One Day She'll Darken

by Fauna Hodel

  “Where’s my mother?” Fauna said.

  “I want to let you know that arrangements have been made . . .”

  “Arrangements? What arrangements, did she die?”

  “No, no, arrangements to have the best possible care for your mother. In fact, she is now having tests to determine the best course of treatment. We moved her out of this ward. She’ll have a private room so that they can extend the care that she deserves. Now, why don’t you go down and have some coffee and relax. Everything that is humanly possible is being done. I will have one of the staff inform you when she is comfortably back in her room.”

  Fauna was stunned, “How did all this happen?” Fauna asked, “Who’s paying for it? Was it the Welfare? Did they change the rules?”

  He hesitated, “Let’s just say that it’s all taken care of. I’m not permitted to go into any of the details, but arrangements have been made. Ummmm—we’ll just leave it at that.”

  Fauna was curious, but not enough to understand that he didn’t want her to know how these “arrangements” had been made. Fauna decided it best not to make waves and let the matter rest as he suggested, and happily walked to the coffee shop to wait.

  Fauna spent at least two hours lingering in the snack shop, but no one called. She went to the front reception desk and asked what room Jimmie Lee Faison was assigned, and then quickly made her way to the new room.

  “How y’all feelin’?” Fauna asked Jimmie.

  “They poked and needled me,” said Jimmie. “I feel like a pin cushion. How’d ya get them to do all this stuff? And a private room, too!”

  “Well, you always said you wanted to be famous,” smiled Fauna. “They must have realized who you were and decided to give you the very best.”

  “Bullshit! I ain’t famous yet, but I could’ve been an actress, I’m a good actress. I could’ve been a singer, too, but I guess I’ll got to leave it to you to become famous,” Jimmie paused, “Except you ain’t headed in that direction at all.”

  “Well,” said Fauna, “I was just fooling anyway. I got no idea how this all came about. The guy in the office just told me that everything was taken care of. So, let’s just leave well enough alone.”

  “About time I got something from whitey. They been taking from me long enough,” Jimmie said.

  Fauna remained at her side most of the time until her momma was released the following week, still wondering how the hospital bill was paid. She concluded that her prayers were answered, or her mysterious grandfather had acknowledged her telegram in a most confidential way. She thanked God.

  For the next few months while Jimmie recovered and remained sober, Fauna visited a few times a week to do some of the household chores. Jimmie sat in her favorite chair by the window, while Fauna struggled with the coffee pot. She felt her momma stare at her and abruptly stopped. “What?” Fauna said.

  “I ain’t said nothing,” Jimmie turned back toward the window, “nothing I ain’t said before.”

  Fauna sighed, and then pushed her hair back from her eyes. “Well, then why you looking at me like that?”

  “Cause you look frazzled,” Jimmie said, “I already warned you about what would happen if you married that so-called husband of yours.”

  “That’s not why I’m frazzled. I got a lot to do, that’s all.”

  “If you’d of put your mind to it you could of married a doctor or a lawyer,” Jimmie said, “and now, you’d have nothing to worry about, could’ve had the easy life. But instead you slide deeper down the drain with that car washer.”

  “He ain’t no car washer, Momma,” Fauna said, “and you know that.”

  “He’s lucky he’s got that.”

  “I got other things that are more important right now, I can’t be arguing about Bobby,” Fauna said.

  “He’s gambling, ain’t he?” Jimmie said.

  “How’d you know?”

  Jimmie smirked without saying a word.

  “I know my life ain’t perfect yet. But it will be someday, it will.”

  “It won’t till you get rid of that husband. You the one who’s taking care of everything anyway. You work, you take care of your baby, you take care of him. The only one you don’t have time for is the one who raised you.”

  “Momma, that’s not true. I’m here all the time. What more can I do?”

  “If you don’t know what to do by now, Patta, then I can’t tell you.”

  Fauna felt the coolness glide over her skin only to be quickly replaced by a hot flash. She sensed guilt replacing fear, guilt for being born, guilt for unsettling her real family, guilt for Jimmie’s drinking, and that responsibility was deeply ingrained. Fauna couldn’t abandon her now, not when Jimmie needed her the most. Appeasement was again the only course of action. The breakup of her marriage seemed to be the path of least resistance.

