This story is based on an interview with the editors of The Doe.
Growing up, I basically had two dads: the dad that was there every day and raised me, and the dad that I knew to be my biological dad. The latter was the man that my mom was married to when she became pregnant with me; let’s call him Sal. He was my legal father. I had visitation rights with him after they divorced.
Then, when I was around 9 or 10 years old, my mom let me know that while she was married to Sal, she was the victim of a sexual assault by a coworker, and I was the result of that. My mom is very Christian and conservative, but she was never shy about teaching us things, so I had a full understanding of what sexual assault was at that age.
When I found out, I immediately started sobbing. Sal had known he wasn’t my biological dad for a while. It was a big part of the reason for their divorce. The man who raised me—I’ll call him Jim—is my older brother’s biological father, so he was already in my mom’s life when she met Sal. When my mom got pregnant with me, Sal and his whole family thought that my mom had had an affair with Jim, and that she lied about the assault to cover it up. My mom refused to abort me because of religious reasons, and at first was going to give me up for adoption, but then she changed her mind at the last minute and decided to keep me.
After I found out about the failed adoption, I remember feeling a particular kind of warmth that my mom had chosen me over her marriage. Sal was not a good husband according to her, so I didn’t really feel guilt, per se. But I was definitely devastated to learn that Sal wasn’t my real dad. I spent my first 10 years on this earth believing that’s who he was. Around that time, visitations with Sal stopped, and I wouldn’t see or hear from him for another decade.
The thing I wanted to know the most was what my real biological dad looked like. I didn’t have a clue beforehand that Sal wasn’t my dad, because I’ve always looked more like my mom. She’s Black and Sal is white, and I’ve always had the skin tone of someone half Black and half white. My mom told me, “If you want to look him up, I support that.” But I decided against it. I think it was because I had my dad, Jim. In my head I was like, “I already have a dad that has loved me as his own from the day I was born. I don’t need anyone else.” I’d actually wondered myself whether Jim was indeed my real dad. I always had an essence of doubt about my mom’s sexual assault story—until I did 23andMe.
Oh my God, was I excited. I finally had some answers about half of who I am.
My boyfriend and I did it together for Christmas, on a whim, when I was 23 years old. At that point, I hadn’t thought about my biological dad in years. When we got our results, I got a notification that said I shared 25% of my DNA with someone. At first, I didn’t do the math and realize, Huh, 25% is a lot. But then I got a message from a gentleman who was born in the ‘60s—about 30 years older than me—wondering how we were related. I’ll call him Mike. I saw my biological dad’s unusual Italian last name on this guy’s list of family surnames.
I responded to the message with my father’s name—let’s call him Larry Piedenero. “Do you know Larry?” I asked.
He said, “Larry is my biological father.”
Mike told me that, like me, he’d never met Larry. He was the product of a one-night stand, and his birth mother had given him up for adoption. He said that Larry passed away two years ago, and that he had at least three other children. Mike had tracked them down and met them, along with some members of Larry’s extended family.
I ran into my bedroom with tears in my eyes. I told my boyfriend, “He’s my brother!” It felt surreal. I felt like I was reading a movie script. I was just in utter shock and disbelief. And then once I settled down, oh my God, was I excited. I finally had some answers about half of who I am.
Mike put me in touch with the rest of my siblings on Facebook. Larry’s first daughter was born in 1958, two years before my mom was born. The last one born before me was born in 1965. Later, we discovered a fifth sibling born in 1963. I’m always waiting to see if more of us pop up, because 1965 to 1996 (when I was born) is a very long break.
The siblings had built out the whole family tree on ancestry.com. And they sent me pictures, including of my dad. I never realized how deeply I needed to see a picture. They also told me a little bit about him: He was apparently a genius, and a writer like I am. He wrote for a lot of newspapers in the 1960s, and even after that. He was quite a progressive man; he wrote an op-ed criticizing the grand jury’s decision not to indict Daniel Pantaleo, the cop that killed Eric Garner in 2014. He wrote another one about the racist comments made by Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling. Reading those articles, I felt a bit of pride. It was the first connection I felt to this man who I can never fully know. Most of Larry will forever be a mystery to me.
I never told the other siblings that my dad sexually assaulted my mother. I didn’t need to tarnish whatever memory they might have had of their dad. Also, it was a joyous, positive moment for me, and I didn’t want to to ruin that feeling of happiness. When I called my mom to let her know everything I’d discovered, she was really supportive. And she gave me permission to not hate him. She told me, “He was deeply misled man with a lot of emotional turmoil. But he was not a monster.” Even in that moment, the first emotion she had was grace for me. She was putting my needs first, as she always has.
So I decided, Let this be a joyous family reunion. And I will let the tragedy be my burden and no one else’s.
More than anything else, it felt so good to have an answer. I’d always had this weird feeling that there was something missing from me. I did not feel complete. Now I had some people to ask questions and fill in the details. I had people who could relate—literally.
