Inheritance

by Dani Shapiro

  There was a wealth of information about me on my website. Links to all my books, to essays and stories I’d published over the years. I had a blog he could peruse if he so desired. And then there were photographs—author photos, and one in particular, the first one that he would have seen when he clicked on the link I had provided. In it, I’m standing behind a podium, giving a reading. My hair is pulled back, I’m wearing glasses, and I am his spitting image. It wouldn’t have taken long for him to understand that the woman who had landed in his in-box, upending his life, claiming to be his biological daughter, was a writer who had spent her life trying to understand who she was and where she came from.

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  What did my mother know? What did my father know? And again: What did my mother know? What did my father know? In yogic philosophy the concept of samskara—the Sanskrit translates into scar or pattern—is understood as a karmic inheritance, a blueprint we’re born with and cycle through again and again over the course of our lives. As Michael and I made our way down the West Coast, the wheel spun around and around, each time catching in the same exact notch—the place of a thousand questions that really all could be reduced to the same two questions. All the while, I scribbled on index cards:

  Dystopia.

  Feeling (then) as if I were under glass. Feeling that way again now.

  Speech from Richard III about nail in horseshoe.

  Friends in Malibu were hosting a July Fourth party. We watched fireworks on the beach. The widow of Dino De Laurentiis had a new boyfriend, a retired pilot who was part of a recreational squadron. They buzzed overhead—eight small jets in formation against the purple California dusk. I composed a long, careful letter back to Benjamin Walden explaining the maze of facts that snapped together as if they had been magnetized. I kept my tone simple and clear, stripped of emotional content. We were now on a first-name basis. Dear Ben. Best, Dani. But whenever my unruly mind wasn’t otherwise occupied, it returned to my parents.

  Everyone involved in the story was either dead or very old. My parents were dead. Most of their friends were dead. My mother’s sister—to whom she was very close—was dead. Her husband, a surgeon, was dead. Dr. Edmond Farris was dead. Farris’s wife, Augusta, was dead. The Farris Institute had been shuttered a decade after my birth. But I was aware that there might still be living people who could shed light on what happened in that institute in Philadelphia that led to my conception. Doctors, nurses, clinicians, or technicians who had worked at Farris. Professors at Penn who might have known Farris himself. Colleagues in the then relatively new field of reproductive medicine. I didn’t have the luxury of emotion recollected in tranquillity. My job now was to amass as much information as quickly as I possibly could. Conveniently, this job also meant I could keep the tidal wave of my feelings at bay as I waited for a reply from Ben Walden.

  * * *

  —

  One article I came across was a widely circulated 1958 wire service story that appeared in newspapers such as The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and The Tampa Tribune:

  Test-Tube Baby Practice Grows; Now 30,000 in U.S.

  Some 40,000 American children owe their start in life to test tube science.

  Dr. Edmond Farris, director of the Institute for Parenthood in Philadelphia, said in an interview that even his estimate of “30,000 to 40,000 test tube tots” may be low. No one really knows exactly how many test tube children there are in the U.S. because there is no law requiring doctors to report on this practice.

  Dr. Farris is one of an unknown number of scientists quietly working in this field, although laws have never been enacted to control artificial insemination of humans.

  Allen D. Holloway, Chicago lawyer, in a recent issue of the Journal of the American Bar Assn., said that legislators should study the problem and adopt some uniform statute. He warned: “The act of artificial insemination involves criminal law, legitimacy, inheritance, and even spills over into the fields of theology, sociology and philosophy.”

  Dr. Farris, like his colleagues in the field, thus operates in a legal no-man’s-land. He is conscious of religious thinking too, but as he puts it: “I see nothing wrong in trying to bring children of fine quality into the world.”

  He described the donors in his institute as the “best material that Philadelphia medical schools can offer.”

  The whole procedure is handled in strictest confidence. Records are heavily coded to prevent information from getting into the hands of would-be blackmailers.

  As an added precaution, the couple involved is instructed to be intimate before and after the test tube procedure. This, according to a leading obstetrician, leaves the matter of the “real” father open to speculation.

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  By the time Michael and I picked Jacob up at UCLA to take him to dinner, it had been four days since I’d discovered that a retired doctor in Portland was my father. The main reason for our trip to the West Coast had been to visit Jacob midway through his summer film program. He’d never been so far away from home for so long. But I was thankful that Jacob hadn’t been around. I wasn’t ready to break this news to him. I had no idea how he would feel about it. I had no idea how I felt about it. I continued to seesaw between painful clarity and incomprehension about my entire history. My son was the only other person in the world for whom this discovery had genetic significance. All my life I had been giving medical history that was 50 percent incorrect. Father: dead. Family history: heart disease, stroke, depression, alcoholism (paternal uncle), drug addiction (father), anxiety disorder. I had been carrying burdens that weren’t mine. I was careful with alcohol. I worried when I had a heart palpitation. But what was starker and more upsetting was that I had also been unwittingly supplying incorrect medical information for my own son. When he was stricken with a deadly disease as an infant—a seizure disorder so rare that its origins were unknown—I confidently told the doctors that there was no history of seizures in my family. But was that true? Had there been? An entirely different genetic world existed within me—and within my son.

