Who's your daddy?

31

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Seven weeks later, Dave and I deliver my crutches to Goodwill. One foot in front of the other, bones consent to gravity, but I’m afraid. The center of my body feels fragile — a primal din unnoticed (ignored?) until the animal’s cage broke. I feel timid. Protective. Dave and I are emotionally worn too. During bedrest, I was one-too-many-dependents for a father with a dependent-for-life. We try to regain normal, but while bones healed, tectonic plates continued to grind and shove under stress. I start swimming laps at the Nike pool. The repetition and linear task of flesh-dividing-water help me gain strength and control over other, less effortless divides.

We travel to Colorado early August to visit family. Despite being upright and walking again, something hasn’t rooted; tentative limbs reach but don’t grab. I hide myself from Colorado’s dry, heady, too-sunniness, with more pool water—a fluid balm for instability because when submerged, there is nothing to grab. Water joins me in uncertainty.

So on our first morning, while Dave and family stitch invisible loops between espresso maker, bathroom, and fridge, I go outside for a swim. I use the word “swim” lightly because today, I spend the majority of time bobbing up and down, mostly down. It’s not enough to feel water briefly splash across my face. I want full immersion. I sit on the bottom of the shallow end, legs crossed, and let water’s body move my body until we are one. I want to be rippled sand on the floor of Lake Winnebago. I want to be smooth rock in Lake Michigan’s great depths. I need to feel home again because up there on solid ground, I’ve lost my ground.

Water joins me in uncertainty.

Eventually thoughts of something salty, something crunchy, pull me from my underworld. Food and hunger never fail to tether me to reality. I grab a handful of potato chips, and wander around the house looking for Eric. I need to orbit in big brother warmth. I’m not the only one who feels good in Eric’s presence; his 6’6” Viking stature is dwarfed by unparalleled presence and heart. I get an extra dose because he’s making up for my childhood of Spock bites, gleeking, and Guantanamo Barbie.

I find him sitting in his office behind an inconceivable stack of stuff. Still wrapped in a wet towel, I move a pile and replace it with my butt. Despite the clutter, I always feel calm and safe in his spaces—his office, garage, and the elaborate Faraday cage/bomb shelter he built are all architectural stand-ins for his good hugs.

“Hey, I got something for you,” he says while opening a drawer. I smile, not knowing what it is, but return to a countless string of unprompted, big-brother gifts from the past: the Rubbermaid toolbox filled with every handy gadget an unhandy girl might need, the protective amulet for my solo European travels, the tactical hair clip for MacGyver-ing myself out of danger. In an apocalypse, Eric will keep me safe.

He hands me a small 5” x 5” box with a bright graphic on its cover. It reads, “Welcome to you.”

I know what it is. The apocalypse might be sooner than anticipated.

“Hey, J and I have been having fun with our DNA test results lately. I got you a kit too.”

Subtext: Who’s your daddy?

“Gulp,” I say, a deceptively simple syllable for the narrative it writes in my gut.

I grab the box and turn it around in my hands—along the edge, candy-colored chromosomes belie the box’s Pandoric powers. Without even spitting into a tube, the cheery design reassures that Eric and I are 50% French & German, 50% Swedish and David Warner is our dad. Holding the box that will end my paternity uncertainty sends a deep taproot down, through my pruned toes, and into the earth for the first time since the week of the accident.

But unpacking it from my suitcase a week later, the kit no longer resembles a harmless box of Mike & Ikes. I stash it in the medicine cabinet, hiding it behind a large tub of chewable Vitamin C. I don’t want to see it every time I take my vitamins. I tell myself, Wait a while, take the test casually, maybe after a glass of wine or when I’ve completely forgotten about it. It’s no big deal. It will just confirm what I’ve already known for nearly forty years. An hour later, I march right back into the kitchen, open up the box and spit into a tube.

Five weeks later I receive an email from 23andMe—my genetic results are in, including DNA relatives and a basic genetic profile. I open the link and briefly scan a colorful map (more friendliness! so fun! so harmless!) with my European ancestry composition. No surprises other than some Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry that might explain the Israelson surname on mom’s side. Then I open DNA relatives. Eric Warner is at the top. We share 22% of our DNA segments. That’s a lot! That’s good! He’s my brother after all.

But 22%, according to 23andMe, isn’t enough to make him my full brother. Right next to his name, the name I have known for 39 years as my big brother, I read:

Eric Warner: Half-Sibling

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