When I Was White

by Sarah Valentine

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  To my past and future selves,

  and to my family

  Author’s Note

  Memory is imperfect, and I have truthfully portrayed the events and conversations described in the book to the best of my recollection. I recognize that others’ memories of these events and conversations may differ from my own. To that end, some names and personal details have been changed or omitted to protect the identities of those portrayed in the book. I would like to thank my friends and family for being positive, supportive influences in my life.

  In lieu of a public acknowledgment, I have chosen to thank all of the wonderful people involved in the creation and production of this book privately.

  WHY SOME PEOPLE BE MAD AT ME SOMETIMES

  they ask me to remember

  but they want me to remember

  their memories

  and I keep on remembering

  mine

  —LUCILLE CLIFTON

  One

  On my first day of school, my mother dressed me in a red plaid dress with a white top and an apple-shaped pocket. She pulled my hair into neat, tight pigtails with red plastic balls on the hairbands. She held my yellow raincoat so I could push my arms through the sleeves and steadied my galoshes so I could place my feet into them one at a time, my hands holding onto her shoulders for support. She handed me my Wonder Woman lunch box. Inside were a carefully wrapped sandwich, fruit and a cookie, a thermos filled with hot chocolate, and a napkin on which she had colored a sunny scene with flowers and bluebirds. You are my sunshine, it read.

  She drove me to the bus stop in our blue station wagon in the rain. Fall leaves littered the street, disappearing into deep puddles. The rain rushed down the sidewalk gutters into the grates below the street. Looking out the window, I wondered where the dark grates led.

  “Where does all the water go?” I asked my mom, but she had her eyes on the road: my little brother Patrick, who had just turned one, was in a car seat in the back.

  I was five. My dad, who was at work, was twenty-six. My mom, already a mother of two, was twenty-five.

  When we arrived at the bus stop, my mom got out of the car and held an umbrella over my head. The school bus sat idling a few yards away, the exhaust rising in thick plumes.

  She bent down, straightened my collar, and said, “Have fun. Be good. Don’t miss me too much.”

  I was ready to go; I’d never ridden a school bus before.

  The doors cranked open, and I turned to the waiting mystery, my first journey away from home. My mom grabbed my sleeve, and I turned back around.

  “Remember, I love you,” she said. “My little girl, my sunshine. I love you so much.”

  “I love you, too, Mommy!” I said and gave her a hug in my rain-slicked coat.

  I ran onto the bus and waved to her out the window from my seat as we pulled away. Standing under the umbrella next to the station wagon, her hair long and brown, she waved back.

  I couldn’t see that her eyes were filled with tears.

  Two

  We went to Catholic school, got dressed for church every Sunday.

  St. Alexis, named for the patron saint of beggars, was a plain church with a school, orchard playground, rectory, and convent, all situated around a parking lot that doubled as our kickball field. A statue of the Virgin Mary greeted you when you drove up the winding tree-lined road and entered the church grounds.

  The whole town of Wexford was like that: winding and tree-lined. It sat in the North Hills of Pittsburgh, a suburb of gray skies, car dealerships, and graveyards but also of rolling hills, green lawns, and fireworks in July.

  We lived in a cozy town house in a neighborhood called Hickory Hills that bordered the woods. Pat and I had our own bedrooms, and when my youngest brother, Tommy, was born, he slept in a crib next to my parents’ bed. I had fun chasing our cat, Kitty, into the converted garage basement, until she ran behind the furnace, which was blocked by my dad’s old weight bench. Running down the steep hill across the street revealed a park surrounded by maple groves. From the highest point on the swing I could see the tops of the trees that disappeared into the ravine below.

  St. Teresa of Avila, St. Sebastian’s, and St. Alphonsus were all located in the North Hills, but my parents picked our neighborhood because it was closest to St. Alexis. Maybe they liked its humble patron, or maybe they liked that the school had an accelerated learning program that was intended to be college preparatory. The church was originally built to be the school gymnasium, so it was flat, rectangular, and unadorned. But the back wall had been replaced with glass and gave on to a stand of pines behind the church. Above the altar, a larger-than-life crucifix hung from the ceiling, contrasting the view of tranquility with a portrait of grim death.

  Father Rogers founded St. Alexis in the 1970s. He was a gruff older man who sped through the Apostles’ Creed and kept his homilies short so his parishioners could get home in time to watch the Steelers play on Sunday. The services of the younger priest, Father Kunkel, were more thoughtful, and he took time to talk to the parents after mass. Five nuns, the Sisters of the Holy Spirit, lived in the convent. They, along with a handful of laywomen, were our schoolteachers.

  My mom was one of the nuns’ favorite parents. She baked banana bread and zucchini bread that she gave me to drop off at the convent.

  “Tell your mother I said thank you,” said Sister Stephanie, my first-grade teacher. Then she leaned down closer. “But don’t tell her the braided loaf she gave us was raw on the inside!”

