The Inheritance Paradox
Twenty (My Story)
IT TOOK ME most of the week to get the story of my dad’s family in Italy written. I scanned the pages from my journal and sent them to Megan and gave the book to Brenda to read. They were both pretty stunned by the revelation. I talked to Megan Friday night.
“Okay. So, if it’s all true,” Megan postulated, “then our DNA should be shared by people from different parts of the world. I’ll expand the search a bit.”
“That’s making a huge assumption that it’s true,” I said.
“No. It’s suggesting a theory to test. Nothing more.”
“You seem really committed to the idea, though.”
“Nat, I wasn’t sure if I should share this with you yet,” Megan said. “But it’s been weighing on my mind for two days and I have to tell you. Please don’t jump to any big conclusions. But this could be life changing.”
“Megan! What could be so dangerous? Is it something in our DNA?”
“Yes. You’re sitting down, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. You’ve got me really worried.”
“We found a couple of variants that are currently of unknown significance. The qRNA seems to be carried in gene MBD4. It’s unknown and not tracked through other tests. It’s found in all our immediate family—you and me, your children, and both Mom and Dad. This is the first I’ve been able to track where the qRNA resides, so gene MBD4 is entering known space. It seems obvious, however, that it’s hereditary. That gene is not in Brenda’s genome.”
“Meaning the rest of us are all related,” I laughed. “Doesn’t sound so serious to me. Probably right up there with blue eyes and brown hair.”
“It could be that insignificant, or it could be the gene that fights cancer or something. You know both Dad’s parents died of cancer. Dad said he was diagnosed with terminal cancer but was miraculously healed. He said his doctor called it faith healing. The story you wrote suggests it was related to his time travel.”
“It would be nice to find a cancer-resistant gene.”
“Here’s a surprise for you, though, that will make you think twice about the story you just wrote. It’s not hard to trace our maternal DNA back to Central Europe generations ago. That’s done through the mitochondrial DNA. Both male and female can inherit that DNA, but only females pass it on. Isn’t that fascinating?”
“But there’s been paternity testing and such like that for years. So, there must be a way to trace paternal DNA, too,” I said.
“Of course. That’s done through Y chromosome DNA and can reveal exact relationships two or three generations previously. That’s where the mysteries begin to appear for us.”
“How so?”
“We can tell how closely family members are related. You and I share a genetic makeup that clearly points to our mother and father. The same is true of Luke and Lisa, pointing back to you and Brenda as parents and Mom and Dad as grandparents.”
“Okay. I’d expect that, right?” I asked.
“Yes. What you wouldn’t expect is for Brenda’s DNA to point to Dad as her grandfather.”
“What?” I practically shouted into the phone.
“I think we have or had a half-sibling, Nat. And you are married to her daughter.”
“Oh, fuck!”
I couldn’t even begin to imagine the implications of that. I’d found no mention of offspring from Dad’s first marriage. I needed to get up to Grand Rapids and investigate the school records up there.
It was disturbing news. I sat at my desk with my journal open, making notes about what it implied regarding Dad’s life before Mom. Megan implied that I’d married my niece. She was the daughter of an obviously much older half-sibling I didn’t know I had. Of course, Meg had quickly shuffled around with the evidence not being an absolute guarantee. In fact, if our father had an identical twin, she might only be a first cousin once removed.
I don’t think that was as comforting as she intended it to be. It just increased the anomalies in our family. I had a father who wouldn’t talk about anything in his life before he met Mom but insisted on having had a life as a time traveler, even though I’d found records of his birth, his high school graduation, and his career as a minister. I wondered if the whole time traveler thing was related to his trying to cope with the radical changes in his life when he got divorced, cancer, and defrocked—if that was what happened.
‘Records’ was a loaded term. I’d found a birth announcement in a back issue of the Battle Creek Enquirer. I’d found a picture of Dad in a high school yearbook. I’d found his name in my grandfather’s obituary. None of those had made any mention of a twin brother. I was going to need to do a lot more investigating, and I hated the idea of investigating my wife.
