The Genius Factory (8 page)

Tom also wondered if I could find any Coral siblings. He would love to have sisters and brothers. He asked if I had been contacted by any other Coral kids.

In fact, I told Tom, I already knew his brother. He was fourteen. He lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His name was Alton Grant.

I had heard from Samantha Grant, Alton Grant’s mother, six months earlier, right about the time I had first talked to Tom and Mary. Samantha was one of the first mothers who had contacted me. It happened in a roundabout way. First I had received a mysterious e-mail from someone claiming that she knew a Repository family. A few days later, a woman left a vague message on my voice mail, but with no name or call-back number. Soon after that, Samantha sent me an e-mail:

You know me in several guises already that you may think are independent. Confidentiality is a serious issue and so I have approached you cautiously, from different directions, to test the waters. I am ready to talk with you, and perhaps meet with you.

I e-mailed her back. She said her niece had sent the first e-mail, feeling me out on Samantha’s behalf. Samantha and I arranged a time to speak. I liked her immediately. She was a chief engineer at a Boston high-tech company, and she was smart as hell. Samantha had grown up in a place—the rural Midwest—where smart girls were viewed with suspicion. Samantha had accepted the cost of this—being viewed as odd by narrow-minded people—rather than rein in her brain. She reminded me a little of my mother, who’s an English professor. My mom’s a generation older than Samantha, but they’re both endlessly curious women who are intellectual without being the least bit snobbish. Samantha had the rare gift of being able to explain difficult ideas clearly and the even rarer gift of believing that those ideas should be taken seriously, argued, and celebrated. Samantha knew that I knew nothing about her field—a particularly challenging branch of engineering—but that never stopped her from describing her work to me and never stopped me from enjoying it when she did. She told a story well and she was very funny. She started with a belief in the goodness of all souls, but when someone exposed himself as an ass or a monster, her tongue was acid.

Samantha was fiercely protective of both her own privacy and her son’s. Our first conversation, before she would reveal a jot of information, was a negotiation about privacy.

Finally, she told me her story. It started in the mid-1980s. “I wanted a child, but my then-husband had had a vasectomy.” At first, she asked a friend of a friend if he’d be willing to donate sperm to her. He lived overseas, had kids of his own, and would stay out of Samantha’s life. But she scrapped that plan, because the “known” donor proved too emotionally entangling. Then Samantha read an article in the
Los Angeles Times
about the Repository for Germinal Choice. Her inner nerd loved the idea of a genius sperm bank. She was smart, she’d always been smart, and she wanted a smart kid. She thought that she understood how to raise a smart child, but that she would have no idea how to raise a jock or a beauty queen. Samantha was the only Repository mom I talked to who was not afraid of genius, perhaps because she had so much of it herself. “I can’t understand why anyone would think it is bad to want to have a bright child.”

She ordered the Repository catalog in early 1985. Lots of donors tempted her, but it came down to a choice between Coral and Light Green. She couldn’t make up her mind. She was living in California then, so she drove down to the Repository office in Escondido. The Repository office manager, Julianna McKillop, sold her on Coral. Julianna told Samantha that Donor Coral was happy. She said he was highly accomplished in mathematics. The engineer in Samantha liked that. Julianna said Coral’s sister was a world-class pianist. Samantha, who’d almost become a professional violinist, was delighted. Julianna said Coral’s parents were wonderful people. She said he loved children and had three children of his own. She said he was a head turner. Then Julianna pulled out a picture of Coral and showed it to Samantha. He was bright-eyed, floppy-haired, and cute. “That sealed it. Everything I heard, I liked.”

She ordered a liquid-nitrogen tank full of Coral. As she drove home, the tank riding shotgun in her car: “I was thinking, ‘My kid is sitting next to me!’ ”

In 1986, Samantha’s son, Alton, was born—a year later and 1,500 miles west of his half brother Tom. Alton, she said, had grown up a very happy child, and a gifted one. Prodded by me, Samantha recited a litany of his achievements. He was a first-class pianist. He had had a piece of sculpture in a children’s art show at Harvard. He studied dance. He was interested in marine biology. Samantha said she offered her son every intellectual opportunity she could: “I do expose him to great minds whenever I can, and great books and music. These inspire him to seek deep levels in whatever he does.” But Samantha said that he drove himself, and she had to restrain him from doing too much.

