CGS-authored

When I was 7 years old, my father told me I was conceived through an anonymous sperm donation.

As he told me the story of where I came from, the scene became burned in my memory like an acid-etched plate. On a breezeless summer day in June 2002, I idled my bike to a stop. I was tired; sweat was building up in my black, angular bike helmet, dripping down into my eyes. I stood next to a wrought iron fence lining a road that overlooked a drainage ditch, bone-dry in the unforgiving Texas heat. The few drops of sweat that fell to the concrete from my forehead quickly evaporated. My sense of identity, too, had evaporated.

It instantly made sense. My father had such rich, dark olive skin while I was stuck with an unappealing shade of boring white. My skin was only ever dark when sunburned. His thick, black hair was nothing like my own cow-licked chestnut.

In elementary school, when prideful peers touted their “mothers’ noses” and “grandfathers’ eyes,” I felt the weight of an uncomfortable question...