She was sixteen when I found her on the streets of East Lansing and took her home to Mom and Dad. I was nearing graduation from college and had a job lined up in Grand Rapids with a privately owned medical devices company that needed a technical writer. I’d taken a technical writing course at the university, so I figured, somehow, that qualified me for the job.
The amount of learning I had to do in the next few months just about knocked me out. I almost completed enough extra studies in the next four years to get a medical degree. Of course, by that time, Megan had her PhD, MD, and was writing papers that were submitted to medical journals all over the world.
The thing is, I really didn’t have much time with Brenda for a couple of years. I managed to get a small apartment not far from the company with a little help at first from Dad. I even dated some up in Grand Rapids. Brenda and I got along great and when I got home for a long weekend or holiday, I always made sure to spend some time and do something special with her. She was like a little sister, and Mom and Dad had done everything but officially adopt her. They had filed for custody with the State. Child Services was more than happy to have her someplace they didn’t have to keep hunting for her. When I’d found her, she’d been living on the streets for six months after running away from her last foster home.
Wow. Mom and Dad treated her like a daughter when in reality, she was Dad’s granddaughter. Maybe. I was sure neither one of them knew that. Dad would have acknowledged her if he had any idea. He probably would have put a stop to our relationship.
That relationship didn’t really take off until after she was out of high school. Somehow our brother-sister dates started becoming boyfriend-girlfriend dates. There was still the issue of distance. It’s not like I could get back to Ann Arbor every weekend. It took two years of dating before Brenda took matters into her own hands, so to speak, and moved in with me in Grand Rapids. We didn’t even pretend we weren’t together forever. When she got pregnant the next year, we tied the knot.
I couldn’t imagine life without her. Neither of us could imagine raising a child in the tiny apartment I’d lived in for nearly five years. That was when I got recruited by a medical devices firm in Ann Arbor and we jumped at the opportunity to move home, get a mortgage, and settle down near Mom and Dad.
The day after my talk with Megan, the family focus was on getting everything ready for the big sale the next week. We inventoried everything we were selling and set prices. Occasionally, Mom or Dad would grab something out of the sale and set it aside to move with them. I took five boxes of books home with me. Dad and I took eight more boxes to the little storeroom he’d rented. It took us most of Saturday and Sunday to get everything ready, including bringing a few things of Brenda’s and mine to add to the sale. Zach and Val did a bang-up job on the exterior and Lisa started scrubbing emptied cabinets in the kitchen. I found out later that Zach and Val were making a regular circuit of mowing Dad’s place, our place, and Val’s home. Good kids.
“When are you going to do some more research on Dad’s life?” Brenda asked Sunday night. We’d collapsed in front of the TV with a bowl of popcorn and weren’t paying attention to the movie that was playing.
“I’m feeling like I’m almost caught up with where we are at work,” I said. “The guys are actually writing code, so I’ll be turning specs and testing reports into documentation soon. I was thinking I’d go up to Grand Rapids on Tuesday.”
As we sat and talked, I realized we were holding hands. I smiled, just thinking about our relationship. Brenda and I automatically joined hands when we were near each other. I’d noticed it was a characteristic of Mom and Dad, too—one I was happy we’d copied. I wondered if Zach and Val were finding it as easy. No matter where Mom and Dad went or what they were doing, if they were together, they held hands. There was an attraction between them.
In fact, Dad had once explained it to me when I complained that a high school girlfriend didn’t ever want to hold hands with me because it was too intimate.
“Hands are like magnets,” he said. “You have to have a matching or compatible polarity. Sometimes when you bring two magnets together, they are repelled apart. Sometimes you bring them together and can’t pull them apart. I suppose people have more polarities than north and south, like magnets have, but…”
He faded off and his eyes kind of lost focus a little. I knew I was likely to get another one of his tall tales as an example, but he just let it hang there. I broke up with my girlfriend that weekend. We didn’t have compatible polarities. I was so glad Brenda and I did.
