All Over the Map

20. Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty

The top of the donor profile is titled “Southwest Reproductive Center.” Donor QUW97Z’s vital stats and anecdotal details look like a printout from a dating app. 6’1, 190 pounds, medium brown hair with no family history of baldness, fair complexion, green eyes at the “time of deposit.” Ew. He liked rock climbing, reading, and people-watching. IQ: 138. He was a master’s student at the time of donation for Leila. The center has listed his personality type as INTJ on the Myers-Briggs. I don’t know what that means, but I’ll look it up.

I wonder what Mom saw in there that made her decide he was the perfect biological material for her child.

“Can I take a picture of this?” I ask Leila.

“Sure.” Her answer is quiet and disinterested.

“You and Seth both get really weird any time I bring up finding out more information about this guy.”

“I’m not being weird.” She’d climbed back on the bed when she handed me the profile, and now she studies her toes.

“You are, though. It’s not a criticism. You both get quiet and uncomfortable, like you’re in the dentist chair for a cavity. Why?”

She wiggles her toes, leaning forward like she wants a better look. “You sure you don’t want to just do nails?”

“Leila . . .”

She groans. “There’s only one thing I know about him now that you don’t. And it’s that he’s a total jerk.”

“Wait, what?” The room feels like it’s tilting. “How do you know that? Have you talked to him?”

She shakes her head. “No, to Erin. His wife.”

“Erin, mother of the other brother?” I rhyme to chase off the funk hanging over her.

It works. She smiles. “Yeah, that’s her. She’s married to the sperm donor. And she’s great. He’s not.”

“So tell me.”

“Erin married the sperm donor ten years ago. She won’t tell you anything about him. They had Max as a couple. He’s not a sperm donation. But then she had a hysterectomy a couple of years after that, and she couldn’t have more kids. Ironic, huh?”

“That the sperm donor may have fifty kids wandering around but can’t have more of his own? Yeah. Ironic.”

“Anyway, Max is eight. She knew that Max’s dad had been a sperm donor, and a couple of years ago when Max started asking for another brother, she said it broke her heart that she couldn’t give him one. But then it occurred to her that the DNA tests might turn up siblings, so she put his profile on RootsDNA to see what she found. So far that’s me and Seth. And now you. But she’s really strict about who gets to know Max. She’ll email you this long thing about how the donor has chosen not to be involved in our lives, and how you have to be interested just in Max, not her husband, the donor.”

“She doesn’t even give you the donor’s name or anything?”

“Nope.” Leila leans forward. “But screw that guy if he doesn’t want to know us. Max is a pretty cool kid, and if Erin decides she trusts you, you’ll get a chance to talk to him. But she always stays nearby on FaceTime so that he doesn’t accidentally spill the beans about his dad.”

It’s a gut punch. It shouldn’t be. If this guy wanted to be found, he would have put himself in the RootsDNA database or the sperm donor database Seth mentioned. But it hurts to know that he would go so far out of his way to make sure we don’t contact him.

“Donor dude sounds like he sucks.”

Leila scoots forward and hugs me. “He does. But I don’t, and you don’t. So again, screw that guy.”

“This is why Seth was so weird about him?” The realization breaks over me.

“Yeah. Seth is hard to read, but I think it bugs him that the donor refuses all contact.”

I think back to how evasive Seth was about the donor, how quickly he wanted to end the conversation after the donor came up. “I shouldn’t have pushed him so hard for information. I owe him an apology.”

“This is turning into a massive bummer,” Leila says. “But I can help a little. Let me email Erin, Max’s mom, and get you guys in touch. Then you can at least talk to Max.” She climbs off the bed and pulls her phone from her pocket, tapping out a message as she walks to the door, mumbling to herself as she does.

“. . . met another sister . . . sent message on RootsDNA . . . love to talk to you. Tell Max I say hi. Would love to FaceTime with him soon.” She taps a little longer. “Okay, and send! I’m going to take a shower, and when I come back, we’ll talk about fun stuff. Put this on the charger?”

She tosses me the phone, but I brush the screen lightly as she walks out, and when the door closes behind her, her phone screen is still active.

I do not feel like a good person when I do it, but I open her email app to find the “sent” folder and Erin’s address. Instead, there’s an out-of-office autoreply from Erin’s email stating that she’ll be unavailable from March 24–31.

I take a picture of the screen with my own phone before plugging Leila’s into the charger and let the screen go dark. Then I study the picture, analyzing everything in Erin’s automatic signature. Erin Lombard. Director of Human Resources. Randolph Industries. (267) 555-4271.

Lombard. Is that my bio dad’s last name?

I look up the area code first. It’s Philadelphia. Then I begin a social media search. Mom always uses LinkedIn, so I start there, using her account. She’s easy to hack because she uses the same password for everything: iloveK3ndall. LinkedIn gives me plenty of information about Erin’s professional skills and job experience, but she hasn’t included any personal details. She doesn’t seem to have an Instagram account, but when I log into Mom’s Facebook account and snoop, I find an Erin Lombard in a town called Devon near Philadelphia.

In a way, I don’t want this to be the same Erin Lombard. Philadelphia is far. Literally the opposite coast. There is no way that I can make it to Philadelphia and back home before this trip has to end.

This Erin Lombard’s privacy settings are strict. Her timeline only shows changes in her profile picture, but her “About” section shows her working at Randolph Industries and married to David Lombard.

Bingo.

My hand shakes as I stare at his name. My biological father’s name is David Lombard.

Suddenly it doesn’t matter that he’s all the way in Philadelphia because I have one hundred percent more information about him than I did twenty seconds ago. I have a name. And a name can unlock a dozen more mysteries.

Does Leila know his name? She doesn’t seem too curious about him, maybe because Tom is the perfect prototype of what a father should be.

I use every bit of Google’s magic to dig up more details on David Lombard. Within a few minutes I have a picture of him, black and white, from the University of Philadelphia website where he’s a professor specializing in forensic psychology. He has dark hair, strong eyebrows, a thin face, and the kind of smile you give when you’re being forced to smile for a formal picture. He looks . . . normal. Average. Ordinary.

I only have to go to the fourth page of results to discover why Erin Lombard’s email generated an out-of-office message: David Lombard will deliver a presentation called “Critical Thinking in Forensic Psychological Evaluation” this Friday morning in San Diego, California. Erin must be with him. It would make sense. Lots of people are on spring break, so why not tag along with your husband to San Diego?

Within thirty seconds, I’ve learned that forensic psychology is basically analyzing criminals. This gives me a weird pang I don’t understand, but I file it away to think about later. I listen for Leila, for the sound of the shower to stop, and keep digging. Another thirty seconds and I have a Google Map pulled up. San Diego is sixteen hours from Bend. The conference website gives me everything from the address for the hotel where he’ll present to the name of the room he’ll be lecturing in at 9:00 on Friday morning.

It’s almost a thousand miles away, but I’ve got two days. I can do this. I can get to San Diego in time to meet my biological father, even with stopping for a full night of sleep at a hotel tomorrow and sit-down meals along the way.

My sperm donor is David Lombard. And I’m going to meet him.