its thick fog, me and Greg
made a deal before we came here
not to talk or think about any of that.
Boys. Aunt Bee is standing on the porch,
one hand on her hip. Her hair is more
gray than black now, but she is still
pretty. Time to eat.
Me and Greg race back inside,
since we’re both starving, and there’s
not room enough at the table for us all,
so Gran lets us sit in the
living room instead.
It’s the best Christmas lunch
I think I’ve ever had.
We open our gifts, new art supplies
for me, some books for Greg,
and stacks of violin music sheets
for Charlie, who has gotten good
without us even noticing.
After we’ve cleaned up the paper,
Gran pulls out her violin
and Aunt Bee sits at the piano
and Granddad picks up his old guitar,
and we sit around the tree
singing Christmas songs.
Aunt Bee’s clear sweet voice meets
Mr. Langley’s deep one that
can’t hold a tune at all.
Me and Greg and Charlie
laugh to hear it,
but that doesn’t stop him.
We sing until the sun is gone
and the tree lights make our
faces glow.
And then we eat pie
and cobbler and fudge
until our bellies ache.
ROAD
The road is foggier on our way home,
but, for some reason, the world
doesn’t feel so foggy anymore.
I guess it doesn’t really matter as much
what the future might be hiding,
since I have today.
We drive past the curve where
my daddy’s car flipped off the road,
and I don’t even close my eyes.
It’s the first time I’ve watched it pass
since the night my daddy died.
SPRING 1973
MAMA
Today me and Greg
are graduating from
elementary school.
It feels like a gigantic step,
going to a brand-new school
where there will be no Aunt Bee
or Mr. Langley. It feels a little scary,
if I’m honest.
We sit up on a stage with
all the other fifth graders,
who probably feel excited and
scared at the same time, just like me.
The lights blur the audience,
but I know who’s there.
Gran. Granddad.
Charlie. Mr. Langley.
And Mama.
She showed up right before
me and Greg had to get onstage.
I didn’t know if she would come,
but she had to watch her boy
graduate, she said. She hugged me
close and kissed the top of my head.
I’m so proud of you, she said.
She smelled like cigarette smoke.
Greg looked away, but not before
I saw the water in his eyes.
Three months ago his mama
was moved to a home where
nurses can take care of her all the time.
He still gets really sad about it.
He misses her a bunch, especially
on days like today.
NAME
Greg sits two rows in front of me.
I listen to all the names called,
and when it’s Greg’s, I let out a whoop.
Someone in the audience does, too.
Greg is grinning when he
shakes Aunt Bee’s hand and she
gives him the piece of paper that
says he has finished his time at
River Oaks Elementary.
Finally, it’s my turn,
and I hear more whoops,
and Aunt Bee hugs me tight
and kisses my forehead,
just like Mama did, except
Aunt Bee smells like oranges and coconut.
Then she hands me my piece of paper.
I take it back to my seat and
spread it on my lap.
John Paul Sanders.
It was my daddy’s name.
But it’s my name, too,
and I am the one
left to carry it
into the future.
WALL
When it’s all over and
most of the people have
disappeared from the auditorium,
Mr. Langley takes us back
to the building I painted with him.
We finished our walls
four weeks ago.
He leads us all to the wall
we painted together.
Everyone stands there, staring.
Aunt Bee’s eyes fill and then
empty down the sides of her face.
Gran’s mouth is open. Mama says,
Oh my God, over and over, and then,
It’s absolutely beautiful.
It’s Gran and Granddad’s living room,
except it’s wider, with more chairs,
enough for all the ones who’ve left us, too.
The forms don’t have faces,
but we all know who they are.
There is no Christmas tree,
but there is light shining on all the faces,
so they look like they are not quite
in this world but halfway in another,
the one Gran’s preacher used to talk about,
where no one ever dies and the sun
always shines and the mistakes
of the past are nothing more than
forgotten memories.
Mr. Langley smiles at me,
his hand squeezing my shoulder.
It was Paulie’s idea, he says.
We let them stand there, staring,
taking it all in, imagining the place,
until someone’s stomach grumbles
and someone else laughs, and then
we’re all turning together toward the cars,
the last ones in the parking lot.
GOODBYE
I let Mama hold my hand
all the way to the car.
When we get there,
she kisses my cheek and
holds me tight again.
I love you, she says.
Her voice crumbles in the
middle of the words.
So much.
I love you, too, I say,
since I really, really do.
I have loved her all along,
even if I didn’t want her to
come back and spoil everything.
I love her especially today,
since I know without her saying a word
that she won’t be coming back to get us.
I love her for doing the hard thing.
I love her for letting me live my life.
I love her for knowing
that this is what I need.
She hugs Charlie, and then
she walks away with fast steps,
her heels clicking on the cement.
Thank you, Mama, I whisper.
I watch her disappear down the road,
and then my eye catches on a berry bunch
someone dropped on the cement.
The color, bright red on gray,
looks a whole lot like
my life today.
Gray was the old life,
the one where a daddy
disappeared and a mama left
and a boy walked around
with too many empty spaces
to fill again. I thought life
would always be gray.