Alton wasn’t close to his father, who was recently divorced from Samantha. Around the time of the split, Samantha had told Alton that Coral was his real father. He had been unperturbed, she said. He had told her he was relieved and that he had always known his father wasn’t his father, even if he hadn’t
known
it. But Alton had not asked her any questions about Coral and expressed no interest in finding and meeting him.

It didn’t surprise me that Samantha was a divorcee. Almost all the parents I heard from were mothers who had divorced or were planning to divorce. This made sense: Married couples would be much less likely to share the secret that their children were the result of sperm donation, because the husbands usually pretended to be biological fathers. With the husbands out of the picture, divorced mothers were much more willing to share the Repository secret with their children, and even a stranger like me. There was a second reason why newly single mothers tended to seek me out. The divorces had shrunk their families. They hoped that I could help them find new relatives for their kids, either half siblings or donor fathers. The intact families, by contrast, weren’t searching for anything.

Samantha and I struck up an energetic correspondence. We e-mailed a lot, mostly about Repository business or my latest story, but we also chitchatted about her work or Alton or my daughter. So as soon as Tom told me he was a Coral boy, I e-mailed Samantha the news. She answered instantly, “Wow, is there any chance of connecting with them?”

I gave Samantha Mary’s e-mail address. The two moms corresponded briefly, each bragging about her son (his college courses, his hobbies) and asking lots of questions about the other boy. They agreed to let Tom and Alton—the brothers—talk to each other.

I was curious—and anxious—about what would happen. As far as I could tell from reading professional literature and newspaper articles, this was only the second or third time that sperm bank half siblings would meet. Tom and Alton would be inventing an entirely new relationship: although half siblings have existed for as long as men have been cheating dogs, the sperm bank brother was something new. Regular half siblings have a
known
father in common: They share a family history, a name, a life. But sperm bank half brothers have only DNA in common; their shared father is a complete blank. Coral was not a real person to Alton and Tom. They didn’t even know his name. The only thing they knew about him was that they didn’t know anything about him.

That paternal void was not the only obstacle. I also feared circumstances—nurture—would make it tough for the two boys to get close. By the time I put them in touch, Tom was sixteen and a rising junior in a decent public high school, Alton a rising freshman in a superb one. Tom lived in a middle-class house in a run-of-the-mill midwestern suburb, Alton in a beautiful house in the heart of Cambridge. Tom whiled away his time on the usual pursuits of the teenage boy—video games, wrestling, girls, rap—while Alton was a serious student musician and artist. Both moms were strivers, but they lived in different worlds. Tom’s mom had battled her way to a bachelor’s degree and a job in technical support; Alton’s had earned graduate degrees at the best universities in the world and was one of the top women in her field. Was mere blood thicker than these differences in background, temperament, interests, and income?

Tom was over the moon when I told him about Alton. He couldn’t believe he had a brother already. Once the mothers gave permission, Tom fired off a chatty, boisterous e-mail to his new brother, Alton:

Hi! I dont have much of an idea what to tell you about me. So ill just tell you anything that pops into my head. Right now im in a band named infernal. We’re a rap group. OK stop laughing now. I have a lot of fun making music and my friends think I am the best person in the group at being able to “catch” the beat. College has been an important part of my life. Also I have about 19 credits at college and a 3.8 gpa. The classes I have taken include English 1, English 2, Psychology, American Government, Principles of Microeconomics and a bunch of computer classes . . . I am also spending time with my girlfriend Lana. Shes a really nice girl from Russia. Russian is her first language but you can barely tell when your just talking to her cause she doesnt really have an accent, but when I go to her house though it is really weird like hearing her give her dog commands in Russian. . . . Um what else . . . I have three cats and one of them me and my friend Mike found wandering outside my house (the poor kitty only had three legs so we had to take it in), no we didnt call it tripod. Well thats about all that I can think of to tell about me right now, ask me some questions in your reply so I will have a better idea in what your interested in finding out about me.

