The muggy mid-July heat hung in the air, coating us in a light sweat. The back of Warren’s light-blue shirt turned a darker hue. When we were finished, Warren stood up and looked around the cemetery. His voice was barely audible as he spoke: “We kept getting calls threatening to hurt other members of the family. They said they were going to dig him up, cut him up, and put him in different parts of New Bedford. The whole area was surrounded by police when we came to bury him.” He pointed a short distance away. “They were all lined up over there.” He closed his eyes, pained by the memory. “They rolled a large rock over his grave so nobody could get to him.”
He removed his glasses, and for the first time I could see his eyes, filled with pain and sorrow. He stared off into the distance and then suddenly turned to me, moving so quickly I nearly put up my hand in self-defense. “What did you bring all this back for?” He threw his hands out to his side, holding them out as if he were Lady Justice herself, holding the scales of fairness and impartiality. “He was my brother.” He choked out the last word, his voice filled with pain.
“And he was my father,” I said, an edge in my voice.
Tears of anger and frustration welled in my eyes. For years I had envisioned my homecoming: walking into a festive home where my family would suddenly swarm around me. There would be generations of Pembertons waiting to greet me—grandparents, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews. They’d welcome me back as if I’d never been gone. Those idyllic visions had sustained me during the dark years of the Robinsons and beyond. In none of them had I ever imagined that, once I found my family, anyone would ask what I was doing there. I thought everyone would accept me without condition or prequalification.
Warren didn’t respond. He bowed his head and stuffed his hands into his pockets, kicking at the ground, his black boots standing out against the bright-green grass. I leveled my eyes at him and jabbed a finger in the air. “I wasn’t trying to bring back anything. I was just trying to find my father. And it doesn’t matter what any of you say; I had the right to find him. You had a chance to meet your father, to shake his hand, to look him in the eye, to call him your own. You even had the chance to say good-bye. I never even got the chance to say hello. And I never will. Kenny is gone from me now. And none of you can give him to me.”
Tears continued to roll down Warren’s cheeks, but now he nodded his head in understanding. We stood there in a heavy silence punctuated by Warren’s sobs. Off in the distance, shimmers of heat rose from the ground, blurring our view of the gravestones and giving the impression that they were melting. A lone crow flew by, cawing and screeching. I watched my uncle wrestling with his grief twenty years after the fact and remembered my aunt Gerri telling me that Kenny and Warren were particularly close; they were closest to each other in age, and Warren had idolized his older brother.
A lot suddenly made sense: our edgy first phone call, the protests to the reporter, the clipped, cold greeting in downtown New Bedford. Kenny’s death, the tragic fall of this “golden boy,” had become part of the fabric of his family’s life. They had moved on as best they could, telling themselves that time would heal their wounds. Yet part of them had died too. And now, two decades later, I had suddenly appeared with my Kenny-like features and mannerisms, intruding on the tortured peace they had gradually found. In the relentless pursuit of my roots, I had naively believed that my presence could erase their pain. I had been so insensitive to their pain, so heedless of the great chasm left by Kenny’s death—all that could never be replaced.
“I’m sorry, Warren,” I said, resting my hand on his shoulder. “For all of us. I am sorry he’s not here.”
Warren wiped his tears with his sleeve. He put his sunglasses back on and took a long, deep breath. I peered down at Kenny’s gravestone, shining a bit brighter now. “Kenny was a man’s man. And he would have been proud of you, Steve. I can tell you that. Wherever he is, he is looking at you right now and sayin’, ‘That is my son.’ ”
I was never his to claim, I thought. Despite the newfound sorrow I had for Kenny and his fractured family, I still could not bring myself to forgive him.
CHAPTER 34
Starting again is part of the plan
And I’ll be so much stronger holding your hand . . .
