the father rich and famous, is this a common occurrence? Is there an inheritance?
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I hoped the line about dad being a lecherous, horn-dog was a clue, that he might have some little halves ‘out there’ somewhere who would want to find their other siblings.
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I was wondering the same thing, and the vasectomy really threw me for a loop. Horn-dog lechers and vasectomies are rarely in the same room! (close to home, yes, 1st hand info)
Loved the story up to there, though. And the fork. god! Is that SKY reflecting in the tines, Tara??!!?
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While not wholly autobiographical (I have never received such a phone call, but wouldn’t be surprised either), I can say from my own first hand info, lechers and vasectomies can go hand in hand, that knowledge sometimes shared by a totally pissed off mother.
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