  Jacob was excited to tell Michael and me all about his film program, the scripts he was writing, the short film he was making. It was easy to sit back and just watch him. He fit right in to the candlelit Hollywood restaurant with its palm fronds and comfortable banquettes. Seventeen, sandy-haired, lithe, with a Roman nose and deep blue eyes—he was a gorgeous boy, and I was, had always been, besotted with him. Maybe because we had come so close to losing him when he was small, I never took him, or anything about his existence, for granted. So many times I had wished my father and Jacob could have known each other. I conjured up the ease and friendship they might have had—both of them sensitive, kind, thoughtful, honest men. I was also comforted—I now realized with a start—by the thought that something of my father continued to live on in Jacob. Susie had no children. After me, Jacob was the last genetic link to my dad. I had always searched for my dad in his face, and his mannerisms. If Jacob had children of his own someday, there would, in some small way, be a tiny bit of Paul Shapiro continuing on in the world. This felt, though I never could have articulated it, like something I had done right.

  Pru u’rvu. Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the world. The first words God spoke to human beings in Genesis. They were apparently more important than the commandments not to steal, or kill, or lie. Pru u’rvu. The first mitzvah. Had it given me pleasure to think of Jacob as my father’s descendant because I knew how important that would have been to my father himself? Now, as I sat across the table from my son, I felt heartbroken—not for him, not for me, but for my dad.

  Beneath the palm fronds, as our waiter cleared desserts, I gave my phone a quick glance—always a reflexive habit, but more so these days than ever. I drew a sharp breath when I saw that Ben Walden had answered my last email.

  From: Dr. Benjamin Walden

  To: Dani Shapiro

 
; Re: Important Letter

  Thanks for the information. I’m forever amazed by the power of the Internet. Your research may be correct. I may plan to have DNA testing to evaluate this. I’m very grateful that you will respect our privacy and are not interested in disrupting our family.

  First of all, congratulations on a very successful writing career. My wife and I plan to read your memoir. If the DNA findings show a match, I would imagine that you would be interested in some family history especially any medical history. If you let me know the questions you have, I’ll try to respond.

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  Each time I felt strong and resolved enough, I typed various search terms into Google. Sperm donor. Donor conceived. Donor anonymity. Ethics of donor anonymity. History of sperm donation. I ordered all sorts of books, which would be waiting for me back home, packages stacked on our front porch. I already had a pile of articles from the 1940s through the early 1960s about Dr. Edmond Farris. I could hardly bring myself to read them. The language was archaic and devastating, like something from a science fiction comic book. Test tube tots. Was that what I once was?

  There seemed to be communal outrage about donor insemination in the years surrounding my conception. Ethicists, religious scholars, lawyers, even many physicians believed it to be unlawful and immoral. At the same time, there was a smug certainty on the part of the doctors and scientists at the forefront of donor insemination. Secrecy, anonymity, and even eugenics were discussed in a matter-of-fact way. Donors were chosen for their perceived genetic superiority. Records, heavily coded, were sealed or destroyed. Parents were told to go home and forget it ever happened.

  But the language of contemporary reproductive medicine was no easier to contemplate. As I scrolled through websites and online essays, words swam; sentences broke apart. In every other area of my life I was capable of clear thought. But here, I was back in the thick sludge. It became quickly apparent that the community of the donor-conceived was robust and active. I stumbled upon words I hated: apparently Ben Walden was my bio-dad. Paul Shapiro was my social dad. The phrases made me feel like a freak of science. But then I read that being donor-conceived often made people feel like freaks of science. One website offered special jewelry: Conceived just for you! Parent-on-a-chain necklaces fashioned out of aluminum, chrome, or brass, on which hung dog-tag–shaped charms customized with donor numbers. I wanted to hold myself apart, as if none of this really applied to me. The understanding that this world was my world, that I was donor-conceived, that this was indeed (and had always been) a term that applied to me, rose up like a concrete wall I slammed into again and again.

  One name kept appearing on research papers, websites, even on Oprah: Wendy Kramer. She had created something called the Donor Sibling Registry, a resource for donor-conceived people who were out there desperately searching for their genetic relatives. I found myself wanting to reach out to Wendy Kramer—but why? I didn’t need her services. I had already found my biological father. Ben Walden didn’t occupy the deepest, most tender part of my attention. What I wanted: confirmation from someone—an expert—that it was possible, no, more than possible, likely, no, more than likely, absolutely the case, that my parents had known nothing. The Farris Institute had hoodwinked them. Gone rogue. Someone must have decided it would be in this couple’s best interest to add donor sperm to the mix without telling them. Maybe the institute was trying to increase its success rates. Or Dr. Edmond Farris had decided to play God.

