See No Color (18 page)

Jordan was right; Maya and Keith did have the same nose. It was flat and wide, almost touching the edge of their cheekbones. Her earlobes, however, were unattached at the bottom, like mine, but Keith's were not. And my ears lay flat against my head while Maya's and Keith's were bigger and stuck out a little. Maya was my half-sister, I realized.

“In the name of the father, son, holy spirit, amen,” Jordan began. Her eyes were tightly closed, and her voice had taken on a deep, somber tone. I scrambled to clasp my hands and bowed my head. “Bless us oh Lord, and these thy gifts, which we are about to receive, from thy bounty, through Christ, our Lord. Amen.”

“Amen,” said everyone. Then they began to cross themselves. Trying to appear like I did this every day, I crossed myself also.

“Does your family pray before meals?” Mrs. Mitchell asked.

I felt like I had been caught shoplifting. I wanted to pretend I had answered already; I wanted to lie. “We don't usually,” I said finally, “But I can.”

I wasn't sure about how I felt about organized religion, though I always resented the inevitable proselytizing we received from Grandma Kirtridge whenever we went to visit her. Dad thought it was all “a bunch of bull to keep people separate, self-righteous, and cowardly,” so we had never prayed or been to a church service in our lives.

Mrs. Mitchell and Keith exchanged glances. I had given an odd answer to her question, and I don't think they knew quite what to make of it.

“You don't pray in your house?” Maya asked. She seemed to genuinely want to know.

“Well, no, not exactly,” I said.

She stared at me. “Do you go to church? What religion are you?”

My hand was dancing under the table. “Well, we don't really have one, though our grandmother is Christian.”

Mrs. Mitchell smiled. “Your grandmother's Christian? What denomination?”

I tried to remember if my grandmother was Protestant or Catholic. She had probably told me a million times, but now, for some reason, it was eluding me. Keith and Mrs. Mitchell looked as interested in this line of questioning as Maya.

Under the table, Jordan grabbed my jumping hand and steadied it. I squeezed her back.

“She's Catholic,” I said. “And we were baptized Catholic. Our parents just never had the time to take us to church. We're a busy family.” I hiccupped again and put my hand over my mouth. “Sorry,” I said.

Keith didn't acknowledge that he had heard either the hiccup or my apology. I couldn't remember if the story I had just told was true, if we had been baptized when we were babies. Something about it sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn't pinpoint what.

“Well, we're Catholic,” said Mrs. Mitchell, reaching for a bowl of tossed salad.

I nodded, mostly because I didn't know what else to do. For the first time, I noticed the polished oak cross on the opposite wall. There was also one in the foyer, I recalled, hanging above a mirror.

Maya passed me a steaming bowl of basmati rice. Keith picked up a platter of lemon chicken, and selected a fat piece. The room was quiet for a moment while everyone focused on passing and serving. Under the table, Jordan didn't let go of my hand.

Mrs. Mitchell was the one who broke the silence. “You know, our church is so important to us,” she said. “I don't know how any of us would have made it this far without it, or without our belief in the Lord Jesus Christ. We've had so many challenges.”

I shivered. The way she said it, The Lord Jesus Christ, made him sound like an intimate lover, almost. I knew you weren't supposed to love a human being as much as Jesus if you believed in him, and so I wondered how Mrs. Mitchell meted out her love for Keith.

“What kind of challenges?” Jordan asked.

I snuck a look at her from the side but couldn't see a trace of sarcasm or malignancy. It seemed like a question that she actually wanted to hear the answer to.

Mrs. Mitchell's chin shot up, but she wouldn't acknowledge Jordan. She looked at me.

“Keith lost fourteen years of his life to alcoholism,” she said. “In fact, he almost died from the disease.” She watched me for my reaction, but I was trying to emit nothing.

“I'm also a recovering alcoholic. I've been sober for ten years now. Keith's been sober for nine.”

Jordan's hand gripped mine tightly; it felt like my bones were crushing together.

I had heard once that there are certain people whose lives are governed by extremes, extreme indulgence on one end, and extreme asceticism on the other.