—GLORIA ESTEFAN, “COMING OUT OF THE DARK”
So much had happened in so little time. After half a lifetime spent regretting and mourning a family I didn’t know, and tagging halfheartedly along with the families of others, I was finally realizing my dream. My parents were gone, but now I had grandparents, aunts, uncles, and siblings to call my own. I could envision future Christmases spent together, phone calls on my birthday, and a slew of proud faces on my side of the aisle at my wedding, should I ever be lucky enough to find a bride. No longer would I feel alone and disconnected in the world.
Now, in August 1991, about a month after the cemetery visit with Warren, I would take the next step and meet my siblings in Freehold, New Jersey, where my brother Marc was living. For the first time as adults, all four of Marian’s children—the four who had found each other—would be in the same room.
I got up before dawn that Saturday morning, brimming with excitement and anticipation. The drive to Freehold—a town that, incidentally, was the inspiration for Bruce Springsteen’s “My Home–town”— was going to take several hours, but I would ride in style, having traded in my beat-up Volkswagen Scirocco for a new red Volkswagen Fox. On the passenger seat was a map of central New Jersey; in my cassette case was all the music I needed to keep me company in the early morning hours.
A soft rain had begun to fall by the time I reached the Garden State Parkway. It was nine o’clock in the morning, and Freehold Mall, where Marc and I were to meet, was empty, as the summer shoppers had not yet arrived. I peered out over the parking lot as the Fox’s windshield wipers beat a steady swish. I had no recollection of having siblings; I was simply too young to remember. Questions darted in and out of my mind. What did Marc and Ben look like? What do they remember of our mother? Did we look alike? Would I recognize them if I saw them? Could I pick them out of a crowd? And what about Joni?
A late-’80s burgundy Camaro approached, its engine roaring as if it were on a raceway. Heavy, thumping bass and the screeching of a rock guitar poured from its speakers as the car came to a hard stop. The door opened, and out spilled a tall, white, mustached man dressed in blue jeans and a blue T-shirt. His hair was brown and feathered down to his shirt collar. A cigarette dangled precariously from one side of his mouth; I remember first thinking, It’s going to fall. My second thought: My brother is white.
He didn’t close the driver’s side door. Rather, he stepped around it to extend an open hand. “You’re Steve,” he said.
“And you’re Marc,” I said, smiling.
I took his hand, and then we embraced. A lifetime of searching, wondering, and imagining had brought me here to this near-empty parking lot in central New Jersey, to the embrace of a complete stranger who doubled as my brother. Finally, I thought. I have finally found where I’ve come from.
“It’s good to finally meet you,” I said.
“You too.”
We stared at each other for an awkward moment. My grandmother had known nothing of Marc’s father, and my mother had stubbornly refused to tell her. These last few months, I had trouble imagining what my siblings looked like. Now, try as I might, I couldn’t discern any resemblance between my brother and me. It’s a good thing we met this way, I thought, because I could have passed you a thousand times on the street and never known we were brothers. I shook my head in disbelief.
“Well,” he said, leaning one hand on the driver’s side door, “let’s head over to my girlfriend’s house. Joni is there, and she really wants to see you too.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I said.
We got into our respective vehicles, his door creaking as he slammed it shut. I rolled down my window. “Hey, Marc, slow down a bit. My car probably can’t keep up w
ith your mean machine.” He shot me a thumbs-up and peeled off anyway, water spraying off the Camaro’s tires. I burst out laughing and gave chase.
A short while later, we drove down a tree-lined street and pulled into the driveway of a modest home with brown shutters. Marc’s small, blond girlfriend greeted us at the door: “Come on in. Joni is in the shower, but I’m sure she will be right out.”
We stepped inside to a small kitchen. An older, stocky gentleman in a bright-yellow, sleeveless T-shirt sat at the table. His graying hair was combed straight back, and his hands were large and calloused. I judged him to be in his midfifties. He extended his hand. “Hi,” he said, “I’m Mason.” That was all he said. Nobody told me who he was or what he was doing there. After we shook hands, he walked down the hallway and rapped on the bathroom door. “Joni, ya bruddah, he here.” His accent was thick and Southern but somehow different from the drawls I’d heard over the years.
