Sunday Photo Fiction is a weekly challenge to write a 200-word story based on a photo prompt. This week’s photo is own I took at Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri. The character here looks a little frightening, don’t you think?
If you are interested in contributing your own story, or to see what others have written, please visit Sunday Photo Fiction
Hearing the knock at the front door, my father peered through the window shears, cursed softly then turned on me.
“What possessed you to submit your DNA to that website!”
The mild-mannered man who never yelled, even when his favorite football team was getting trounced, now resembled The Incredible Hulk.
Shocked by the sudden change in demeaner, I mumbled something about curiosity. “You never talk about your side the family,” I challenged.
“For a good reason! It’s not something I am proud of.”
Innocently I countered. “All families have black sheep in their past. It’s not something to get worked up over.”
“It’s not past history I am worried about.”
I wondered if Dad had a secret. Could he have fathered a child my mother knew nothing about?
His hysterical laugh told me otherwise.
The knocking intensified and my father wilted.
“I never talked about my family because I didn’t want you to know about the murder gene, passed from father to son. You have put our family at extreme risk.”
I remembered hearing the FBI used DNA from ancestry sites to solve cold cases and realized what my father was afraid of: the DNA he left behind.
Redbuds and Roserocks 