  I liked Sister Stephanie. She had a kind, round face that beamed with mischief under her veil. I didn’t like Sister Anselm, who would become my fourth-grade teacher. With a pinched face and small round glasses on the end of her nose, she bristled with righteous disapproval.

  One day when she was visiting the other classrooms, she leaned over my desk and asked, “What are you drawing?”

  I showed her my drawing of a fluffy cat that I thought was quite lifelike.

  She drew back and made a noise of disgust. Then she took the drawing and put it on her desk, which meant I was never going to get it back. I was confused by her reaction until Sister Stephanie came over to reassure me.

  “She thinks cats are the devil’s children,” she said with a wink.

  When I was at St. Alexis, I wanted to be a nun. Except for crotchety Sister Anselm, they seemed sweet and serene. Their long black-and-white robes, the black veils edged in white intrigued me, like they were part of a secret order and knew something we didn’t. Our school did not endorse corporal punishment, so I never experienced the ruler or stick that was common in stories about Catholic school.

  On Friday mornings we attended mass. After communion, Father Rogers gave a short homily.

  “Strive to be like Mary,” he said. “For she was without sin and submitted to God’s will.”

  We bowed our heads in silent prayer, supposedly to
ask Mary for her guidance. I pictured the Virgin in her white veil, blue cape, and white tunic, a golden halo rising from her head. She had long brown hair like my mom.

  I thought about the Holy Spirit, which I pictured as a white bird on fire that brought holiness and grace. Because they were named for it, I figured the sisters had the magic bird locked up somewhere in the convent.

  I knew Jesus died for our sins. I didn’t entirely understand what that meant, but I felt like I owed him a great deal. I knew from reciting the stations of the cross that he was persecuted unjustly. That was partly why I wanted to become a nun; how else could I ever repay my debt and right that eternal wrong?

  I pictured God as a man in the clouds. He was everyone’s father, but especially Jesus’s and was always watching, like Santa Claus.

  I didn’t understand how God made Mary pregnant through the Holy Spirit or how Joseph was Jesus’s earthly father. How could a spirit make you pregnant? How could you have two fathers—one you knew and one you didn’t?

  “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen,” Father Rogers concluded. We crossed ourselves and when the service ended we filed out of the church.

  The line back to class was the best time to practice our swears, which we traded like our own secret knowledge and whispered to each other when the nuns weren’t looking.

  “I know the worst one,” Jenny Ross said.

  “What is it?” I asked. We already knew damn and hell, but that was kind of the teachers’ fault because they taught us those in religion class. I already knew some other colorful phrases, but I was curious about what Jenny had to reveal. I leaned closer.

  “Butt lick!” she said triumphantly. I gasped. I’d never heard that one before and immediately began to think of all the people I could call a butt lick at recess.

  With short black hair and freckles, Jenny reminded me of Punky Brewster and was always getting in trouble. I called her Punky and she called me Cherie, who was Punky’s best friend on the show. I didn’t really get it because I didn’t think I looked like Cherie, a brown girl with her hair combed into neat, tight pigtails. I let it go because it meant I was Jenny’s best friend.

  Our moms were also friends. Sometimes after school, we would stop by their house, and she and Mrs. Ross would talk in the kitchen while we played in Jenny’s room. The Rosses were from the South, and Mrs. Ross insisted I call her Miss Patty. It felt exotic to call a grown-up by her first name, especially my friend’s mom. Miss Patty spoke with a sassy twang, and I saw where Jenny got her spirit. I think my mom was in awe of her, too. She talked about how fit Miss Patty was, how she ran around the high school every day. While I was the oldest of three, Jenny was the youngest. Her older sister listened to the Grateful Dead, and her brother listened to rap and played football. We’d sneak into both of their rooms, portals into danger and excitement. I was entranced by the Run-DMC poster on her brother’s wall and the skull with a crown of roses on her sister’s.

  One day Jenny invited me over with another one of her friends, Emily, who was African American. Emily and I were friends, but not best friends, and it annoyed me that parents and teachers often confused our names. I don’t even look like her, I would think. Jenny was my best friend, and I thought it made more sense to confuse the names of two people who were always together, not those of two people who weren’t.

  I didn’t know much about race, but I knew it existed; I thought some people were black, but most people were normal. I knew, for example, that Run-DMC and most other rappers were black, and I knew that my family and I were not. I couldn’t explain why, but to me, being black made Emily seem different. Her family lived in a bigger house than any of ours. Her father was handsome and kind, and her mother reminded me of one of the elegant ladies on a soap opera. They were fancier than we were, which I felt put them in a higher class, but they were also black, which put them in a different category altogether.

  While we were playing, Emily got a nosebleed and ran to the bathroom. I peered around the open door, my face half reflected in the bathroom mirror. I stood transfixed as I wondered what color her blood would be when it came pouring out of her nose. She’s not like the rest of us, I thought. Surely her blood would be a different color, too. Such an important difference had to be more than skin-deep. When her bright red blood stained the white towel in her hands, I slid away from the door.

