by Robin Farmer
“That’s a great way to look at it.” Mom brightens. “You want to enjoy your career.”
I steer the conversation back to her dreams. When she talks about her younger days, I see the girl in her face. “What did you want to do when you were my age?”
She sits up straighter. “I thought I wanted to be a nurse, work in a hospital with babies. But in high school, I think I was around fifteen, I met a professor who I thought had the coolest job in the world. So I went to college planning on being a teacher, maybe even a professor. I was in my second semester when I met your dad. I didn’t go back after I had you.” She grins.
“I can see you as a nurse, Mom. But you would make a better teacher.”
“Well, that’s water under the bridge. As for you,” she tosses me the TV Guide, “I’m saving space on the living room book shelf for your books.”
“Mom!” My voice catches. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve said all year!”
Holding her healing hand high to protect it, she tickles me on the bed until I cry uncle.
It takes most of the afternoon to write my latest poem. My mind swirls with questions about race. There’s so much to say. So much no one wants to talk about. So many secrets, lies and half-truths. I amble into Mom’s bedroom and hand my poem to her.
“Why don’t you read it to me?” she says.
“It’s called In Between.” I read:
Malcolm X’s grandfather was white and so was mine
When it comes to race, Mom could blur the line
Yet she’s so proud to say out loud she’s Black
When it comes to color, what’s false, what’s fact?
The one drop rule defines the Black race
But some Blacks want to live in white face
If Sister is pretending to be white
She’s living a lie, a sin, that’s not right
When people are mixed, must they always choose
To become mysteries with missing clues
Mom’s reaches for my work. “You didn’t write that,” she teases.
“It’s just the first draft, Mom.”
“That’s so good.”
“Maybe I’ll ask Sister Elizabeth if she’s mixed,” I blurt.
Mom’s head jerks up like I just cursed. She gives me a don’t-be-fresh-stare. It’s been a while.
“On the last day of school, Mom. I’m not crazy.”
“I can’t wait to meet her at graduation.” She pats the bed for me to come lay beside her.
I place my arm, the color of tan sand, next to Mom’s. “I’m in the middle. I’m not light or dark.”
“That depends. Some people will call you light and others will say you’re dark.”
“Well then, as you say, I can’t win for losing,” I say, shrugging.
“You win when you don’t act better or act less because of your skin color or anyone else’s.” She hands me the TV Guide. “Find us a good movie.”
I take forever to find something worth getting up to change the channel. I just want to stay nestled against my mom all night.
On Monday, the yard buzzes with exaggerated accounts of the fight. Word is Sister wears the old-fashioned habit because she has “pubic” hair, which angers me to no end. No one even acts like they suspect Sister’s race. Bonnie is upset she missed it. While I fill her in on the details, I leave out the main one.
As the days pass, I am sure about one thing: Sister Elizabeth knows I know. The air between us sizzles with this electric fact.
She behaves differently in the tiniest of ways. While she looks at most students like they are freewheeling idiots approaching a cliff, whenever our eyes meet, I see question marks where declarative sentences used to be.
This school year taught me what uncertainty looks like. I recognize it in my own reflection.
Dad says, “Fake it until you make it,” but your eye game must be tight. They are a dead giveaway to doubt and fear. It’s one way to tell who will hit you back or not in a fight. Now that I’m looking, I see it in adult eyes. When I watched the documentary about Malcolm X, there were some interviews where he seemed less sure of what he was saying, especially after he broke with the Nation of Islam. I chalked it up to being tired. Now that I know he wasn’t always brave and sure, I admire him more.
Today, Sister feels me watching her. She looks up from the papers she’s marking. Something odd, just different, flickers across her eyes. We look at each other in a way we never have before. At least, I think so. Then Sister blinks, and the blue brick walls return.
I wonder how the students, priests, other nuns, and parishioners would react if they found out she is Black? Even a tiny bit.
How can Sister love God if she doesn’t love herself? As mad as my father makes me, I’d visit him in the hospital. Does she visit her parents? I shudder. One thing is certain and two things are for sure, Sister needs prayer as much as I do.
The bell will ring any second for lunch. All I have to do is tell Bonnie. Then it’s a wrap.
I think of the short story we read that ends with the Black male teen waiting at the traffic stop trying to figure out which way to go. And then I think of what Mom said. “I hear you. Just feel sorry for her if she is living a lie.”
Her words tug at my smugness. They open a space I first felt when I saw Sister crying after her brother died.
I look at the crucifix above Sister’s desk. Jesus forgives everyone, even those who sentenced him to death. Have you forgiven me for hating Mom, then Dad? For punching Sister?
I think about Malcolm and how he transformed from a high school dropout and criminal to a Muslim leader and a global social justice champion. He used to think all white people were devils until he saw them as brothers while praying with all races in Mecca. He even took on a new name, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, when he broke away from the Nation of Islam. Too bad Franz Kafka has a lock on the word “metamorphosis,” because that’s exactly what Malcolm achieved. I think about my own struggles during the school year and something stirs deep inside.
