31/365/Serial

With so much of her life bound up with theatre—actor, administrator, director, producer—Sarah recognizes that this could make a good musical. It’s her story now. She’s owning it.

30/365/Serial

Sarah embraces her DNA story as her truth. She doesn’t know exactly what is true, and she will likely never know. Is her father Hugh? One of his brothers? Is it all a mistake? But a mistake wouldn’t bring up the familiar name of an Ancestry-random person on the other side of the country. She believes that she is Hugh Callahan’s biological daughter. Occam’s razor and all that.

29/365/Serial

Her daughters seem most perplexed by Julie’s absolute denial. Sometimes, Sarah explains, people tell themselves a story so emphatically for so long that it becomes truth to them. Julie is ninety years old. The story is older than a half century. Sarah believes that her mother believes that she is speaking the truth—that this discovered “fact” is impossible and not a fact at all.

28/365/Serial

Maureen and Helen take the news pretty well. Sarah is relieved and a little surprised. She wasn’t sure they would.

27/365/Serial

Julie doesn’t budge on this. Sarah tells her mother that she will have to tell Maureen and Helen about the test and what she has discovered. She tells her that the information is out there and now anyone can discover it. Julie does not change her story.

26/365/Serial

Sarah tells Julie about the DNA test, the results, and her alleged cousin. Julie’s response? “That’s impossible.”

25/365/Serial

Sarah knows that no matter what, no one can tell Steve (who’s been splitting his time between assisted living and psychiatric hospitalization), because there is no way he can handle this information in a way that isn’t destructive to someone. Like, chainsaw destructive.

24/365/Serial

Sarah didn’t believe that Julie would admit to this. But, she reasoned, the information is now discoverable. If Ancestry had sent her word that this Mary Callahan was her cousin, she would also appear as a cousin to Maureen and Helen, should they decide to take the DNA test. And they would have the same questions that Sarah did. (Maureen and Helen were curious about Sarah’s results anyway. After all, this was their gift to her.)

23/365/Serial

Jack thought she needed to do both. The girls should be relieved of the worry of the bipolar side of the family. (They may need to be worried about other things, of course. Like alcoholism, Sarah joked/didn’t joke.)

22/365/Serial

But should she confront her mother? If so, how? And should she tell her daughters?