Family Tree

by Barbara Delinsky

  “Is it?” Eaton asked.

  Hugh was a minute following—initially thinking that it was simply a stupid remark—then he was furious. But the nurse was wheeling the crib toward him. He held out his wrist for her to match the baby’s band with his. “Are these the grandparents?” she asked with a smile.

  “Sure are,” Hugh said.

  “Congratulations, then. She’s precious.” She turned to him. “Is your wife planning to breast-feed?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll send someone down to help her start.” The door to the nursery closed, ending Hugh’s show of brightness.

  He turned on his father. “Are you saying Dana had an affair?”

  “Stranger things have happened,” said his mother.

  “Not to me,” Hugh declared. When she shot him a warning look, he lowered his voice. “And not to my marriage. Why do you think I waited so long? Why do you think I refused to marry those girls you two loved? Because then there would have been affairs, and on my side. They were boring women with boring lifestyles. Dana is different.”

  “Obviously,” remarked one of his parents. It didn’t matter which. Both faces bore the accusation.

  “Does that mean you won’t be calling all Clarkes to tell them about my baby?”

  “Hugh,” said Eaton.

  “What about the country club?” Hugh asked. “Think she’ll be welcomed there? Will you take her from table to table on Grill Night to show her off to your friends, like you do with Robert’s kids?”

  “If I were you,” Eaton advised, “I wouldn’t worry about the country club. I’d worry about the town where you live, and the schools she’ll attend, and her future.”

  Hugh held up a hand. “Hey, you’re talking to someone whose law partners are Cuban and Jewish, whose clients are largely minorities, and whose neighbor is African American.”

  “Like your child,” Eaton said.

  Hugh took a tempering breath, to no avail. “I don’t see any black skin in this nursery. I see brown, white, yellow, and everything in between. So my baby’s skin is tawny. She also happens to be beautiful. Until you can say that to me—until you can say it to Dana—please—” He didn’t finish, simply stared at them for a minute before wheeling the crib down the hall.

  “Please what?” Eaton called, catching up in a pair of strides. He had Hugh’s long legs. Or, more correctly, Hugh had Eaton’s.

  Please go home. Please keep your ugly thoughts to yourselves and leave me and my wife and our child alone.

  Hugh said none of those things. But his parents heard. By the time he reached Dana’s door, he and the baby were alone.

  Chapter 3

  One look at Hugh’s face and Dana knew what had happened. Hadn’t her excitement been shadowed by worry? Hugh’s parents were good people. They gave generously to their favorite charities, not the least of which was the church, and they paid their fair share of taxes. But they liked their life as it was. Change of any kind was a threat. Dana had had to bite her tongue over the uproar wreaked when the senior Clarkes’ South Shore town voted to allow in a fast-food franchise, over the objections of Eaton, Dorothy, and other high-enders who wouldn’t eat a Big Mac if their lives depended on it.

  Dana loved Big Macs. She had long ago accepted that her in-laws didn’t.

  No. She didn’t care what Hugh’s parents thought. But she did care what Hugh thought. Much as he was his own man, his parents could ruin his mood.

  That had clearly happened. He was distracted, seeming angry at a time when he should have been laughing, hugging her, telling her he loved her, like he had done at the instant of the baby’s birth.

  Dana needed that. But if her mind registered dismay, she was too emotionally numb to feel it. He had the baby with him, and Dana wanted to hold her. She felt an instinctive need to protect her, even from her own father, if need be.

  She started to sit up, but Hugh gestured her back. His hands appeared absurdly large under the baby. She cradled the infant, savoring her warmth. Other than remnants of ointment in her eyes, her face was clean and smooth. Dana was enthralled.

  “Look at her cheeks,” she whispered. “And her mouth. Everything is so small. So delicate.” Even the color. Light brown? Fawn?

  Carefully fishing out a little hand, she watched the baby’s fingers explore the air before curling around one of hers. “Did your parents hold her?”

  “Not this time.”

  “They’re upset.”

  “You could say.”