Alton answered cheerfully:

I’m not sure where to begin so I guess I’ll just start in a random place and go from there. I’m 15. . . . I play the piano, though not as seriously now, and if you have an mp3 player (I hope) you can hear me play a solo piece in Italy . . . I know I was rushing but it was the last night in an 8 concert series and it was late at night and the room was hot with a bunch of sweaty old italian ladies and their expensive perfume.

I like computer graphics a lot. Ok, I admit it, I’m a total comp nerd, but who isn’t nowadays. . . . I also have a pet but mines a dog. Her name is, well wuddya know, it’s Lana. She is a four legged golden retriever and I think I have a picture of her on my website. That’s all for now, it’s great to talk to ya.

Tom responded eagerly, confessionally:

Actually I don’t have an Mp3 player right now cause I killed my other computer on accident. . . . So yeah as soon as I get my computer fixed ill listen to your music. It sounds pretty cool though. Im not sure what else to tell you about me. I guess I should tell you right off the bat so it doesnt come as a surprise later, but right now im stuck going to group therapy. Why you ask, because last year when I was in school they found “suicidal” lyrics in my bookbag to a song I was writing. What they didnt know and didnt care to know is that I was trying to write a song against suicide becayse that was about a week after my friend Eden tried to commit suicide by swallowing about 50 tylenol and we wouldn’t have found out if she hadnt collapsed in front of us . . . well anyways that had a profound effect on me seeing one of my close friends in the hospital because she tried to commit suicide, so I was writing a song about it when the school found it, so I ended up getting suspended and I have to go to therapy right now. I have found that most of my friends dont care about it cause most of them believe me that I was writing a song about how it is a bad thing to do that, but I have some friends who wont hang around me now because they think I am going to hurt them or myself. So I thought I would tell you, so it wouldn’t come to a shock later. That was a depressing song when we got it finished, most of my songs aren’t like that though. I usually write songs that make people laugh. . . . My band’s website is still under construction since my friend mike basically wrote the site and I just did the HTML coding and since every other word he says is a cuss word its got a lot of cussing in it. I mean this guy uses about six cuss words to describe a newborn puppy. Hes my best friend though so I cant complain too much. I thought I would warn you though that there is a good amount of cussing on the site though so that when we get it up and I give you the address (if you want it) you wont be surprised and offended . . . we decided to put up a website so we could take online orders for our CDs, cause last year we released the cd and sold about 70 copies to people, most of whom don’t even like rap music and found out there were still a lot of people who said that if they had heard a sample of our music and liked it they would have bought the CD. , , , , wow ive been talking wwwaaaaaayyyyyy too much, you probably stopped reading about 1 page ago :-). Well anyways write me back when you get a chance.

—Tom.

Alton wrote back:

That’s rough about your friend, I’m sorry. How long do you have to be in therapy? The only therapy I ever did was when my parents broke up and all the dude did was nod his head and say, “interesting” or “hmm.” Oh well. But think of it this way: those people who won’t hang out now are the one’s who wouldn’t stick by their friend, so I guess they would not be a true friend anyway.

That’s cool about your band though, that you’re selling CDs . . . I can’t rap or play guitar though, so I could never do that. I think my mom sent a picture of me to you, at least she said she did . . . did you see it and do you look at all like me? That would be very cool.

Anyway I have to go, so write me back . . .

Alton.

Samantha, who had been hearing about the e-mails from Alton, wondered if the two boys were brothers at all. They seemed so different: Insane Clown Posse versus classical piano, suicidal friend versus golden retriever. The two moms exchanged photographs. Mary thought the boys looked very similar; Samantha thought they didn’t. (As the independent arbiter, I agreed with both of them. At first glance, they didn’t look much alike, but they share extremely deep-set blue eyes, a wickedly strong chin, light brown hair, and a unibrow. And there was something—maybe a look, a cant of the head—that made them look like brothers.) Mary assured Samantha that Hazel had checked the records: Coral was definitely Tom’s dad, too.