Joni yelled something back. Suddenly the bathroom door burst open, and she emerged amid a torrent of steam. I was taken aback. A tan towel was wrapped around her hair like a turban. Another towel with green horizontal stripes covered her body. She was pale and very thin. Dark circles hung under brown eyes that were recessed and hollowed. Her cheekbones protruded. Rarely had I seen someone’s life experiences so clearly written upon his or her body. In the short time it took her to reach me, I thought, She looks like a prisoner of war. Sorrow and a desire to protect her overcame me. I opened my arms, and she ran up, hugging me close and weeping on my chest. Wrenching sobs came from the depths of her soul; her body wracked and convulsed against mine. Several times she tried to speak but couldn’t.
I understood her pain and kept whispering, “I know, I know.”
When she finally pulled away, her eyes were red, her face flushed. She wiped her eyes quickly and furtively, as if embarrassed. “I have to go get dressed,” she said softly. She disappeared into a back bedroom, the door clicking behind her.
I looked at Marc, searching for an explanation. He shrugged his shoulders in an I-have-no-idea gesture. “She’s been crying since she got here yesterday. She’s fine one minute and then the next . . .” He sighed heavily. Mason bobbed his head in agreement.
We all sat down at the small kitchen table, a basket of flowers its centerpiece. Marc’s girlfriend offered something to drink, and I accepted a glass of Coke. I had so many questions for Marc, but I didn’t want to plow right in. Marc spared me the need. “So,” he asked. “How did you find all of us? I went back to New Bedford several times trying to find you guys, and I never could.”
I told him the sequence of events, and we both marveled at this quirk of fate. “So you remember us?” I asked.
“Oh yeah. I remember all of you. We were always hungry, and I used to put sugar and water in your bottles and give them to you to try and keep you quiet.”
“Was our mother there?”
“Sometimes. But sometimes she would leave us with people, and other times she would just leave us by ourselves.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “How old were you?”
“About seven or eight.” There was a distance to his voice as if he were talking about someone else. He snapped his fingers as if an idea had come to him. “If I remember correctly, you should have a huge scar on your left foot.”
He was right. I had always carried a long scar that ran horizontally across my foot, but its origins had been a mystery.
He opened his can of Coke. A loud pop and hiss sounded across the small kitchen. “You got it when you were about two or three. Our mother had left us, and we went out looking for food in garbage cans around the neighborhood.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “Marc, no.”
“Oh, yeah,” he said, lifting the can to his lips. He took a long swallow. “That’s how it was. Me, you, and Joni went looking for food all the time. We’d leave Bernie in the apartment, figuring he couldn’t get himself into too much trouble.” His tone was still even, but I could detect a certain haunting in his eyes. “Anyways, we were in a neighbor’s backyard rooting through their cans, and you fell into a pile of glass. You cried and hollered like nothing I’d ever heard. Me and Joni got you back to the house, and I just remember there was blood everywhere. I think the neighbors took you to the hospital, and when you came back, you had this huge bandage on your foot.”
A year before, I had met Lois Gibbs, a wonderful woman. She had been a friend of my mother’s, having lived in the same apartment building. One day my mother had asked Lois’s father and her to drop me at a babysitter’s. That event led Lois’s father to write in his diary that I didn’t have “a chance in the world.” Lois also told me of my mother’s neglect, and I knew that was the reason she lost her children. But absent any memory, it had not truly hit home for me. Marc’s story made my mother’s actions real, and for the first time I began to sense how perilous life with her must have been. Joni emerged from a bedroom in the rear of the house and sat down at the kitchen table. She wore acid-washed jeans and a man’s T-shirt that said “Big Dog” on the left front. On the back it said, “If you can’t run with the big dogs, stay on the porch.”
She sat at the kitchen table rocking gently, her eyes skittering across the room, as if she were trapped. I stared at her, swallowing hard, trying to hold back tears. What has life done to you, Joni?
