Perched on my computer as I pretend to write is a snapshot of my grandfather at 87, perched at the edge of his florid, Floridian marital bed. Standing on the bed, buck naked but for a diaper and a handbag, is not my grandmother— God save us— but my daughter at age 11/2. We have brought her south to amuse and comfort Harry as he battles prostate cancer.
Although there is no photo of Charles Darwin on my desk, I imagine him gazing down from somewhere and with befuddlement on this first photo. For my grandfather, like me, is plainly Caucasian, while my daughter is exquisitely Chinese.
Why, Darwin might wonder, is this old man, contemplating at point-blank range his own extinction, comforted by the knowledge that his only grandson's only child is not of his own blood but adopted— a cuckoo in the nest?
From a Darwinian standpoint, going ...
