A long-held family secret turned my world upside-down

A disbelieving laugh stuttered from my lips as I stared at my mother sitting beside me on the couch. Her hands shook,her eyes downcast. Shock cast a distant shadow on the horizon.

Stocksy

Moments earlier,it had been an ordinary day,relaxed and uneventful. Workers were enjoying their last sleep-in of the Christmas holiday and those who’d partied exceptionally hard still sported the soggy remnants of a New Year’s hangover.

After coming and going from various travels,I was back in Melbourne living at Mum’s house as a university student between the second and third years of my aeronautical engineering degree. Sitting on the lounge-room floor,I strummed my guitar along to a Crowded House tune,enjoying the sunlight streaming in the window. I didn’t even notice Mum enter the room and sit down until she called out,“Lauren. Come over here.“

“Huh?”

“There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

Alarm bells rang,although their volume was soft. I put down my guitar and sat beside Mum on the sofa. “It’s not so often these days we’re at home together,” Mum began in a wooden tone. “Now you’re over 21 and back from overseas,I’ve decided it’s time to tell you something.”

I was precisely 12 days over the age of 21. “What is it?” I asked. “You’re freaking me out.” Mum’s hands were clenched into fists and her face wore a haunted expression. It must be something bad.

“Are you sick?” I asked. “No,I’m not sick.” Relief rose through me. At least it wasn’t that.

A pause. “There’s no easy way to say this and I know it will be a shock to you …”

The left corner of her mouth twitched. She said the words,and my mind took flight like a startled bird.

“Dad’s not your biological father.” I couldn’t compute what she’d said. There was a long pause. “No. You don’t mean it,” I said at last.

“It’s true.”

Her words tore a hole in the surprisingly convincing façade of my life. As Mum continued speaking,
the idea of the stranger who was my unknown biological father passed through this rent in the fabric of reality to join me in the suburban lounge room. He was a shadowy figure,backlit by the sun,blurry and indistinguishable. I sat in silence.

Mum filled the void with words that formed an explanation,as best she could. Artificial insemination by donor. Anonymous. She explained that at the time the procedure was considered shameful and had an unsavoury edge. The emphasis was on protecting the privacy of the donor. The Prince Henry’s Hospital she attended had since closed and in all likelihood the records had been destroyed.

“I’m sorry. Your dad and I never told anyone. No one in the family knows,not a soul. It’s a secret. Your dad doesn’t know I have told you and I’m not going to tell him.”

My parents had separated when I was two. They had no contact with each other.

Mum knew nothing about the donor. Not even his physical characteristics,age or profession. Nothing. She explained that in those days you did not get to choose your donor;you were matched by the doctor. Most donations came from medical students. Judging from my looks,the donor was probably tall and fair with blue eyes.

I took in her words but scarcely comprehended their meaning. The conversation was brief and soon petered out into an awkward silence. With so much left unsaid,we both got up and left the room,each feeling stunned for our own reasons. I was at a loss to know how to process this unexpected news. I walked in a daze down the hallway,feeling like there was a layer of foggy glass between me and the world. I stopped in front of a mirror,intrigued by the reflection. There was something different in the familiarity of my own face. Tracing the reflected features with my fingers,it occurred to me that I’d always assumed I had my father’s nose. Searching the mirror for clues to the puzzle,I noticed the small dot of brown pigment in the otherwise blue iris of my right eye.

When I was a child,Mum used to tell me a bedtime story. “Babies start out as plaster casts on a sort of production line. It’s the fairies’ job to bring them to life by painting in the colours for their eyes,hair and skin. The fairy in charge of eyes had just switched from the brown-eyed to the blue-eyed babies and forgot to clean her brush. That’s how you got the brown dot,from a little leftover paint on her paintbrush.”

Tracing the reflected features with my fingers,it occurred to me that I’d always assumed I had my father’s nose.

At the time it seemed a neat and plausible explanation. As an adult,I learnt the scientific description – sectoral heterochromia. Cultural myths about people with different-coloured eyes suggest they have the gift of being able to see into two worlds simultaneously:both heaven and hell.

I walked further down the hallway and found myself in Mum’s bedroom. I sat on the bed and cradled the telephone to my ear as my fingers instinctively punched the buttons. There was a moment of silence and then it started to ring. Ironically,the person closest to me that day was 10,000 kilometres away.

I’d met Woodrow,my South African boyfriend,two years earlier after itchy feet and a love of skiing led me on my first solo trip overseas,working at a mountain resort in Massachusetts.

Woodrow was tall,dark and impossibly handsome. At first I’d found it difficult to believe that he was interested in me. As the snow began to melt on the ski season,we felt compelled to find a way to stay together. We visited the British consulate in New York to apply for working visas for the one country that would permit us both entry – the UK.

After living and working out the rest of the year in various English bars and restaurants,we’d travelled to Woodrow’s home in South Africa to stay with his family for two months. I’d had to return to Melbourne to restart my deferred university studies and we were now in the process of trying to obtain a visa for him to settle in Australia.

“Hey babe,how are you?” Woodrow answered the phone. His gentle accent sounded husky.

“I’m sorry,did I wake you?”

“No. I mean,sort of. I’m just waking up.” He yawned. “I miss you.”

“Yeah,me too.” A dilemma. Should I allow time for the conversation to settle or tell him straight away?

“Actually,there’s something I need to tell you. Something major.”

There was that introduction again,the inept warning of what was to come.

“What is it? You know you can tell me anything.”

“Mum sat me down today,and,well … she told me that Dad … he’s not my real father.” There was silence. I knew what Woodrow was thinking. The words sounded ridiculous,even to me,like I was talking about somebody else.

“What?”

“Yeah,I mean,not my biological father. She used a donor. Mum doesn’t really have much information.”

Just like that,medical information and heritage all slipped from my grasp. I forged on. “She was pretty shaken after she told me. She said Dad doesn’t know I know. I’m not going to tell him. I think it would upset him.”

“I’m so sorry. I want to be there,so I can hold you and comfort you.”

“Yeah. I know.” I paused. Questions lingered. Might this guy,the stranger who was my biological father,have other children?

“There’s also the possibility there are half-siblings I don’t know about.”

It was one of the most bizarre concepts of the whole situation. They could live in my neighbourhood or be a friend of a friend I’d met at a party. Maybe,god forbid,I’d dated one.

Maybe on some dim level of my subconscious there was an awareness that explained why I felt attracted to men from faraway places.

Thank goodness Woodrow was from South Africa. Maybe on some dim level of my subconscious there was an awareness that explained why I felt attracted to men from faraway places. If I met someone from Australia,should I ask them to do a DNA test to make sure we weren’t related?

“It’s all completely mind-blowing,” said Woodrow,from far down the phone line. “But you know,in some ways you are lucky. Your dad is still your dad. Sometimes there’s no point looking back into the past. What’s done is done. You can’t change it.”

I ended the conversation and hung up feeling deflated. Instead of acknowledging the trauma of being lied to my entire life,I’d been offered platitudes. Why did he tell me it didn’t matter? And what did he mean about not looking back into the past?

Edited extract fromTriple Helix:My Donor-Conceived Story (UQP),by Lauren Burns,out now.

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