“Do you remember life before me?” Brenda asked.
“I didn’t really have a life before you,” I laughed. “You are my life.”
“My life began when Mom and Dad took me in.”
“You know,” I said, seeing an opportunity, “maybe we should research your heritage and family, too. I mean, we’ve been incredibly curious and amazed by the discoveries we’ve made in Dad’s life. Suppose Lisa and Zach are packing us up to move into an old folks’ home. Will they have the same kinds of questions about us?”
“Old folks’ home? You think you are ever going to pack me into an old folks’ home?” she laughed. “If they move you to one, I promise to visit.”
“Seriously, Brenda. I’m willing to include you in the research I do, but I won’t do it without your permission,” I said.
“You’re so sweet, Nathaniel. And such a good dad. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt anything. I mean, I know my parents were killed in an auto accident when I was… um… I don’t remember. Eight or ten. I’m sure I have the papers the state provided Mom and Dad when they took me in. Or maybe they have them. I’ll dig them out and you can add them to your body of research. It would be nice to know more about my parents. Those years of getting passed around to foster homes were times I just wanted to forget and never think of again.”
“Brenda, honey, I’ll search for good things, not bad.”
“When I married you, I said ‘For better or worse.’ I meant it, Nat.”
“I’ll always try to make sure it’s for the best,” I said, kissing her. That led to more kisses, which led to an early night in bed.
I took a personal day on Tuesday and scooted my butt up to Grand Rapids. It was a little nostalgic since I’d lived there after I finished my BA. It was where Brenda and I had our first home. I had no idea back then that Dad had gone to Grace Bible College right there in town.
It wasn’t a particularly imposing campus. The oldest buildings were just red brick like any old schoolhouse in Michigan. The newer structures boasted a kind of space age architecture. I guess they wanted to prove their relevance in a space age world. Of course, that style had gone out in the eighties and the buildings looked dated. I was sure the next generation of buildings would be simple steel and glass after the rest of the world had returned to granite.
I found visitor parking near the library. It was an attractive building with a façade of contemporary columns and arches behind which were sloping glass walls. I went in and introduced myself to a student working at the desk.
“I’m working on a family history and was wondering if I could take a look at college yearbooks from about 1969 to 1972,” I said.
“Oh, that’s cool. Are you Mormon?” she asked.
“No. This isn’t a Mormon school, is it?”
“No, we just get a lot of Mormons who come in looking for family history. There was quite a migration of Mormons to Michigan from New York in the mid-1800s. Then most of them moved on to Utah by 1870. Still, lots of history here,” she said.
“You seem very knowledgeable. Are you Mormon?”
“No. I’m a Christian now. But my parents are Mormon and when I was still in high school, they made me do a ton of family research. Let me show you where the yearbooks are.”
We walked to a reference section, and she showed me the shelves of yearbooks dating back to the 1930s. I thanked her and found a carousel where I could set up my laptop and take notes. I pulled the 1969 yearbook down and started perusing the pages.
There was a recognizable photo of Dad as a freshman, and I took a picture of it. For the next three hours, I was buried in yearbooks. I discovered the yearbook was a joint yearbook for both the college and seminary. So, after I finished with the 1972 yearbook, I pulled the 1973 edition down and found Dad in the seminary pages.
I also found photos of Mary Fletcher, who was a college sophomore when Dad was in his first year of seminary. There were only a couple of photos of them together in that book, but in the 1974 edition, there was actually a photo of their wedding in the school chapel.
There was a list of ‘callings’ for the newly graduated ministerial candidates, not all of whom became ordained ministers. I didn’t understand the ordination system but read that Rev. and Mrs. Eugene Holbrook had been called to the Trinity Congregation in Kalamazoo. That would have been two years before my grandfather’s death.
I photographed every mention of Dad I found in the yearbooks and then found the alumni magazine. I went through several issues of that and found a directory with addresses for recent graduates. It listed the residence of Mary and Eugene Holbrook in Kalamazoo.
