“Family and Genus”

Mary, Mariah, and Meg are sitting with their parents at the dinner table. This isn’t a special day like Christmas, just a regular random family dinner. They’ve all gotten through dinner normally, the parents don’t think anything is wrong with their daughters. This is part 2 of the original scene, “I’m Not Over.”

Mary: Thanks for dinner tonight Mom.

Mom: Of course, Sweetie. We’re happy that all three of you could make it on the same night for once.

Meg: You even made chocolate silk pie. My favorite!

Dad: We’ll pack the rest up for you, Meg. You know none of us should be eating the rest of that. (rubs his belly) Have to get this summer ready.

Mariah: (impatiently) What are we waiting for?

Mary: I’ll get to it, I’m just trying to “wander on by” the right words. I haven’t figured it out.

Dad: This doesn’t sound good.

Mom: What’s the matter?

Mary: “Could…”

Mom: Go on.

Mary: “Could you...”

Meg: You’re taking too much time. Are Mary and Mariah my actual sisters?

Everyone stops in their tracks the parents look back at each other. Mom sits down.

Mom: What do you mean?

Mariah: The DNA test results came back and Mary saw a red “flag” that has “me down.” I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s been thinking about this for weeks.

Mom: Weeks?! You girls have known for weeks and didn’t come to us?

Meg: They had to “beg me to” agree to talk too. They wanted to confront this a few days after we all learned from Mary.

Dad: Let me “drop what I’m doing” and join you.

Mom: Let the girls “sit beside you.” This is really complicated.

Mariah: “So did” you boil this down to only complicated? Why is no one upset? This is treason on the family.

Mom: Let me try to explain.

There’s a heavy silence. No one is breathing under the tension.

Mom: I was married before your father. He was a love of my life.

Mariah: And what, “did they ditch us? And leave us with nothing to say” about it?

Mary: Shhh. Let Mom talk.

Mom: He died. Right after you were born Mariah. “Where” were we? We were in Portland. I couldn’t be a single mother of two for long. That wasn’t going to work, so I went and stayed with my parents for 2 years “where we [waited] for friends and family” to help out. This was okay for a while, but then your grandfather decided it was time “to pass away.” It was too hard and you grandmother wasn’t able to “come in handy” and take care of all three of us.

Mom starts sobbing softly, unable to finish her thoughts.

Meg: (softly) “Oh.”

Mary: “Oh dear.”

Dad: It was around this time that I found your Mom. That’s when I fell in love with you two. It was “a rotten summer” and there was only “rotten hope” when I had been laid off. Somehow the three of us made it and I was able to woo my “dear.” The next year we were married and Meg was on the way.

Mom: It was so tough.

Mary: Why did you let us go through with the DNA tests if you knew all this time and hadn’t told us any of this.

Mariah: How did you hide this? How have I not seen my birth certificate?

Dad: I didn’t think you guys would do it and we weren’t ready to tell you so we didn’t want to make it weird by denying you from taking them.

Mary: This is honestly a weirder way to find out what seems to be so much history. Good history too. I want to know more about what happened, but I’m not sure why you didn’t want to tell us… We’re in our twenties.

Mariah: I’m not okay.

Mom: I know. We have a lot to talk about. This doesn’t change our family. It doesn’t change how much we love you all or how much you should love each other.

Meg: (jokingly) Explains why I’m the cute one.

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