  Dana shot him a glance. His eyes stayed on the baby.

  “Where are they now?” she asked.

  “Gone home, I assume.”

  “They’re blaming me, aren’t they?”

  “That’s a lousy word, Dee.”

  “But it fits. I know your parents. Our baby has dark skin, and they know it isn’t from your family, so it’s from mine.”

  He raised his eyes. “Is it?”

  “It could be,” Dana said easily. She had grown up on questions without answers. “I have one picture of my father. You’ve seen it. He’s as white-skinned as you. But do any of us really know what happened two or three generations ago?”

  “I do.”

  Yes, Dana acknowledged silently. Clarkes did know these things. Unfortunately, Josephs did not. “So your parents blame me. They expected one thing and got another. They’re not happy with our daughter, and they blame me for it. Do you?”

  “‘Blame’ is the wrong word. It implies something bad.”

  Dana looked down at the baby, who was looking right back at her. She was peaceful and content. Elizabeth Ames Clarke had something special, and if that came from genes they hadn’t expected, so be it. There was nothing bad about her. She was absolutely perfect.

  “This is our baby,” Dana pleaded softly. “Is skin color any different from eye color or intelligence or temperament?”

  “In this country, in this world, yes.”

  “I won’t accept that.”

  “Then you’re being naïve.” He let out a breath. Looking exhausted, he pushed a hand through his hair, but the few short spikes that habitually shadowed his brow fell right back down. When his eyes met hers, they were bleak. “My clients come from every minority group, and, consistently, the African Americans say it’s tougher. It’s gotten better—and it’ll continue to get better, but it isn’t going away completely—at least, not in our lifetime.”

  Dana let it go. Hugh was one of the most accepting people she knew. His would be a statement of fact, not bias.

  So maybe she was being naïve. This baby was already familiar, though Dana would have been hard-pressed to single out any one feature that was Hugh’s or her own.

  She was mulling that when the door opened, and Dana’s grandmother peered in. Seeing her face, Dana forgot everything but the exhilaration of the moment. “Come see her, Gram!” she cried. Her eyes filled with tears as the one woman she trusted more than any other came to her side.

  Handsome at seventy-four, Ellie Jo had thick gray hair, secured at the top of her head with a pair of bamboo needles, soft skin, and a spine still strong enough to hold her tall. She looked as if she had lived a stress-free life, but her appearance was deceptive. She had become a master at survival, largely by crafting for herself—and for Dana—a meaningful, productive, reverent life.

  She was all smiles as she approached. Her hand shook against the pale pink blanket. She caught in a breath and exhaled with awe. “Oh my, Dana Jo. She is just the most precious thing I’ve ever seen.”

  Dana burst into tears. She wrapped an arm around her grandmother’s neck and held on, sobbing for reasons she didn’t understand. Ellie Jo held Dana with one arm and the baby with the other until the tears slowed.

  Sniffling, Dana took a tissue. “I don’t know what’s wrong.”

  “Hormones,” Ellie Jo stated, wiping under Dana’s eyes with a knowing thumb. “How do you feel?”

  “Sore.”

  “Ice, Hugh,” Ellie Jo ordered. �
�Dana needs to sit on something cold. See what you can get?”

  Dana watched Hugh leave. The door had barely shut when her eyes flew to her grandmother’s. “What do you think?”

  “Your daughter is exquisite.”

  “What do you think of her color?”

  Ellie Jo didn’t try to deny what they could both so clearly see. “I think her color is part of her beauty, but if you’re asking where it came from, I can’t tell you. When your mother was pregnant with you, she used to joke that she had no idea what would come out.”

  “Was there a question on your side of the family?”

  “Question?”

  “Unknown roots, like an adoption?”

  “No. I knew where I was from. Same with my Earl. But your mother knew so little about your father.” As she spoke, she peeked under the edge of the tiny pink cap and whispered a delighted “Look at those curls.”

  “My father didn’t have curls,” Dana said. “He didn’t look African American.”

  “Neither did Adam Clayton Powell,” her grandmother replied. “Many black groups shunned him because he looked so white.”