By noon, I’d found all I could about Dad from the library. I checked through later issues of the alumni magazine, but it didn’t mention anything else about him through 1979. I didn’t know what else to look for. I wandered around the campus, just absorbing the atmosphere and looking for inspiration. Of course, it was the middle of the summer, so there were fewer students running around than one might otherwise guess. I stopped in the student center, which had a cafeteria, a game room, and a chapel—the chapel where Dad and Mary Fletcher were married. I snapped a couple of pictures.
In the lobby, though, there was a memorial to President Emeritus Howard Sinclair who had passed away in the spring. I stopped to read the tributes and found something I never expected. Surviving President Sinclair was his widow, Mary Fletcher Sinclair and their son, the current president of the college, Rev. Dr. Jeremy Sinclair. There were several photos of the family and when I saw her, there was no doubt in my mind that this was the same Mary Fletcher who divorced Dad.
That gave me something more to research and I went back to the library.
Rev. Dr. Howard Sinclair was a graduate in the same seminary class as Dad. He had become president of the college in 1993 and served until 2013 when he retired. The current president of the university was just a year younger than I was. I looked at his pictures to see if there was any family resemblance. Could this be where my half-sibling came from? I called my sister.
“You have to visit her!” Meg said. “Tell her you’re just doing a study on the life of ministers’ wives in the seventies and eighties and wonder if she’ll talk to you about what life was like. Don’t waste any time. Find her now!”
“That’s a lot of prep to do to try to conduct an interview,” I said. “I’ll see if I can find her address. For all I know she’s living in Florida.”
“Just do it, Nat. You might never have another chance like this.”
I know she’s three years younger than I, but when my sister orders me to do something, I generally do it. I went back into the library and decided to go directly to the reference desk. There was a different, but just as helpful student librarian at the desk.
“Mrs. Sinclair? She’s such a sweetheart!”
The girl’s nametag read ‘Joyce.’
“It’s so sad that Dr. Sinclair passed away this spring. She lives over in the retirees’ apartments. A lot of people who served and retired here at the college choose to live over there. It’s technically not on campus, but it’s still owned by the college. Let me show you on your phone. You know, your map app.”
“Sure,” I said, handing her my unlocked phone. “You know a lot about her, don’t you?”
“Oh, a bunch of us go over almost every weekend. Not as many in the summer because there is only half a dozen of us who belong to the ministerial service club on campus during the summer,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a long-standing tradition here at Grace. We know women can’t become preachers, see? But a lot of us want to do church work. The best way to do that is to find a minister we can team up with. You know? Marry?”
“Oh. Uh… There are lots of churches that allow women in the pulpit,” I suggested.
I knew there were at least half a dozen woman ministers near us in Ann Arbor. They were always doing social work or something.
“We’re evangelicals. We prefer more traditional roles in the Christian church.”
“Oh, I see. I think.”
“Mrs. Sinclair was the sponsor of our group the entire time her husband was president. Then when he retired, she stayed active with us and even though it isn’t an official college organization, there are still a few of us who seek guidance in that role. And some women fall in love with a ministerial candidate and go to her for counseling before marriage,” Joyce said.
By that time, she’d dropped a pin on the map so I could follow the directions.
“Thank you for your help. If she’s busy, I won’t disturb her,” I said.
“She always tells us to just drop in, so I bet it will be okay. What’s your name? I’ll text her.”
“Nathaniel… Vincent,” I said. I quickly decided to use my middle name. She might not agree to see me at all if I gave her Dad’s last name. “I’m doing research on an article on how the life of a parish wife changed in the last half of the twentieth century.”
I was confident the previous librarian would not have told her I was doing genealogical research.
“Oh, yeah. Life in the fishbowl,” Joyce laughed. “Mrs. Sinclair is the perfect person to talk to. She’s seen it all!”
“Thank you. I’ll walk over there now,” I said, turning on walking directions on my phone.
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