Marc continued to tell us about his upbringing; how, after we were taken from our mother, he came to live with Joe, Loretta, and Ben in Tuckerton, New Jersey; that for years he thought Ben was his cousin and not his brother; that after a year his grandparents could no longer afford to keep him and he was sent back into foster care; that he lived with foster parents who treated him as if he were an indentured servant.
“I remember a lot too,” Joni suddenly whispered. She stared straight ahead at the floral basket with the plastic flowers as her audience. “I remember being hungry—always, always hungry.” She repeated “always, always hungry” as if it were a tribal chant. “But that’s not what I remember most. I remember these men touching me in places they shouldn’t. I remember that a lot. I wasn’t no more than six years old.” We said nothing, listening in stunned silence. But Joni said no more. Off in the distance a car horn beeped, reminding me of the world that existed beyond our collective pain.
Marc asked about the circumstances in which I’d grown up, and I recounted my tale. He listened, interrupting when I told him about college. “You went to Boston College? You must be pretty smart.”
I shook my head in denial. “Oh, I don’t know about that. I worked pretty hard. I knew education was my only chance.”
Marc waved me off. “Naw, you’re pretty smart. You found us, and nobody else done that.”
“Well, almost,” I replied. “We still haven’t found Bernard yet. This won’t be complete until we find him.”
Joni had been quiet the entire time, but now she looked directly at me and said, “You’re not black. You can’t be.” She said this almost pleadingly, as if saying it would make it so. I was so stunned I nearly asked her to repeat herself. I let out a long sigh. I had experienced racism before, but I had never expected it would factor into my family reunion. I had known my mother was white, and as far as I knew, I was the only one of her children who was of mixed race. But I had believed that such considerations would have no place here, that the loss we collectively suffered would transcend any difference.
“But I am, Joni,” I said gently. “I know our mother was white, but my father was African American, and I grew up in an African American community.”
Like many children of mixed race, I had grown accustomed to questions about my identity. Most people wanted to know which side you identified with, and there were others who demanded you choose a side. I never had any patience with the latter and would admonish anyone who crossed that line. Yet with Joni I knew I needed to tread lightly, no matter how annoyed I might have been at the question.
“You’re not black!” she said again, her
voice this time panicky and shrill. She burst into tears and bolted from the kitchen table, slamming the bedroom door behind her.
An awkward silence took hold of the room. I looked around the table and met with downward glances. Marc spun the Coke can around in his hands. Mason had his hands folded but tapped his thumbs together. Somewhere in the back bedroom, I could hear Joni’s muffled sobs. None of us knew what to say.
We were meeting our brother Ben for dinner that night, and we decided to pass some time by heading over to the Freehold Raceway Mall, where Marc and I had met a few hours earlier. The enormous mall had opened the previous year. Long, pristine corridors and wide hallways held hundreds of shops and thousands of shoppers. Beautifully architected high, glass ceilings gave the place a palatial feel. In its center court was a majestic water fountain, framed by three smaller fountains and large potted plants, while a beautifully sculpted, ten-foot sand castle stood at the foot of one of the escalators.
We walked around the stores looking at things none of us could afford. Joni and Mason stopped into several jewelry stores while Marc and I waited patiently outside. It was clear that Joni wanted to keep as much distance between me and her as possible. She and Mason, who by now I realized was Joni’s boyfriend, stayed a few yards back from Marc and me.
After half an hour, we stopped in the food court on the lower level. Joni and Mason sat at one table, and Marc and I sat at another, eating our Wendy’s and Chinese food. A children’s carousel spun nearby, and its gilded music wafted over the food court, blending in with the birdlike chatter of a hundred conversations. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Joni casting curious glances in my direction. Each time I tried to make eye contact, she looked away. After a while I stopped looking her way, thinking that eventually she would come around. This was a departure for me; I usually ignored those who held racist views, believing that racism was its own prison. But this simplistic philosophy seemed terribly insufficient in trying to come to terms with my own sister.
A Chance in the World Page 17