  “And did whites accept him as an equal?”

  “In most instances.”

  But not all, Dana concluded. “Hugh’s upset.”

  “Hugh? Or his parents?”

  “His parents, but it spread to him.” Dana’s eyes filled with tears again. “I want him to be excited. This is our baby.”

  Ellie Jo soothed her for a minute before saying, “He is excited. But he’s trying to deal with what he sees. We might have known to expect the unexpected. He’s been primed to see the newest Ames Clarke.”

  “He’ll want answers,” Dana predicted. “Hugh is dogged that way. He won’t rest until he finds the source of Lizzie’s looks, and that means going over every inch of our family tree. Do I want him to do that? Do I want to find my father after all this time?”

  “Hey!” came a delighted cry from the door.

  Tara Saxe had been Dana’s best friend since they were three. Together they had suffered through their mothers’ deaths, what seemed like endless years of school, the scourge of teenage boys, and not knowing what they wanted to be. Married straight from college to a pianist who was content to live in her childhood home, Tara had three children under eight, an accounting degree she had earned at night, and a part-time job she hated but without whose pay she and her husband couldn’t live. The only thing ever ruffled about her was her light brown hair, which was chin length, wavy, and rarely combed. Otherwise, she was a perfectionist, juggling the minutiae of her life with aplomb.

  She was also a knitter and, in that, Dana’s partner in copying other designers’ new styles. At the start of each season, they scoped out the most exclusive women’s clothing stores in Boston, taking notes. Then, though both of them had other jobs and no time for this, Dana designed patterns, which, between them, they knitted—occasionally the same sweater multiple times, each with variations of color or proportion. Tara’s reaction to the process told Dana—and more important, Ellie Jo—whether the pattern would work in the shop.

  Now Tara hugged her and oohed over the baby much as Ellie Jo had done. Only Dana didn’t have to ask Tara what she thought. Tara was forthright as only a best friend could be. “Whoa,” she said, “look at that skin. Where did you say you got this baby, Dana Jo?”

  “I assume she’s a relic of my unknown past,” Dana replied, relieved to joke. “Hugh’s upset.”

  “Why? Because he can’t say she’s the spitting image of his great-grandfather or his great-great-grandfather? Where is he, anyway?”

  “Gram sent him for ice.”

  “Ah. I’ll bet you’re starting to need it. Oh, and look at this baby, rooting around. She’s hungry.”

  Dana’s breasts were larger than they had been pre-pregnancy, though no larger now than last week or the week before. “Do I do it this early?”

  “Oh yeah. She isn’t starving for milk yet, and you have colostrum.”

  Dana opened her gown. Tara showed her how to hold the baby so that she could latch on, but it took several minutes of manipulating Dana’s nipple before they finally managed, and then, Dana was stunned by the strength of the sucking. “How does she know what to do?”

  Tara didn’t answer, because Hugh had returned, and what with her hugging him and Ellie Jo trying to position the ice, the question was forgotten. All too soon, though, Dana’s two favorite women left to go to work, and she was alone again with Hugh.

  “Is she drinking?” he asked, looking on with interest, and for a minute, Dana imagined that he had moved past his parents’ ill will.

  “She’s going through the motions. I don’t know how much she’s getting.”

  “She’s getting what she needs,” came a voice behind Hugh. It was the lactation specialist, introducing herself and looking on, then pulling and pushing at Dana’s breast. She asked a few questions, made a few suggestions, and left.

  Dana put the baby to her shoulder and rubbed her back. When she didn’t hear a burp, she tried patting. She peered down at her daughter’s face, saw nothing to signal distress, and returned to rubbing.

  “So,” Hugh asked with undue nonchalance, “what did Ellie Jo say?”

  It was an innocent question, but there were other things he might have said. Discouraged and suddenly excruciatingly tired, Dana said, “She’s as startled as we are.”

  “Does she have any idea where the color is from?”

  “She isn’t a geneticist.”

  “No suspicions?”

  “None.”