  Fauna buried herself in extra work at the hospital to delay making a decision. The computer functions became mechanical. Her mind traveled in ten directions at once. She was weary of feeling ashamed at not being darker skinned each time someone questioned her mixed race, yet she continued to tell her story to anyone who listened. She loved Yvette, she liked her job, and she was deep into her search, but still she found herself daydreaming more and more of her real mother and her family. More than a year had gone by since George had called her. Her wounds of disappointment were healing, and again she felt a strong urge to connect with Tamar. Many nights she sat up in her bed, in the darkness, visualizing what her mother looked like, forcing her dreams to become reality. Each morning she tried to make them go away, but she couldn’t control the visions that lurked about her mind. But her most basic needs never altered. She had to know why she was so white for someone who was half-black. She had to know why she was given away, something that Jimmie had always known but refused to tell her.

  The obsession finally got the better of her one morning while she was sitting in bed. She began calling the directory assistance throughout California. First, San Francisco, then Oakland, San Jose, Sacramento, Los Angeles, San Diego; but they all led to dead ends. At each rejection, immediately she thought of another city until all of the larger population centers were covered. Suddenly, as if the sun burst through the clouds, Hawaii snapped into her head. George had told her she was in Hawaii, but Fauna hadn’t given it a second thought. Everyone knew that nobody lived in Hawaii, they just went there on vacation and she assumed the same for Tamar.

  Information for Honolulu responded with a phone number that Fauna jotted down. She broke out in a cold sweat, fidgeting nervously. She sprung out of bed and raced into the bathroom flapping her arms. She glanced in the mirror at flushness in her face. She heard the pounding of her heart as blood raced through her body. What to do? What to do? Her emotions were in chaos. She felt stupid for going through such a complicated process, only to find so simple a solution. Tamar did exist, and all Fauna had to do was dial her number. The dream was now a reality. She fell to her knees to thank God and her angels.

  Fauna composed herself. She needed to finish the final leg of her odyssey. She took a deep breath and walked back to the phone, terrified and euphoric at the same time. She closed her eyes tightly and thanked God and her angels, again and again. Almost unconsciously, Fauna dialed the eleven digits. Before she realized what she was doing, she heard a single ring on the other end of the connection. A clear melodic voice that sounded like an echo answered.

  “Hello.”

  “Hello, Tamar?”

  “Hold on,” she heard the voice say and then a muffled “It’s for you.”

  “Yes, this is Tamar. Who’s calling?”

  “Hello, Tamar?” Fauna recognized her sweet, wonderful voice—a voice that she had heard thousands of times in her dreams—a voice that would make her life complete. “This is Fauna. Your daughter.” There was silence on the phone and then Fauna spoke again.

  “What? Fauna?” Tamar sounded confused. “Fauna is right here. Hold on a minute.”

  Fauna di
dn’t understand. She jotted down the name Fauna with a question mark on her note pad. Then she heard Tamar call to someone else. “Fauna, it’s for you.”

  In a moment, another voice answered, “Hi. It’s me.”

  “Hello, is this Tamar?” Fauna asked again.

  “No, this is Fauna. Who do you want?”

  “What? I wanna speak with Tamar.”

  “Well, OK. Who is this?” she asked.

  “This is Fauna, her daughter she gave away as a baby twenty years ago.” Again there was long silence. Then Fauna heard the second voice call to someone else.

  “It’s for you. She says she’s Fauna, your daughter.”

  Suddenly Fauna heard laughter on the other end of the phone, almost as if they were having a party.

  “Hello, this is Tamar. Who is this?”

  “Tamar,” Fauna said, “This is your daughter. You named me Fauna when you gave her away in 1951. Do you remember?”

  There was a long pause. “Fauna? Fauna. . . .” Fauna heard a sniffling. “Is this really you? I can’t believe it! How did you find me?”

  “I got your number through information. You sound just like me.”

  “This can’t be happening! This isn’t real! Oh my God! I didn’t understand who you were. Fauna, I thought you wanted Fauna, my daughter, my other daughter. Her name is Fauna, too. This is unbelievable, she began to giggle. “Since you were born, I had been sending my love to you, wherever you were, every day, and finally that love came through.”

  Then Fauna heard her say to someone else, “It’s Fauna, the real Fauna.”

  “Oh Fauna,” Tamar said as she came back on the line, “It’s so good to hear you.” She was crying and laughing at the same time. “You can’t know how much I’ve wanted to hear from you. Oh, I didn’t give you away as a baby. I was forced to give you up for adoption. I didn’t have any choice in the matter.”

  Fauna listened carefully, but through the emotions, almost unconsciously, Fauna asked, “Tamar? Can I call you Tamar? I don’t know what else to call you.”

  “Of course.”

  She stared into the dresser mirror trying to put a face on the real voice of her dreams, but she only saw a reflection.

  “Is my real father a Negro?” Fauna asked.

  “Is your father a Negro? