A Place at the Table (34 page)

It brings immediate and unexpected tears to my eyes, seeing Daddy in Alice’s house.

“Excuse me?” I call. My voice comes out shaky and quivering, and Bobby, who must not have heard me in the kitchen, does not respond.

I pick the framed photo up in my hands and walk to the kitchen with it. “Excuse me, but who is this?” I say, pointing to the boy—Daddy—in the framed photograph.

Bobby is pouring pecans into a small blue bowl. He glances at the photo. “You mean Alice’s brother?”

“No. The boy with the chicken on his shoulder.”

“Right. Alice’s brother. His name was James. Alice doesn’t like to talk about him. He died a long time ago.”

And as I am trying to figure out how this could be, how Daddy could be both Alice’s dead brother James
and
my father who was in love with Alice and who is still very much alive, I hear the turning
of the key, and then the apartment door swings open and Alice, tall, regal, and elegant, makes her way inside, a cloth satchel hanging from one arm, the bright green tops of scallions poking out from it. We look each other up and down, and then our eyes meet. I am staring at her, but also, I am staring at my dad—a female version, and with much darker skin.

There is a framed photo of Aunt Kate and Alice Stone in Kate’s living room, both women with their heads thrown back, laughing. I must have looked at that photo a hundred times. How did I not see my father in Alice’s face? I am struck by an ugly realization: The darkness of her skin must have stopped me from looking any closer.

And suddenly the knot has loosened and all of the threads are coming undone. I am thinking of the long sleeves Daddy wore while gardening, the oversized hats. I am thinking of the way he used to smear us both in Glacier Creme. I am thinking of the way Mother always despised my curly hair. I am thinking of my maiden name, Brookstone, which contains a “stone” within it.

But Kate said Daddy was in love with Alice.

No.

Kate said he loved her, and I took that to mean he was in love with her. But I was doing what I always do, rearranging the evidence to make it fit the narrative I want to be true.

A voice in my head whispers,
Look, Amelia. Look hard at what is in front of you.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh. God.

Daddy was not the orphaned child of Italian emigrants. Daddy was James Stone—so close to “Benjamin Brookstone”—born to black farmers in Virginia.

Daddy loved Alice because Daddy was Alice’s brother.

Daddy’s parents didn’t die during the Depression. Daddy’s blackness did.

Which means I am not half-Italian. I am half-black. My father was—is—black. And this woman I am facing is blood. This woman I am facing is my other aunt. My aunt Alice.

I reach out to touch her, to lay my hand on her arm, and she jerks back reflexively.

“Alice,” I say slowly. “I’m James’s daughter, Amelia. I’m your niece.”

She flinches, as if stung. “No,” she says.

“Yes, yes. I see it now. My father pretended to be a white man with Italian ancestry. But he was your brother, James. That boy”—I put my finger on the photo—“is my dad.”

“James is dead. He died sixty years ago.”

“No,” I say gently. “I don’t think so.” The tangled knots of my father’s past have loosened, and now they are unfurling, rolling me back into the past, where I can see Daddy, a light-skinned young man, arriving in New York with nothing but a suitcase and a lie. Joining the crowds at Grand Central station, realizing that in this great big city he could be whoever he wanted. Thinking he could cut the tie that held him to North Carolina. Thinking he could cut the tie and no longer be vulnerable. I see my father. I see my bright, earnest father, wanting more from life than what he could get with colored skin. Giving up everything. Shedding a history. Slipping into the crowds. Leaving North Carolina behind. Leaving Alice, as if he had died.

“He’s alive,” I say. “He’s a doctor. A geneticist, well known in his field. Oh God, of course. Of course he’s a geneticist. Studying how closely we are all related. He lives in Palo Alto, California, has a research lab at Stanford. He’s alive and I am his daughter.”

“No,” Alice says. “I’m sorry, but no. My James is dead. I am no kin to a white man living in Palo Alto. And I’m sorry, but I
am no kin to you, whoever you are. No. This I cannot accept. I’m sorry, but no.”

“I know this must be hard. Believe me, I’m just figuring it out myself. It’s crazy. What Daddy did was crazy—”

“Child, it has been over sixty years since my brother left. You think I want anything to do with him now? You think I want anything to do with his lies, his cowardice, his shame? No. No, I do not. As far as I am concerned, James died a lifetime ago, and I don’t need some white ghost showing up and telling me that isn’t true.”