  “Suggestions?”

  Dana wanted to cry. “About what? How to lighten the baby’s skin?”

  Hugh looked away and sighed wearily. “It’d be easier if we had a few answers.”

  “Easier to explain to your parents?” Dana asked, knowing she sounded bitter. There was a…not a wall, exactly, but something separating them. Before, they had always been in sync.

  His eyes were dark and, yes, distant. “Easier to explain to your friends?” Dana asked. “Easier for your parents to explain to their friends?”

  “All of the above,” he admitted. “Listen. Here are the facts. White couple has black baby. It isn’t your average, run-of-the-mill event. People will ask questions.”

  “Do we have to give them answers? Let them think what they want.”

  “Oh, they will. Their first thought will be my mother’s—that there was a mix-up in the lab.”

  “What lab?”

  “Right. I told her that, even though it was none of her business. But she won’t be the last to wonder.”

  “Would it matter if we’d had help conceiving?”

  “That’s not the point. I just don’t like people speculating about my personal life, and they will as long as there’s reason to speculate. So.” He raised three fingers. “First guess is in vitro.” He folded a finger. “Second is a relative with African roots.” Another finger lowered. “Know what the third is?” He dropped his hand. “She isn’t mine.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “She isn’t mine.”

  Dana nearly laughed. “That’s ridiculous. No one will think that.”

  “My parents did.”

  Her jaw dropped. “Are you kidding?”

  “No. And don’t knock that one, either. It’s a logical possibility.”

  “Logical? Your parents thought I had an affair?” She was appalled. “For God’s sake, Hugh.”

  “If my parents thought it, other people will.”

  Dana was livid. “Only people who don’t know us. People who do, know that we’re happily married. They know we’re together every free minute.”

  “They also know I was in Philly for a month nine months ago trying a case.”

  Dana was stunned. “Whoa!”

  The baby whimpered in response.

  “Not me, Dee,” Hugh said, but his eyes remained dark. “Not me. I’m only playing devil’s advocate. They’ll wonder, partic
ularly since the baby came two weeks early.”

  “And you’ll tell them there isn’t a chance,” Dana stated.

  “Do I know what happened while I was away in Philly?”

  “You sure know what happened the weekends in between.”

  “You could have done both.”

  Dana was beside herself. “I can’t believe you’re saying this.”

  “I’m only saying what other people will.”

  Dana peered at the baby’s face. It was scrunched up, ready to cry. Lifting her off her shoulder, she tried rocking her, but all the while she was growing more dismayed. “Would I be so dumb as to have an affair with an African American and try to pass his baby off as yours?”

  “Maybe you weren’t sure whose baby it was.”

  “Wait. That’s assuming I cheated on you.”

  The baby’s cries grew louder.

  “Why’s she crying?” Hugh asked.

  “I don’t know.” Dana tried holding her closer, but it didn’t help. “Maybe she senses that I’m upset.”

  “Maybe she’s hungry.”

  “I just fed her.”

  “Your milk isn’t in yet. Maybe she needs formula.”

  “Hugh, I’ll have milk. I’ll have plenty of milk.”

  “Okay. Maybe she’s wet.”

  That was a possibility. Dana looked around. “I don’t have anything. There must be something here.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know. Call the nurse.”

  “I’ll get the nurse,” Hugh said. “She should be here, anyway. Hell, if we wanted to do this alone, we would have checked into the Ritz.” He went out the door.

  Given the speed with which he returned, Dana suspected the nurse had been on her way. Soft-spoken and reassuring, she took the baby and set her in the crib. Opening one drawer after another underneath, she pointed out Pampers, ointment, baby wipes, burp pads, and other goodies.

  The baby cried louder when her bottom was bared, but the nurse calmly showed them how to clean, apply ointment, and rediaper her. She showed them how to support the baby’s head and talked about care of the umbilical cord.

  When the nurse left, Hugh stood at the crib, his back straight in a way that had CLARKE written all over it. Unfortunately, Dana was a Joseph. And this tiny, helpless baby, who was she?