  Three

  In sixth grade, I moved to Carson Middle School, and the girl who wanted to be pure like the Virgin Mary grew into the teenager who wanted to dance like MC Hammer. Instead of wearing tight pigtails, I wore my hair down in all its frizzy glory and earned the nickname “Slash,” though I pulled it back into a ponytail when I was around my mom.

  Jenny and I were still friends, but not best friends. Although I was out of Catholic school, I was still in the Girl Scouts. Jenny quit in fifth grade, calling it “lame,” but I stayed on, doing crafts, going camping, and earning merit badges. Dressed in my green uniform, I went door-to-door with my mom to sell cookies. I was not a good salesperson; I hated going up to strangers’ doors. Eventually, my dad just took the sign-up form to work and came back with a page full of orders. My family always ordered a dozen, and my favorite part about Girl Scouts was opening the brightly colored boxes, pulling out the long sleeves of Thin Mints and sliding out the plastic trays of Samoas.

  Not long after Tommy was born, we moved out of Hickory Hills to a three-bedroom house on Lincoln Boulevard with two white columns and a row of hedges in front. The neighborhood was known as the Presidentials, with Roosevelt Street, Taft Place, and Van Buren Lane making up our plan. Now we each had our own rooms. Pat’s room had the Nintendo, the computer, and a trundle bed with a choo-choo train comforter. Tommy’s room had white wallpaper with red, blue, and yellow stars, a deep blue carpet, and glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. His tall white cabinet was the same one I’d had when I was a baby. My room had white and yellow princess furniture with brass handles on the dresser drawers, a canopy bed, and a rolltop desk. It was also a good place for hiding things, or so I thought.

  The living room with its big floral couches and high-backed green armchair was for special occasions only. The TV room had a woodsy theme and the couches were made of nubby fabric that could better stand up to kids. The couch frame, coffee table, and dining table were all oak, with hard corners. If you bumped your elbow, stubbed your toe, or hit your head because you were roughhousing, it was your own fault.

  In addition to our tortoiseshell Kitty, we got Knight, a black Labrador retriever. My mom had a black Lab named Mother when she was a kid. She laughed recalling her parents yelling, “Mother! Get off the bed!” and how funny it must have sounded to outsiders when she told her parents, “Mother peed on the floor again!” Mother the black Lab seemed to be one of the only happy memories my mom had of her childhood and we decided to carry on the tradition. We went to a breeder’s house and picked Knight out of a litter of puppies. His purebred certificate from the American Kennel Club listed the full name we gave him, Sir William of Wexford, along with his parents’ names. His mother, Athena, was a sleek, muscular black Lab, and his father, Old Yellow Thor, was a hulking yellow Lab who had sired multiple litters. With such a pedigree, Knight was destined to be a mighty beast.

  Knight was only a few months old when we brought him home, the same age as Tommy, and as one grew so did the other. By the time Tommy was four, Knight was a 115-pound terror and taller than I was standing on his hind legs. He thought he was above the children in the household hierarchy. He was kicked out of every obedience class that my mother took him to. When he was around one year old, she took him to a class in North Park, where woods and picnic groves ringed a lake. As soon as he saw the water, Knight broke off from his leash, charged toward the lake and jumped in, swimming away to his heart’s delight while the other dogs sat patiently, quivering at the temptation of freedom but not daring to disobey their masters. Knight eventually came back to shore, muddy, wet, and self-sa
tisfied. That was the beginning of the end of his training journey, and because we failed to control him then, we’d felt it was impossible to do so now.

  When we were twelve, Jenny and I played clowns at my brother Patrick’s eighth birthday party. My mom sewed two patchwork clown costumes complete with red, white, and blue pompoms on the chests. We got rainbow wigs and sticks of grease paint. Thick white covered our faces; we drew red clown lips around our own and blue ovals around our eyes. I made little red hearts on my cheeks. Jenny decided to paint sharp blue triangles around her eyes, making her look a bit like John Wayne Gacy. She got a bunch of party hats and strapped them all over her wig.

  “I’m Horny the Clown!” she said.

  My parents had planned Patrick’s eighth birthday party to be a big event. The kitchen, yard, and driveway were decorated with crepe paper and balloons. Jenny and I led the kids in decorating paper plates to make clown faces that they glued to popsicle sticks. Everyone got a can of Silly String. My dad had the video camera out and recorded Pat enjoying his surprise gift, a red battery-powered Power Wheels Jeep. Pat rode it around the sloping driveway singing, Pow-pow Power Wheels! Pow-pow Power Wheels! Power Wheels—Power makes it go! His friends screamed with envy and glee.

  Just then, we heard another scream from the kitchen. My mom had gone to bring out the cake, but while we were all outside, Knight had jumped up, put his big paws on the kitchen counter, and reached his head into the cake box like a shark. When we ran in to see what happened, we saw my mom standing dumbfounded in front of a torn box and mangled cake all over the floor. Knight was banished to the basement, and we heard him whining and barking and scratching at the door. Gathering herself, my mom herded us all back outside to play games so my dad could run to the Giant Eagle to pick up cupcakes and some more candles.