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It was true: January was the doldrums for me. The kind that I looked forward to during the height of the summer tourist season and dreaded when it actually arrived. Some people were able to shift between the frenzied panic at work and downtime. My dad was one of those. Every single year, Dad took a long weekend off right after Tax Day, slept, and watched crap TV. He'd go fishing if he felt really ambitious, which wasn't often. Once the long weekend was over, one set of grandparents or the other would come to watch Avery and me for a week, and Dad whisked Mom someplace tropical to get out of the late-spring gloom. They counted down the minutes to it every year with the same enthusiasm Avery and I had anticipating Christmas morning.

For me, January was just when I tried to plan for the year ahead and hoped my clients would all weather the seasonal downturn with their businesses intact. There would be a small flurry of tourists coming for the famed National Western Stock Show, but they mostly flocked to either the dreaded chain restaurants or, in the best-case scenario, the nicer steak houses. They mostly gave the more adventurous upscale restaurants, my clients, a miss. There wouldn't be tropical vacations to celebrate the quiet season just yet, but I clung to the hope the time would come.

After dinner, so full we could barely walk, we gathered in the living room around the tree. Mom and Dad on their favorite chairs, I on the sofa, and Avery on the ottoman, poised to play Santa as she did every year. She'd had little patience for it as a kid but loved doling out presents slowly now that she was grown. She drew the evening out, giving us time to admire one another's gifts before moving on to the next. Add to that Dad's newer Christmas Eve tradition of serving a very nice bottle of champagne to enjoy as we opened the gifts, and it made for a lovely evening.

Mom loved the silk robe, and Dad was chuffed with the golf polos Avery had brought for them from her swanky contacts in New York. I gushed over the shoes she procured for me, even though the heels were so high I would probably never wear them. Part of me loved that she thought I was the sort of person who would wear them.

I'd done my best to supplement the food items I'd brought with real gifts, but there was no keeping up with Avery. The department store sweater, the little wooden house from the Denver Christkindlmarkt, and the alpaca scarf from the Estes Park Wool Market were received warmly enough, but I simply couldn't afford to be as generous as Avery, at least not with gifts. But, as always, Dad won at gifting. The photo album he'd had made of the heaps of photos from our summer trips to Estes over the years had Mom in tears.

"That looks like it," Dad proclaimed, unable to see anything left under the tree from his vantage point in the recliner. "A good haul. Apparently we fooled Santa again this year."

Avery sprung to her feet. "Not quite. I have one last gift for you all to finish off the evening." She rummaged in her massive purse and pulled out four small boxes, all brightly colored with vaguely science-adjacent graphics all over them. "A new DNA company, FamilyRoots, just rolled out home kits in time for the holidays. We share a building, and they gave us all a slew of these to be neighborly. They'd love reviews but probably don't expect them. Lots of good health info apparently. I thought you'd think they were fun... We can all take them."

Mom's and Dad's faces blanched. "Avery, I don't think this is a good idea." Mom stood and made a move like she wanted to take the tests from Avery's hands.

Avery swooped them away before Mom could intercept them. "Why? They keep the data secure. From some of the protocols their floor has in place, I believe them."

"It's not that," Dad said.

I took a hefty gulp of the champagne, which was likely a crime punishable by flogging in several départements in France, and set the flute aside. "It's because I was adopted, right?"

CHAPTER TWO

"So how long have you known?" Avery asked later that night. She was dressed in pajamas, probably designer but not fussy, and her long dark hair was up in a messy bun. She didn't look so much like the New York fashionista but more like my kid sister this way. I liked her so much better like this. Less polish, more Avery. Mom had gone to bed, too upset to cope with the rest of the evening. Dad had enveloped me in a hug, then went to tend to Mom.

I'd assured them both that I was fine with it, but it didn't seem as if they liked the idea of my knowing after all these years.

"I began to suspect in high school when we learned basic genetic inheritance in science. My college science classes backed it all up. I have dimples, a dominant trait, and our parents and grandparents don't. The red hair is recessive, but it's rare to have no others with it in the family. Same with green eyes. Height, body shape... It all added up."

She reached over and grabbed my hand. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"Because, honestly? I didn't really care. Mom and Dad raised me. They're my parents. Biology doesn't matter." I'd said those words to myself a million times over the years, figuring if I repeated the line often enough, I might convince myself it was true.