The Eve Genome Read Online Free

your sister’s body for further examination.”
                  A jolt shot through to my stomach. “What? They’ve sent Analiese somewhere without telling us?”
                  The doctor took the blood typing results from my hands and placed them back into the file. “I’m sorry. There’s nothing more we can do for you here.”
    #
     
                  My mom, Carla and I wasted no time flying to Bethesda, Maryland, where The National Human Genome Research Institute was located. Once we touched down in Bethesda and retrieved our luggage, we hailed a cab, neither of us feeling emotionally capable of driving. Mom spent nearly the entire ride on her cell, contacting government officials, politicians and anyone else she could angrily scold and threaten with a lawsuit.
                  Before this, my mom was only mildly unhappy with her life, thanks to my dad who had decided to turn everything upside down in her life. She’d been busy focusing on her career as a real estate agent when my dad, Tom, up and left three years ago, following a torrid affair.  Mom was the embodiment of the saying ‘had the rug pulled out from under her feet’. 
    I stared out the window, noting the lush landscape of this coastal city, but unable to appreciate it. One dead tree among the green caught my eye, the whitened branches gnarled into a twisting spiral, reaching up to the heavens. In my peripheral vision, a snow-white jackrabbit sprang through the weedy ditch, bee-lining for the trees alongside the road. It watched our moving car with one round, crimson-red eye and then hopped off into the trees, disappearing from view.
                  I glanced at mom, her dark brown hair and pale skin seeming to amplify the worry lines below her eyes and around her mouth. She had her hair cut in a bob that normally was styled to look funky and cute, but today, with the way it hung in lank strips around her face, I wasn’t sure she’d even combed it. I could hardly criticize. My own waist-length black hair hadn’t been washed in three days and I’d kept it tied back in a messy ponytail the entire time.
                  Showering seemed to be a privilege, something only worthy people were allowed to do, a form of self-care for deserving people only.
    Analiese’s death couldn’t have happened at a worse time for mom. After my dad  left three years ago, I knew at least mom had Analiese at home. But now, I was all my mom had left. Would my dad want to come to the institute as well? Would he try to sweep in like Disneyland daddy and participate in this mess? Grieve his dead daughter and pretend to support me? The last thing I wanted to see right now was the man who’d destroyed any and all self-esteem mom once had. Analiese and I hadn’t spoken to him for over a year and a half. It was just easier that way.
    We settled into our hotel, showered and got ready for our meeting scheduled later in the afternoon. When the time arrived for us to depart for the institute, I had butterflies in my stomach that felt more like jumping razorblades.
                  The National Human Genome Research Institute was made up of several large buildings, reminding me of a college campus. The tall main structure was a unique combination of red brick and shiny glass windows, giving it both a traditional and contemporary feel, a seamless blending of old and new. We got out of the cab and despite the sensation that my legs were encased in concrete, I pushed forward to the entrance.
                  Inside, we came to a large granite wall of financial donors. We approached the information desk off to the left and were greeted by a pretty Asian woman with prominent cheekbones, eyelash extensions that nearly reached her eyebrows and hair pulled back into a tight bun. She appeared tiny behind the mammoth round desk that enclosed her. 
                  “Welcome to NHGRI.