26

I returned again and again with renewed astonishment to the thirty-six hours that had elapsed from the moment I discovered my father wasn’t my biological father until the moment Ben Walden appeared on my computer screen. Thirty-six hours. Like a video I saw of an Australian kid solving a Rubik’s Cube in 7.36 seconds. Impossible, but not. I would never be tempted to get a tattoo of my donor’s number. I would never order a parent-on-a-chain dog tag necklace. I was lucky.

Ben was alive. Healthy. Not very old. And at least for the moment, he was willing to engage with me. But what—exactly—did I want from him? Ben Walden was not the deepest part of the story for me. He was not the end of the mystery but rather, the beginning. My visit with Rabbi Lookstein had not eased my heart. In fact, it had confused me further. I rewrote my own history repeatedly until the contents of my mind resembled a chalkboard, words not entirely erased, all smudged a cloudy white. Had my mother lied? Had the doctor covered it up? Why else would my father have raced to Philadelphia? But then there was Lookstein. Kol hakavod. Everywhere I looked, there seemed another possible set of circumstances. And each set of circumstances painted my past in a different light.

I dove into the books and printouts of articles from old magazines and scholarly journals that were stacked on my office floor, my bedside table, the kitchen counter—Lethal Secrets, Artificial Insemination, Personhood Revisited—in an attempt to understand the culture that my parents inhabited. In 1961, Edward Albee’s eviscerating play about a childless couple, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, was about to open on Broadway. A Newsweek survey revealed that zero percent of Americans considered no children the ideal family size. What state of desperation would my parents have found themselves in? And what actions might have arisen from that desperation? A 2010 paper titled “My Daddy’s Name Is Donor” painted a vivid picture:

Donor conception has always been shrouded in secrecy. Anonymity is the thick cloth that permits no one to look inside. For years, the medical profession has touted anonymity as the answer to the quandaries created by sperm and egg donation. Anonymity protects the donor from having to confront the inconvenient truth that a child might be born from his or her own body. It protects parents who do not wish for an “outside” party to intrude on their family, and who quite often choose not to tell their children. And it certainly facilitates the buying and selling of sperm and eggs as products, no longer identified with one wholly unique human being whose life continues to evolve long after the “donation” is made. As a director of one of the oldest sperm banks in the U.S. said, “[Without anonymity], you’re going to lose the really smart, the really wonderful people who I think are going to question,…‘Do I really want to be in a situation where, down the road, someone may contact me?’ ”

Ben’s communication with me was careful. I had the sense that each email had been combed over by multiple people—his wife, perhaps his children. One of his sons was an attorney. I had never before been in the role of being someone’s worst nightmare, but I was pretty sure this was the case now. Ben was a good man, an ethical man. He could have blown me off. Ghosted me. Thus far he had been responsive, but surely he wasn’t happy about the biological child who had appeared out of nowhere to disrupt his life.

Back in San Francisco, I had told Michael that if I had confirmation that Ben was my biological father, along with important medical history, I would be okay. It was more than most people got. I had seen his face. I had been able to watch him in motion—to see his gestures, his smile. I knew where I came from. It would be enough. So when, early one morning, I opened an email from Ben containing just what I had hoped for—information about a rare hereditary eye condition he had discovered in his early seventies, along with assurances that there had been no cancer, heart disease, or Alzheimer’s in his family—I should have felt relieved.

But there was something else, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Ben had written that he’d decided not to take a DNA test because he didn’t trust the privacy provisions on commercial testing sites. He told me that he had been discussing the whole situation with his wife and children. That his family wished privacy in this matter. Situation. Matter. And again, privacy. The words disturbed me, but beneath the disturbance was something I wasn’t used to feeling. I walked through my days feeling weighed down by a peculiar, polarizing heaviness. I wanted to hide. It was shame, I realized. The Walden family wished privacy in the matter of me.

What more did I want? After all, I had been given the very information I thought would make me whole. Above all, I wanted to eradicate this terrible shame, this sense of being defective, alien, other, as if perhaps I never should have existed at all. It was why, I now realized, I had included my website in my original email to Ben. It wasn’t only so that he could see that my motives weren’t mercenary. See? I wanted to say. I’m a real person—with a full, rich life, and a family of my own. I wasn’t just the product of some random morning in Philadelphia—possibly one among many such mornings—during which he masturbated into a cup, tucked his shirt back into his pants, pocketed a few dollars, and returned to anatomy class.

I understood that he didn’t want to think about something so unseemly. He was a successful, erudite, grandfatherly gentleman. I also realized that he had become a donor under the cloak of secrecy, the thick veil of anonymity that had been pervasive at the time. In 1961 it had been only nine years since Watson and Crick had discovered DNA. The thought of a future in which it would be possible to spit into a plastic vial and discover one’s genetic heritage would have been the stuff of science fiction.

But here I was. An inconvenient truth that had indeed been born from his own body. A consequence of his actions. A wholly unique human being whose life continued to evolve long after his “donation” was made. My very existence was due to the fact that he never dreamt he’d have to deal with such a thing. And what I wished for now—though I knew expressing it might topple our entire parsed, careful dialogue—was to meet him. To be in the presence, just once, of this man I came from. Be careful, Wendy Kramer had cautioned. He’s a doctor. He’s used to being in control. Keep your foot in the door. Let him call the shots.

I waited until midsummer before writing Ben Walden with my request. I told him I’d fly to Portland for a cup of coffee. That I’d do whatever would make him feel most comfortable. I imagined sitting across from him at a café—Portland was a city full of cafés—and looking into his eyes, so like my own. I had watched his YouTube video perhaps a dozen times, each time struck anew by the similarities between us. I wanted nothing from him beyond this. I reassured him that I would continue to be respectful of his privacy. I hoped he would give this one-time meeting serious consideration. It would go a long way toward making the surreal real.

To: Dani Shapiro

From: Dr. Benjamin Walden

Re: re: re: Important Letter

Dear Dani,

Thanks for your very thoughtful note. I’m still trying to get my head around the fact that I have a biological daughter unknown to me for 54 years.

At the moment, my life is very busy and I’m still processing your request. It will take me some time to respond thoughtfully. So I’ll write back in a few weeks to let you know my thinking (as filtered through my family input).

All the best,

Ben