I gaze out the window at lime buds sprouting on a tree. Changes are all around. Inside me, too.
Thanks be to God.
In a matter of months, I plan to attend a high school without uniforms, crucifixes, or statues of saints, without nuns, priests, and visiting seminarians.
I scribble on the last page of my copybook: Girls Academy. Same suit, different tailor. Then I add a question mark.
The bell rings, but Sister holds up her hands for us to remain seated.
“President Nixon will make a major address to the nation tonight,” she announces. “I urge you to watch so we can have an intelligent discussion tomorrow.”
As Scooby Doo says, “Rut roh.” I’ll just sit back and listen. Nothing good can come out of my participation. Nearly every adult I know says Nixon is a sweaty-face crook. But what we really dig is that a Black man, a security guard, set in motion events that bought everything to light.
I add my homework to my book bag. I’m eager to watch Nixon’s speech with Mom. Last night, she said we’d make popcorn and listen to the president lie. Then she winked at me. I wished I had known way before now how cool Mom is.
That night, I remember the year before when I snuggled on the sofa watching President Nixon sweat as he spoke. Even if he wasn’t guilty as sin, he sure looked the part with beady eyes and a wet upper lip he constantly wiped with a hanky.
“Today, in one of the most difficult decisions of my presidency, I accept the resignation of two of my closest associates in the White House, Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, two of the finest public servants it has been my privilege to know.”
“If they are so fine, why are they resigning?” I asked the TV.
“Shhh, let me hear this,” Mom said.
I halfway listened as he droned on until he mentioned he had replaced the attorney general and his counsel, too.
“That’s four people gone,” I said.
“Where there is smoke, there’
s fire,” Mom said knowingly. “He’ll be the fifth.”
So now, I’m on the sofa listening to Dan Rather. “This is a special report from CBS News in Washington, where the president of the United States is about to address the nation.”
Mom sets down a tray with bowls of Jell-O and fresh popcorn.
“I bet Nixon hates those two Washington Post reporters,” I say. “Sister said they are responsible for telling the story about him breaking the law that may lead to his impeachment.”
“You’d be a good reporter with your nosey self.” Mom turns up the volume.
“It was almost two years ago, in June 1972, that five men broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington,” Nixon says. “It turned out that they were connected with my reelection committee, and the Watergate break-in became a major issue in the campaign.”
We listen to Nixon explain why he released the transcripts but not the actual tapes. My mind drifts back to the day I called Jefferson a hypocrite. Our current president is one, too.
“Do you think fifty years from now some kid, like me, will get in trouble for calling any of our presidents a hypocrite?” I ask Mom.
She tilts her head, weighing the question. “I’d like to think future presidents will fall in love with the truth instead of power and corruption. But history has a way of repeating itself. Maybe if it happens again, you’ll be the reporter to expose him. Or her.”
I beam at the possibility.
CHAPTER 29
Spread out on my bed, I read newspaper articles about the slaying of Dr. King six years ago this month. A photo of him catches my eyes. I fly down the steps to show Mom. Seated on the couch, Mom works her knitting needles overtime on an oddly shaped reversible scarf for Charles.
“This happened when I was four,” I say. “Look at all the nuns in the crowds!” I show Mom the newspaper photo of Dr. King giving a speech to 10,000 people at 40th and Lancaster in West Philly.
She nods. “I didn’t just send you to Catholic schools for discipline. The sisters have often marched for civil rights.”
“Sister Elizabeth wouldn’t have.” I roll my eyes.
“Well, two more months and you will never have to see her again or wear another uniform for that matter.” Mom peers over her reading glasses at me. “Unless you choose to do so.”
“Fat chance of that. I’m sick of hypocritical people.”
“You think you won’t find them in public school, or anywhere else for that matter?”
“Yeah, but at least they aren’t disguising themselves as holy people, having us believe they are better. Just like the president. If you hold that office, you should be better.”
“Better than what?”
“Most people.”
“Fairly sure few saints walk the earth.” Mom fixes a dropped stitch.
“I’m not saying you have to be perfect, Mom. But if you are in a position of power and people are looking up to you, you have to take that seriously. It’s heartbreaking to know adults who you think are great can mess up just like you.” I realize I’m cutting it close to the bone. I swear I didn’t mean to do so, but I can’t shut up.
Mom stops knitting and watches me with intense eyes.
“Nixon and Jefferson, probably all of them prove my point,” I say in a quivering voice. “Every kid is told to work hard and one day you may grow up to be president, as if that’s the greatest role model.” I chew my lip, stunned by the sadness hijacking my body. “It’s not just politicians but other leaders, like Elijah Muhammad. Really, any adult you look up to.” I pause to swallow the firebrick blocking my windpipe. “Like . . . Daddy. It’s hard understanding that people can do great things and wrong things at the same time. That really messes with my head.” I turn to hide fat tears that spring from somewhere deep and refuse to stop flowing.
The knitting needles clank on the table. “We all struggle with that, because nobody is perfect,” Mom says softly. The warmth in her voice tells me she knows I’m crying. She also knows not to mention my father even though I just did.