  * * *

  —

  Our last couple of days in Los Angeles were taken up with work meetings, more visits with Jacob, as well as lunches, coffee dates, drinks dates, and dinners with friends in that sprawling city that was, in many ways, a second home to us. Sometimes I told the story, and sometimes I didn’t. I had begun to learn that telling it didn’t necessarily make me feel better. Increasingly, I found that as I recited the narrative it became amorphous, the vastness of it like an echo chamber. I would feel my mouth move, hear the words as if someone else were speaking them. I grew quieter and quieter. I was dreading going home. I kept thinking of our house with its walls covered with portraits of my ancestors. My writing office, where I had surrounded myself with them: my grandmother, grandfather, my father and Aunt Shirley as children. I pictured a bucket of paint and wanted to whitewash the entire interior. A blank slate.

  Finally I wrote to Wendy Kramer. Each time I wrote a new person in this strange, unfamiliar world, I felt exposed and vulnerable. But I encountered nothing but kindness from those I contacted to ask for help. Kramer got back to me within minutes. We made a phone date to speak that afternoon. At the appointed time, I wandered Wilshire Boulevard, looking for a quiet place to talk. I stopped at a nail salon that had a small metal table with two chairs on the sidewalk out front, and asked the proprietors if they minded my sitting there. In the bright yellow-white light of the Los Angeles afternoon, I organized my materials as if I was reporting any old story: notebook, pen, noise-canceling earbuds in place. Just as I dialed Kramer, a woman came with her bagged lunch and plopped herself at the small table next to me. I stared at her as she unwrapped her sandwich. She did not meet my eye. Fine, I thought. I had no time to find a more private perch.

  Kramer was warm, direct, and entirely unhurried. As I walked her through the details of my discovery—trying to ignore my tablemate—I wondered how many times she had been on the receiving end of such calls. The Donor Sibling Registry had close to fifty thousand members. Anyone doing even a rudimentary online search would land on her website, where her contact information was listed.

  “You realize how unusual it is that you found your donor,” she said. “And so quickly.”

  I did understand. Kramer’s entire website was devoted to those searching, often fruitlessly. I was dimly aware of my own gratitude. I had already been supplied with a massive piece of the puzzle, even if I never had any further contact with Ben Walden. I knew who he was. I had seen his face. I had heard his voice. I knew where I came from.

  “Do you ever hear stories like mine?” I asked her. “People in their forties and fifties who never knew—”

  “All the time,” Kramer responded. “And more and more. People are doing DNA testing just for kicks, and getting the shock of their lives. There was such a culture of secrecy. Sometimes the mother tells after the father has died. Other times, there’s a letter left in a safe-deposit box.”

  I watched the passing cars on Wilshire Boulevard. My tablemate showed no sign of leaving.

  “But I’m sure my parents didn’t know,” I said to Kramer. “I think Farris must have used a donor without my parents’ knowledge.”

  There was a brief pause on her end.

  “Why do you think that?”

  I had begun to explore the halachah, the body of Jewish law, as it pertained to the subject of donor insemination. It wasn’t just forbidden; it was considered an abomination. The word nauseated me. Abomination. Did this mean that I was an abomination? According to Jewish law, the sperm donor would have paternity. Not the infertile father. Your father is still your father. Not according to the rabbis.

  “My father was an observant Jew,” I said to Kramer. “He would never have been okay with not knowing if a child of his was Jewish.”

  That was what my mother had said, wasn’t it? The sentence remained indelible, preserved for all these years. Later, Michael will point out to me that my mother had not, in fact, answered the question I had asked. She simply posed another question in response. And further, her choice of words was striking. Wouldn’t know the child was Jewish. As opposed to: wouldn’t know the child was his.

  “Your parents had to know,” Kramer said.

  My tablemate scraped her chair back and stood, slowly gathering her trash.

  “It’s out of the question,” I responded.

  I hunched over my notebook, scribbling. Trying to get our conversation down, so that I cou
ld attempt to understand it later. The very idea was unthinkable. I mean that literally. I was unable to entertain on any level the thought that my parents had known all our shared lives. That they had purposefully deceived me, withheld from me such an essential truth. That they had looked at me—their only child—with the awareness that I had not come from the two of them but had been fathered by an anonymous medical student. There had to be another explanation—one in which a nefarious doctor had duped them. I clung to the only story I could tolerate. A few days earlier, a wise friend, the Buddhist teacher Sylvia Boorstein, had told me that my present state reminded her of a particular illustration in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince. At first glance, the illustration appears to be of a big green hat. But on closer examination, it becomes clear that a boa constrictor has swallowed an elephant. I was that snake. Choking on the elephant.

  “Well, your mother had to know,” Kramer said.

  I wondered why she was so sure. She didn’t strike me as the kind of person who would issue forceful opinions for no reason. I thought of my mother, her simmering fury. Her ownership of me. Her condescension toward my father. Was it possible? Could my mother have orchestrated my conception without my father’s permission?

  “The mother always knew,” Kramer went on. “I’ve spoken to thousands of donor-conceived people. I’ve heard thousands of stories. I’m not saying it’s impossible—but I’ve never heard a story in which the mother didn’t know.”

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