by Brit Bennett
She handed Kennedy a white square of paper. A photograph. Kennedy knew, before even looking, that it would be a picture of her mother.
“Christ, that took forever,” Frantz said, sliding back into the booth with the drinks. “Hey, what’s that?”
“Nothing,” she said. “Scoot out, I have to hit the can.”
“Ah Ken, I just sat down,” he groaned, but slid over nonetheless, and she climbed out of the booth, clutching the photograph. She did go to the ladies’ room, but only because she needed better light. Jude could have handed her a photo of anyone, for all she knew. For a second, she stood in front of the bathroom mirror, holding the picture against her stomach.
She didn’t have to look at it. She could rip it up, and at the end of the night, she’d never have to speak to Jude again. Soon Reese would have his surgery, then they would leave the city for good. She wouldn’t have to know. She could do that, couldn’t she?
Well, you know what happened next. She knew too, even before she flipped the picture over. Memory works that way—like seeing forward and backward at the same time. In that moment, she could see in both directions. She saw herself as a little girl—eager, pestering, clambering to be close to a mother who never wanted her to be. A mother whom she’d never actually known. Then she saw herself showing the photograph to her, the proof that she’d spent her whole life lying. When Kennedy flipped the picture over, she could make out the figures of twin girls in black dresses, another woman standing between them. The photograph was old, gray and faded, but still, under the fluorescent light, she could tell which of these identical girls was her mother. She looked uncomfortable, like if she could have, she would have run right out of the frame.
Her mother had always hated taking pictures. She hated being nailed down in place.
* * *
—
“YOUR FRIENDS ARE NICE,” Frantz said later that night, crawling into bed.
She’d barely spoken on the subway ride home. She wasn’t feeling well, she’d told everyone after one drink, she’d better call it a night. In the bathroom, she’d slipped the photograph inside her waistband like when she was little, trying to sneak treats out of the kitchen. Except instead of a chocolate bar melting under the shirt, she felt the sharp corners poking at her the whole walk to the station. Part of her wanted Jude to think that she’d gotten rid of it. Flushed it down the toilet or something. Jude had looked disappointed as they’d said good-bye. Well, good. Let her feel disappointed. Who did she think she was, anyway? Disrupting her life a second time, and for all she knew, Jude could still be lying. She looked nothing like either girl in the picture or the woman standing between them, darker but still fair, a hand on each girl’s shoulder. The three looked like a set, like they all belonged to each other. But Jude belonged to no one. And what about Kennedy? Who the hell did she belong to?
“We’re not friends,” she said. “Not really. I mean, they’re just people I used to know.”
“Oh. Well.” He shrugged, then rolled over, kissing her neck. She squirmed away.
“Jesus, stop,” she said.
“What’s the matter?”
“What do you mean? I told you already, I’m not feeling well.”
“Well, Christ, you don’t have to bite my head off.”
He rolled away from her glumly and turned off the light.
“I knew they weren’t your friends,” he said.
“What?”
“You don’t have black friends,” he said. “You don’t like anybody black but me and we’re not really friends, are we?”
* * *
—
IN THE MORNING, she called Hotel Castor again, but nobody answered.
She lay alone in bed, studying that faded photograph until she had to get to work. The twins, side by side in those somber black dresses. Her mother and not-her-mother, her grandmother between them. A whole family where her mother said there’d been none, and Jude, somehow, knowing all of this. Once, when she was thirteen, her mother had brought her to the mall to buy a new dress for her birthday. Kennedy was beginning to pull away by then, wishing she could have gone to Bloomingdale’s with her girlfriends instead. But her mother was barely focusing on her. She paused in the middle of the shop floor, fingering the lacy sleeves of a black gown.
“I love shopping,” she’d said, almost to herself. “It’s like trying on all the other people you could be.”
* * *
—
DURING HER LUNCH BREAK, Kennedy called the hotel room again. Still no answer. This time, she tried the front desk.
“The girl said they’d be at the hospital all day,” the receptionist told her. “In case anyone called.”
“Which hospital?”
“Sorry, miss, she didn’t say.”
Of course, what did she expect from some country girl who’d found herself in New York City for the first time? Of course she’d never considered how many hospitals were in Manhattan alone. She was irritated but flipped through the phone book to find the closest hospital to the hotel. The receptionist told her that she couldn’t release the name of any patients, and Kennedy, hanging up, realized that she didn’t know Reese’s full name anyway. Still, she left work early and rode the bus to the hospital. At the nurse’s station, she asked a tiny redhead to page a Jude Winston. She waited five minutes, the phone book page crinkling in her pocket, wondering if she’d have to work her way uptown until she found them. Then the elevator doors opened. Jude stepped out, frazzled at first then relieved once she saw it was only Kennedy.
“You didn’t leave the hospital name,” Kennedy said. “I could’ve spent all damn day looking for you.”
“But you didn’t,” Jude said.
“Yeah, well, I could have.” Jesus, they were already bickering like siblings. “It’s a big city, you know.”
Jude paused. “Well,” she said, “my mind’s all over the place right now.”
It was exactly the type of thing her mother would have said—sly, meant to guilt her into submission.