“AA, our church, its pastor, and of course praying got us up out of that life,” Keith said. Mrs. Mitchell took his hand. I had been confounded about what tied them together, but now I could see it. “I surely would be dead by now, except for all those people, and a little help from the Almighty,” he continued, smiling uncomfortably.

I wondered what he thought about the fact that this was the first thing I learned about him.

“So don't drink,” he said suddenly, pointing his fork at me. “That's your lesson.”

Mrs. Mitchell laughed, but I didn't think it was funny.

“No, seriously, hon, do you drink?” he asked.

I shook my head. I had never been attracted to drinking or drugs, mostly because the idea of putting something in my body that I couldn't control terrified me. But now I was thinking that there could be another reason why I never drank; maybe Keith had encoded specific messages in my nerve synapses that would fire whenever the opportunity to do so presented itself. There was such a thing as genetics, predetermined factors written in the body, so why not? Anything was possible.

Keith sawed his chicken in half. “That's good,” he said. “Don't start.”

I nodded, but it all felt ludicrous. My father, who wasn't really my father, instructing me to say no to drugs at our first meeting in all of my sixteen years.

It dawned on me that they were even less prepared for this moment than I was. They had no script for an adopted daughter reunion. They knew how to have a nice Saturday night dinner, though, and so that's what they had done.

“Would you like to come to church with us tomorrow morning?” Mrs. Mitchell asked me. “Nine o'clock mass is beautiful; we got some kind of choir.” She turned to Keith for support, and he nodded but wouldn't look at me.

I shifted around in my chair and stared down at my food. What had happened to all of the questions I had been so determined to ask? How did I manage to get ensnared in nine o'clock mass?

“Alex probably has a million other things she's doing tomorrow,” said Maya. She raised her eyebrows toward me. “Don't you?” I shot her a meaningful glance that I hoped she interpreted as “thank you.”

“Yeah … yes,” I said, grinding the gears of my mind. “I've got to finish several workouts in preparation for the state tournament, plus, uh, debate club Sunday night.” The part about the workouts was true. Debate club? I had no idea where that came from, especially since it was summer vacation.

Maya eyed me suspiciously. “That's a lot.”

I went too far.
“Yes,” I said. “It is.”

Jordan loosened her grip on my hand under the table.

I addressed Keith. “What did you…” What was I saying? What was it I had promised myself I would say, again? I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. When I opened them, everyone at the table was watching me in bewilderment. Everyone except for Jordan—she was grinning like she was at some kind of show. This was it; this was the moment.

“Did you not think of me as black?” I blurted out. This might be my only chance. “I mean, since my mother was white and everything. Was that the reason why you gave me to a white family?”

Silence pervaded the room. My eyes were locked with Keith's, whose expression was one of shock and confusion. Maya's fork clanged onto her plate, and Jordan jumped at the noise. Mrs. Mitchell tilted her head back and said, “I don't know what you mean.”

Jordan pulled her hand out of mine. “I thought you
were
black,” she said.

Maya picked up her fork and pushed some rice onto it.

“You look black to me,” Jordan continued.

“Jordan!” Mrs. Mitchell chastised. “That is not appropriate.”

Jordan didn't even acknowledge that her grandmother had said anything.

I wouldn't look at Jordan or Mrs. Mitchell; my eyes were locked with Keith's, who was not responding at all.

Jordan leaned over and put her face near mine. “If I saw you on the street, I'd think you're black.”

Maya grabbed Jordan's arm sharply and pulled her back down into the seat. “Stay in your seat at the table, I've told you before!”

Jordan rubbed her arm and whimpered. Her bottom lip was sticking out. “You hurt me,” she said softly.

“I never got a chance to say what kind of family you'd be adopted into,” Keith said suddenly, venom biting each word. Mrs. Mitchell and Maya were staring at him like he was a complete stranger. I guess at that particular moment, he was.

“She didn't give me hardly no choice in anything, Janie.” He shook his head. “Told me she was pregnant and was going to have the baby, and I said we should get married. She said no, that we were neither of us fit to raise a child and that she was going to give it up and that was the last I heard about it.” His face was taut and tired. “Until she mailed me a clipping from the paper years later, something about your dad and your family, and then I knew who you were. She didn't give me no decision about anything. Nothing.” His bottom lip was quivering—not as much as Jordan's was, but quivering just the same.

Maya looked like someone had slapped her across the face. We were not half-sisters, I realized. There was no word for what we were to each other.

“Anyway, the most important thing is that a child be raised under the eyes of God,” said Mrs. Mitchell. She looked absolutely unfazed. “No matter what color the family.”

“But even if you're light, you're black,” Jordan insisted. “Everyone knows black and white make brown.” She frowned.

“Young lady, that's enough!” Mrs. Mitchell yelled.

Jordan's eyes filled with tears, and she started to bawl.

I looked down at my rice and salad and chicken. My stomach churned and I felt nauseous. “I'm sorry,” I said. “I didn't mean…”

Maya handed Jordan a napkin to dry her eyes and she began dabbing at their edges. “It not fair,” said Jordan.

“Life's not fair,” Maya and Mrs. Mitchell said at the same time. I put down my fork. I hadn't planned on leaving until tomorrow morning, but I had booked a room at a hotel nearby, just in case this didn't work out. There was a way out, even if this visit wasn't what I'd hoped for. “You know, maybe I should go,” I said. I nodded. “I mean, I didn't mean to upset everyone…” I heard my voice drift off and then I hiccupped.

Keith had been staring down at his plate, but after this last comment, he looked up at me in surprise. “You hiccup?” he asked. This time, he had obviously heard it.

I hiccupped again. “Yeah,” I said. “Usually when I'm nervous.”

“Or when you just feel bad, right?” he said, a slow smile pouring out the side of his mouth.

I nodded, carefully holding my stomach.

“Yeah, well, me too,” he said. “And my mother, and my uncle Freddie, and his daughter Jasmine, and a whole truckload of Mitchells.”

Jordan had stopped crying. She looked from me to Keith to me again.

“You ever try standing on your head to get rid of them?” he asked me.

“I've tried everything,” I said. Then I thought about it. “Except that, I guess.” I laughed, in spite of myself.

“Well, next time, try that,” he said. “Works like a charm.”

I still felt so strange, sitting there in my father's living room with his family, pretending that we knew each other. “I'll do that,” I told him.

His eyes stared into mine, and I could see tears in their depths.
There is no language to explain what has happened to us. There is nothing that can replace what is gone.
I looked back down at my plate because I couldn't look at those eyes anymore. I got ready to tell them goodnight.

“Eat your chicken,” Keith said, pointing to my half-eaten plate with his fork.

I looked into his eyes again and the tears had faded to the background.
Forget everything. Let me die in your mind like I did before and forget that this night ever happened.

“Go on,” he said. “Eat now, girl. You can't be coming all this way and not eat all this good food my wife and daughter prepared.”

Maya nodded. “You can't be going back to Madison hungry,” she said. “That would make us look like we got no home-training down here in Detroit. You can't let us go out like that.”

I turned to Mrs. Mitchell, and she nodded. “Eat,” she said simply.

I took a deep breath, picked up my fork and knife, and began sawing into my chicken. Every one of the Mitchells picked up their forks after me and continued eating as well.

• • •

In the middle of the night, I pulled the covers up to my nose and pushed myself as far onto the edge of the pull-out couch as possible. I wanted to be exposed. Like I was about to fall down onto the floor and bruise or break something. I didn't really want to get hurt. I think I just wanted Keith to see that I was as broken as he was. That I had no idea what I was doing, but that I was willing to take whatever pain and consequences might follow from whatever our relationship was. Or maybe I just wanted to see and feel my brokenness for myself—not just hold it in my mind.

I had thought that my reunion could bring so many possibilities: connection, finally a sense of belonging, or even confusion. But one thing I had not considered was that it would intensify this ache in me that everything in my life would never really fit together. As I rolled over in my makeshift bed at my birth father's, at 2:17 in the morning, I began to contemplate that things might never coalesce, and I wondered if there was a way that this could be okay.