When I found out my father had been adopted, I was curious to know more about his side of the family. Nothing could have prepared me for what I would discover …
A
bove my grandma’s bed hung a framed black‑and-white photograph of my dad. As a small child I quietly admired it; his luminous eyes, dark hair and gentle smile. He embodied a tender yet spirited early adulthood, staring into the future. Handsome and seeking.
As I grew older, I would discover that it was not, in fact, a photograph of my dad but of a man called Elvis Presley. Apparently he was very famous. My grandma had been a lifelong fan. My parents laughed – an adorable mistake – but I felt a hot pulse of humiliation.
Ten years later, over a family breakfast, it was mentioned in passing that the same grandmother was not blood-related to us. We shared her surname but not her genes. I was sipping orange juice when a swell of disorientation surged over me. It was another detail that the rest of the family apparently knew but had never told me; they thought “I already knew”.