“Then you’re as much a liar as he is,” I say.

“You need to get the hell out of my house,” she says.

I turn to leave, feeling a fierce and sudden hatred toward this woman, and there stands Bobby, his face contorted in grief. He clutches his arms around his body. He is crying—silently—like an orphan in a crib, like a child who has lost all hope that he might ever be picked up again.

(New York City, 1991)

A
partial list of things said to me during my divorce: that I would be better off, that I would lose twenty pounds, that I would be strapped for cash, that I should “make the bastard pay,” that Cam had taken a swan dive into the pool of crazy, that I should feel happy for Cam since he is now so obviously happy, that there’s no way he and his girlfriend (now wife) are enjoying robust or vigorous or even steady sex now that there’s a baby in the picture. That
that
relationship certainly won’t last. That it’s time to put myself out there: to play the field, to have casual sex, to date younger men, to date older men, especially rich ones who will buy me nice things. That I will probably end up a stepmom to some man’s children, and gosh, won’t that be trying? That Cam and I always seemed like such a happy couple. That it was obvious all along that ours was a strained marriage. That Cam will be missed, because he always told such entertaining stories and was fun to have at parties. That Cam was an anchor
strapped to my body, pulling me down. That I must be wondering what I did to drive him away. That I must be heartbroken. That I must be devastated. That I must not entertain the possibility that the last twenty years of my life were a waste.

Which is to say that some responses were astute, some were cruel, some were funny, and some were simply clueless. But it was Aunt Kate, of course, who provided the best analysis. Who said to me, regarding the
many
changes in my life, “My dear, I have no idea what your future holds, but I guarantee it will be interesting.”

My past is more interesting, too, now that I can see my “olive” skin, my curly hair, my full lips, for what they really are: a reflection not of Italian, but of African roots.
Everything
looks different, a twist of the kaleidoscope revealing a changed landscape: fractured, breathtaking.

•  •  •

When I first moved into the city I stayed with Kate and Jack for a few weeks while I looked for a place to live. While at Kate’s, I got into the habit of swimming laps at the indoor pool at the 92nd Street Y. Even though I ended up taking an apartment on the West Side, I still go to the Y nearly every day. Today, as I swim up and down my lane, alternately coming up for air and submerging my face in the water, I think of a trip I took with my girls—back when they really
were
girls—to visit Taffy and the Judge in Atlanta. Cam came down with us for the weekend, but returned to Connecticut that Monday, while Lucy, Mandy, and I stayed on for the week. It was summer, and it was hot, and so we remained indoors as much as possible or piled into Taffy’s diesel Mercedes wagon, air-conditioning blasting, to drive to the movies or to the pool. One day Taffy’s housekeeper brought her daughter, Jasmine, along with her to work. Jasmine and Mandy, both eight, played well together, sliding in sock-covered feet up and down the wooden hallway, brushing out the long blond hair
of Mandy’s Barbies, making clay out of salt, flour, and water and smashing their palms into it, capturing their handprints. After lunch Taffy suggested we head to the Driving Club for a swim. Mandy asked if Jasmine might come, too.

“Well, that would be lovely, wouldn’t it, sweetheart?” said Taffy. “But I doubt Jasmine brought a bathing suit.”

“I’ve got an extra one,” said my girl.

A pained look crossed Taffy’s face, but then her features relaxed. Sure, she said brightly, Jasmine could come, but Mandy would need to go to the linen closet and bring down towels for us all. I didn’t say anything, but I knew the Driving Club kept a seemingly endless supply of plush white towels with blue stripes on hand, the club’s name printed on each, so that everyone who swam appeared to be in uniform as they dried off from the water. But apparently Taffy wasn’t taking us to the club that afternoon. Instead we went to the Brookwood Hills community pool, where Taffy and I lounged under umbrellas, drinking Frescas while watching the girls splash in the shallow end.

“Amelia, don’t judge,” Taffy finally said, though I had not articulated one word of critique. “That child would not have felt comfortable there. I promise, I was looking out for her more than anybody. She doesn’t need the burden of being the first black body to swim in that pool. Some reactionary old biddy might have made a scene.”