“Sorry,” she said. “Is he all right?”
Jude chewed her lip. “I don’t know,” she said. “He’s still under. They won’t let me see him. Since we’re not family and all.”
It occurred to Kennedy then that if she suddenly had a heart attack, right here in the hospital lobby, Jude would be her nearest relative. Cousins. They were cousins. But if Jude told a nurse this, insisting on the right to visit, who would ever believe her?
“That’s absurd,” Kennedy said. “You’re the only one he has out here.”
“Well.” Jude shrugged.
“He should just marry you,” she said. “Get it over with. You’ve been together long enough and then you wouldn’t have to worry about bullshit like this.”
Jude stared at her for a second, and Kennedy thought she might tell her to go fuck herself. She deserved it, probably. But Jude just rolled her eyes.
“You sound like my mother,” she said.
* * *
—
THE PHOTOGRAPH WAS from a funeral, Jude told her. In the cafeteria, the girls sat across from each other at a long metal table, sipping lukewarm coffee, the photo lying between them. A funeral, she’d figured as much—the black dresses and all—but now she glanced back at the picture, those twin girls. Matching hair ribbons, matching tights. For the first time, she noticed one twin clutching the other’s dress, as if she were trying to keep her still. She touched the photo, reminding herself that it was real. Needing it, somehow, to tether her in place.
“Who died?” she said.
“Their daddy. He was killed.”
“By who?”
Jude shrugged. “Bunch of white men.”
She didn’t know what was more shocking, the revelation or how casually Jude offered it.
“What?” she said. “Why?”
“When someone gets killed? Usually.”
“Well, there isn’t. It just happened. Right in front of them.”
She tried to imagine her mother as a girl, witnessing something so horrible, but she could only picture her eight years ago, standing at the end of the darkened hallway with a baseball bat. Kennedy had been a little drunk, sneaking back home after a party; she’d expected her mother to yell at her for breaking curfew. Instead, she was standing at the end of the hall, a hand covering her mouth. The baseball bat clattered on the wood floor, rolling toward her bare feet.
“She never talks about him,” Kennedy said.
“Mine either,” Jude said.
At the end of the table, an old Jewish man hacked into his sweater sleeve. Jude glanced over, fiddling with a candy wrapper.
“What’s she like?” Kennedy asked. “Your mother.”
“Stubborn,” she said. “Like you.”
“I am not stubborn.”
“If you say so.”
“Well, what else is she like? She’s got to be more than stubborn.”
“I don’t know,” Jude said. “She works at a diner. She says she hates it but she’d never go anywhere different. She’d never leave Maman.”
“Is that what you call your grandmother?” Kennedy still couldn’t bring herself to say our.
Jude nodded. “I grew up in her house,” she said. “She’s getting old now. She forgets a lot. She still asks about your mom sometimes.”
An announcement crackled over the PA system. Kennedy added another packet of sugar to coffee she’d never finish.
“This is strange for me,” she said. “I don’t think you understand how strange it all is.”
“I know,” Jude said.
“No, you don’t. I don’t think anybody could possibly know.”
“Fine, I don’t know.” Jude stood, tossing her coffee in the trash can. Kennedy scrambled after, suddenly afraid that she’d leave her here. What if she’d pushed Jude away and now Jude decided not to tell her anything more? Knowing a little was worse than not knowing at all. So she followed Jude onto the elevator, riding in silence to the fifth floor, then she sat beside her in the waiting room next to a wilting plant.
“You don’t have to stay,” Jude said.
“I know that,” Kennedy said. But she did.
* * *
—
THE HOSPITAL RELEASED REESE that evening. When Jude wheeled him outside, Kennedy glanced up, startled to find the sky already cloaked in navy blue. For hours, she’d sat beside Jude in the waiting room, flipping idly through magazines, wandering down to the cafeteria for more coffee, or sometimes just sitting there, staring at that picture. She called in sick to her show. Admitted the flu had gotten to her after all. And in spite of every reason she had to leave, she stayed there in that quiet hospital room, until a brusque white nurse told them they could go. She thought about calling home. Frantz always tried to ring her before her shows, he’d worry if the understudy picked up. Still, she hailed a cab and helped Jude guide Reese inside. He was still a little loopy from the anesthesia, and the whole ride to the hotel, his head kept lolling onto her shoulder. Jude squeezed his thigh, and Kennedy glanced away. She couldn’t imagine needing anyone so openly.
She could have said good-bye outside the hotel, but she climbed out too. She and Jude didn’t speak. They each wrapped an arm around Reese’s waist, and together they lugged him inside. He was heavier than he looked, and by the time they reached the elevator, her shoulders burned. But she still held on until they made it inside the hotel room and gingerly lowered him onto the bed. Jude sat on the edge of the mattress, pushing the curls back from his forehead.
“Thanks,” she said softly, but she was still looking at Reese. That tenderness in her voice only meant for him.
“Well,” Kennedy said. She should’ve left but she lingered in the room. Jude would spend a few more days in the city while Reese recovered. Maybe Kennedy could stop by the hotel again tomorrow. Surely Jude couldn’t stay inside this dingy room all day, watching him sleep. Maybe they could go out for coffee or lunch. She could show her around the city so she’d be able to say that she did more in New York than see a mediocre musical and sit in a hospital waiting room. Jude walked her down to the lobby, and Kennedy slowly wrapped her scarf around her neck.