The silence ticks on longer than it should.
The sofa squeaks as Mom rises. She turns the TV to a news special about Dr. King’s assassination. I listen while retying my perfectly looped sneakers. I need to pull myself together.
The anchor says Bobby Kennedy broke the news about Dr. King’s death in a stunning speech to a crowd in Indianapolis. Just last week in history class we discussed how Bobby’s assassination occurred two months later. I glance up as Mom starts to turn the channel.
“Can I hear what he said?”
Mom lifts her hand from the dial. “Sure, baby.”
On screen, Kennedy spoke while holding a piece of paper. “I have some very sad news. Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis.
“He dedicated his life to love and justice, and he died in the cause of his effort to promote peace and love. For those of you who are Black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and distrust of the injustice of such an act, maybe feel against all white people, I can also say I also felt in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man.”
My mouth falls open at Kennedy’s conclusion. I scoot to the edge of the couch, listening hard as he recites a poem about pain falling “drop by drop on the heart until comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”
I can’t stop blinking.
“This is why I love poetry,” I say, as a lump in my throat swells.
Mom holds up her finger for me to be quiet.
“What we need in the United States is not division, hatred, and lawlessness,” Kennedy continued, “but love, wisdom, and compassion toward each other and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within in our country whether they be Black or white.”
“Wow, do you think he memorized all of that?” I ask.
Dabbing her eyes dry, Mom looks directly at me. “What do you think, poet?”
“I think he made it up on the spot, because it sounded like it came from the heart.”
“I think you’re right.”
“I was surprised he said he felt like he knew the pain Black people were feeling toward whites because a white person killed his brother.”
“That shows you how smart he was,” Mom said. “He was real with the Black people hurting in that audience. He connected. I don’t think it was a coincidence that there were no fires in Indianapolis that night.”
“I liked the poem he read, too. I’m going to look it up in the library.”
“The part about pain turning into wisdom through God’s grace is deep,” Mom says.
“So deep I’m ready to write a poem.” I chew my lip. Something stirs inside.
In my room, I pull out my diary and write:
Drop by drop,
pain will stop,
when we live,
to forgive,
the human race,
through our God’s grace.
I dedicate it to Dr. King and John and Bobby Kennedy. And Malcolm. Slouched against the headboard, I daydream. I see a great leader, maybe a president, comforting an audience in pain by reading one of my poems when no other words will do.
CHAPTER 30
“Roberta, come here please.”
I peer up at Sister Elizabeth, then glance around the room to ensure she’s addressing me, as if there’s another Roberta. I’m in the middle of my last history test and I want to ace it to get straight As on my report card. Soon, fingers crossed, I’ll get my acceptance letter for Girls Academy, one of the city’s best. Grudgingly, I get up and avert my eyes from my classmates’ answers as I pass by their desks.
“You are wanted in the main office,” she says low.
Caught off guard, I say loudly, “I haven’t finished.”
Some students look up. Sister presses her fingers to her lips for me to dial my volume back. “You’ll have time to finish it tomorrow.”
“Am I in
trouble?” I ask in my best library voice.
“Not if you have no reason to be.” Sister returns to marking paper with a hint of a smile.
I hurry out the class. Just when I think we are co-existing in peace, she may have hopped on the danger train again. If I’m summoned during a test, this is something major.
When I enter the office, the office aide perks up. “Mother Superior is expecting you. Follow me, please.”
I trail behind, ready to defend myself against God knows what. Rounding the corner, Mother Superior’s profile is visible as she talks to someone I can’t see.
Mother Superior waves me in.
“Sister Elizabeth said—” I pause. Seated a few feet away is a petite nun bent over collecting papers that have spilled from a folder. When she looks up, her face is brown and behind her blue veil a small Afro pokes out. My knees nearly buckle.
She smiles. “This must be Roberta.”
I stare, mouth hanging open like I have no home training. Because, mind blown. Bonnie really didn’t make her up.
“Roberta, take a seat. This is Sister Carol. She wants to talk to you about something important.” Mother Superior pats my arm then closes the door behind her.
Tongue-tied and heart racing, I plop on a chair as Sister Carol sorts her collected papers. I’m psyched lunch is next. Bonnie will flip out when I tell her I met the Black nun.
Sister Carol adds the papers to a clipboard, turns to me with a huge smile. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
I nod. “I’ve heard, well not a lot, but my friend Bonnie told me about you. I thought she was pulling my leg. I’ve looked in the yard for you for years.”
“I don’t spend much time in yards,” she says, chuckling.
I instantly like her. The clipboard slides off her lap and crashes to the floor. I pick it up and spot my name, school, and grade on a list. Puzzled, I hand her the clipboard.
“Are you familiar with the archdiocese’s Bridges Program?” she asks.
Bewildered, I shake my head.
“We train students who are leaders at their respective schools to help work on race relations in their high schools. You saw your name on this list because you were nominated, which is an honor. We only choose students with certain attributes. Interested?”