“No black person has ever swum in the PDC pool?”

“Not to my knowledge. And certainly not a maid’s daughter, I can promise you that.”

Today, as I move through the chlorinated water of this indoor, urban pool, it occurs to me that all those years ago, Lucy, Mandy, and I desegregated the Driving Club pool without even realizing it. Assuming we were the only ones there with mixed blood, inadvertently passing. Which might be assuming too much.

•  •  •

Daddy’s response, when I finally reached him in Palo Alto to tell him of my newfound knowledge of our family history:

“Don’t let anyone tell you you’re not as good as they are.”

“No one is telling me that,” I said.

“Well, no one has to know if you don’t want them to.”

A pause, while I took slow and deliberate breaths, trying to shrink the lump of anxiety that had swollen in my throat.

“Daddy, I
want
people to know. I want to be known fully.”

“Well, sweetheart, you’re braver than me.”

“It was a different time,” I said. “I have no way of understanding what you were going through.”

“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for acknowledging that.”

We were both quiet for a minute.

“Were you always scared? Of getting caught? Being exposed?”

“I didn’t allow myself to give it much thought. I concentrated on my work, my lab. I concentrated on genetic code, patterns beneath the surface. I’m no idiot, Amelia. I see the connection between my work and what I did to be able to pursue it. But I suppose somewhere along the way I decided that it would be easiest to live my life on my own terms if I weren’t first and foremost defined by the color of my skin. Frankly, I was right.”

“But you left everything. Everybody.”

“I’ll tell you something. Last year I was given a huge award, arguably the most prestigious one in the field of genetic research. And at the banquet honoring me, just before I gave my speech and accepted my check, I thought to myself,
And all it cost was everything.
”

•  •  •

A week after she kicked me out, Alice invited me back to the apartment she and Bobby Banks share. We sat down at their dining room table, all very solemn. Bobby served hot tea and put out a little pot of Alice’s lemon curd and a plate of homemade ginger snaps to
spread it on. Alice made it very clear that she was reaching out to me for Bobby’s sake and not her own. That Bobby was like a stubborn dog that got ahold of a chew toy and would not let it go. That it was Bobby who insisted she not look away from the truth of her brother’s life. That it was Bobby who shamed her for saying she could not accept that I was her kin.

“I told her,” Bobby clarified, “that if she refused to accept the truth of who you are, then she’s as limited as my mama.”

“He scolded me is what he did,” said Alice, looking at Bobby with fond annoyance. “Thirty-year-old man scolding an old woman. Lord. What I put up with from that child.”

The two of them exchanged a look. I could see the nights of hard conversations behind their locked eyes.

While Alice has come to accept me, albeit grudgingly at first, she has no space in her heart for my father. Alice only speaks of Daddy in the past, as if she is speaking of a dead man. She does not want to contact him, does not want to know what became of his life after he married my mother and had me. I think of Kate and Alice working so closely together on
Homegrown,
and all that time Alice never knew that on the weekends when Kate went to Connecticut to visit her sister and brother-in-law, she was visiting James.

“How could you not tell her?” I asked Kate the night I found out the truth about my father, the night Alice kicked me out of her apartment. I was ready to raise hell with my aunt for withholding so very much from me. Kate said that she had tried to broach the subject with Alice, right after Kate found out my father’s secret herself, just before
Homegrown
was published. But Alice turned icy at the mention of her brother. Said he had died a long time ago, said she intended to let the dead rest in peace. Reminded Kate that they had agreed that
Homegrown
would not delve into anything personal, would remain a cookbook and not a memoir, documenting recipes, not lives. Told Kate that in order for the two of them to continue
working together, they needed to keep their own relationship strictly professional.

“What could I do but respect her wishes?” asked Kate.

While disinterested in Daddy’s life once he eviscerated his black roots, Alice is willing to stretch back in time, to tell of her memories of him from when they were kids, to tell of the mind-reading game she and James used to play, sitting across from each other, one spelling out a word on a chalkboard, the other drawing a picture of that word without ever having seen it written down. She tells me of the night she and James found the lynched body in the woods, which was the same night they learned the truth about their roots, that their great-grandfather was a white man.