“What’s it like?” she said. “Mallard.”
She’d imagined a town like Mayberry, folksy and homey, women leaving pies to cool on their windowsills. A town so small that everybody knew your name. In a different life, she might have visited over the summer. She could have played with Jude in front of their grandmother’s house. But Jude just laughed.
“Awful,” she said. “They only like light Negroes out there. You’d fit right in.”
She’d said it so offhandedly that Kennedy almost didn’t realize it.
“I’m not a Negro,” she said.
Jude laughed again, this time uneasily.
“Well, your mother is,” she said.
“So?”
“So that makes you one too.”
“It doesn’t make me anything,” she said. “My father’s white, you know. And you don’t get to show up and tell me what I am.”
It wasn’t a race thing. She just hated the idea of anyone telling her who she had to be. She was like her mother in that way. If she’d been born black, she would have been perfectly happy about it. But she wasn’t and who was Jude to tell her that she was somebody that she was not? Nothing had changed, really. She’d learned one thing about her mother, but what did that amount to when you looked at the totality of her life? A single detail had been moved and replaced. Swapping out one brick wouldn’t change a house into a fire station. She was still herself. Nothing had changed. Nothing had changed at all.
That night, Frantz asked where she’d been.
“The hospital,” she said, too exhausted to lie.
“The hospital? What happened?”
“Oh, I’m all right. I was with Jude. Reese had surgery.”
“What type of surgery? Is he all right?”
“I don’t know.” She’d never asked. “Something with his chest, it looked like. He’s fine now. Just a little out of it.”
“You should’ve called. I’ve been waiting up.”
She would leave him. She’d always had a good sense for when it was time to leave. Call it intuition or restlessness, call it whatever you want. She’d never been the type to overstay her welcome. She knew when it was time to leave Los Angeles, and a year later, she would know to leave New York. She knew when she ought to be with a man for six weeks or six years. Leaving was the same, regardless. Leaving was simple. Staying was the part she’d never quite mastered. So that night, when she looked at Frantz in bed, his dark brown skin shimmering against the silver sheets, she knew that she wouldn’t stay with him much longer. Still, she sat on the edge of the bed and slipped his glasses off, blurring right in front of his eyes.
“Would you still love me,” she said, “if I weren’t white?”
“No,” he said, tugging her closer. “Because then you wouldn’t be you.”
* * *
—
WHEN SHE LEFT FRANTZ, she wandered a year, not telling anyone where she was going. Her musical had ended and she was beginning to tire of theater, although she’d stick around years longer, joining improv comedy troupes, auditioning for experimental plays. Acting seemed to be the one thing she never knew when to quit. Before she fled, she saw her mother one last time. They were sitting together in the backyard, sipping chardonnay by the pool. It was an unnaturally bright winter day. She was shocked by the warmth, shocked that there had ever been a time when she hadn’t found the idea of a warm February day remarkable. She closed her eyes, sunning her legs, not even thinking about poor Frantz,
huddled by their rattling radiator.
“I used to come out here in the mornings,” her mother said. “When you were at school. I never had anything to do, but somehow, I was always floating out here, thinking.”
It was a lovely day. Kennedy would remember this later, how she could have said nothing, could have lain out there in that sunlight forever. Instead, she handed her mother the photograph.
“What’s this?” she asked, tilting her head to look at it.
“It’s from your father’s funeral,” Kennedy said. “Don’t you remember?”
Her mother said nothing, her face blank. She stared at the picture.
“Where’d you get this?” she said.
“Where do you think?” Kennedy said. “She found me, you know. She knows you better than I do!”
She hadn’t meant to yell. She just expected her mother to feel something. She would show her a picture of her family and her mother would start to cry. Wipe away tears and finally tell her daughter the truth about her life. Kennedy deserved that, didn’t she? One moment of honesty. But her mother pushed the picture back toward her.
“I don’t know why you’re doing this,” she said. “I don’t know what you want me to say—”
“I want you to tell me who you are!”
“You know who I am! This,” her mother said, jabbing at the picture, “is not me. Look at it! She doesn’t look anything like me.”
She couldn’t tell which girl her mother was pointing at, her sister or herself.
* * *
—
JUDE LEFT HER PHONE NUMBER on the back of the photo. For years, Kennedy didn’t call.
She kept the picture, though. She carried it with her everywhere she traveled: Istanbul and Rome, Berlin where she lived for three months, sharing a flat with two Swedes. One night they got blitzed and she showed them the picture. The blond boys smiled at her quizzically, handing it back. It meant nothing to anybody but her, which was part of the reason she could never get rid of it. It was the only part of her life that was real. She didn’t know what to do with the rest. All the stories she knew were fiction, so she began to create new ones. She was the daughter of a doctor, an actor, a baseball player. She was taking a break from medical school. She had a boyfriend back home named Reese. She was white, she was black, she became a new person as soon as she crossed a border. She was always inventing her life.