I’m
not saying life is perfect.
The protestors still shout awful things
at Mr. Langley and Greg when we
walk through the streets of our city.
People still fight one another for what
they think is right.
But my life today is mostly red,
with an aunt Bee and
an uncle Luke and
Gran and Granddad and
Greg and Charlie,
all different shades and colors
living together like family.
Like we were meant to be.
Sometimes family doesn’t look
exactly the way we expect it to.
Sometimes it looks maybe
just a little bit better.
Author’s Note
The Colors of the Rain began with a sentence: “I heard the shots from nine miles away.” This sentence does not open the book, nor is it completely intact anywhere within it. But this sentence was important, because it was my first encounter with Paulie and his remarkable life.
While I have taken creative liberties with Paulie and his family’s story, many of the circumstances surrounding him are true—the Houston Independent School District was somewhat behind in the integration of black students into its predominantly white schools. A very slow, nationwide desegregation began in 1954, after the historic U.S. Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education, which declared that all racial segregation (or separation of white students and black students) in public schools violated the U.S. Constitution’s promise of equal rights and protection for all people. Several Southern states, particularly those where racial segregation was prominent, took more time to integrate than the national government believed they should.
The Colors of the Rain is my attempt to capture this piece of history alongside some of its emotional undertones. Desegregation was dangerous work, full of passionate protests, unthinkable violence, and both overt and covert racism. Desegregation was not an overnight success. It required decades of hard work, persistence, and conviction to integrate successfully—and even today, there exist places in the south, as well as the north, that still haven’t fully embraced equal rights for all people, regardless of their skin tone, their culture, or their way of life. We often forget the painful and difficult work required to heal human divides—work that includes acceptance, understanding, and love.
It’s important to remember.
There is still so much work to be done. One of the most important things we can do is what you have done with The Colors of the Rain: Listen to the stories of others.
It’s not easy to understand those who bully. It’s not easy to understand those who make bad choices. It’s not easy to understand people who are different from us. But when we listen to their stories without assuming we already know who they are, based on what they do and how they live and what they look like, we have the greatest chance of healing the divides in our world. Of repairing what’s been broken. Of living in love.
I hope you and I will be brave enough to do our part.
Acknowledgments
I always knew The Colors of the Rain would eventually be published, though it was a long and winding road that led to this book in your hands. Countless rejections, countless revisions, and countless people lead to a book’s birth into the world. I’m so grateful that I don’t have to walk this road alone.
Thank you, first and foremost, to my amazing husband, Ben, for taking the kids swimming or to the park or for just simply cooking dinner, even though it’s not your night to cook, when I descend the stairs with that spacey look and say in a dream-like voice, “I think I need to write something down real quick.” Sorry that “real quick” usually means a couple of hours later. Thank you for all you do to help me live my dream. Thank you for crying with me when I don’t know if I deserve this and for reminding me I am worthy. Thank you for your transformational love.
To my sons, Jadon, Asa, Hosea, Zadok, Boaz, and Asher—your creativity, your inspiration, your witty comments, your wonder, your joy, and your hope—they are all life-giving to me. I love you so very much.
Mom: Thank you for always believing in me and nurturing my love of both reading and writing. Thank you for keeping pencils in stock and stapling my “books” together when I was a little girl. And thank you for keeping them all.
Kervin: Thank you for adopting us as your children.
Aunt Lynette: Thank you for buying me my first writing book when I was eight. I still have it on one of my shelves.
Ashley and Jarrod: Thank you for teaching me what it means to be a sister and for sticking with me through hell and high water. You’re the best siblings I could ever imagine.
Helen Montoya Henrichs: Thank you for contributing stunning photographs that helped build Paulie’s story at its beginning. I am lucky to call you not only our family documentarian, but also a friend. While this story looks much different than it did in our collaborative days, you are part of its foundation. Thank you for your contribution.
Rena Rossner: Thank you for taking a chance on a cold query, for falling in love with Paulie’s story and understanding just what I wanted to do with it, and for pushing me to cut and rewrite and shape it into a better book than it might have been without you. You are a master at what you do, and I’m so thankful to have such a fierce, determined, practical agent.
Sonali Fry: Thank you so very much for choosing to share Paulie’s story, for seeing its potential, for shaping it into what it’s become. Thank you for asking about my family, for your compassion that often made me cry (though you couldn’t see it across cyberspace), for caring enough to say, “No rush, whenever you can.” I am so thankful to have an editor like you.
Nic Stone: Thank you for reading an early version of this story and making some helpful suggestions. Your time is so very much appreciated.
Chris Silas Neal: Thank you for the most perfect cover of my book that I could possibly have envisioned for it—so perfect, in fact, that I cried the first time I saw it. You are amazingly gifted at what you do, and I am so honored to have a piece of your art living forever on my book.
Thank you to the entire team at Yellow Jacket: David DeWitt, Dave Barrett, Gayley Avery, and Nadia Almahdi. You have truly brought this book to life, and I will be eternally grateful for your hard work and dedication.
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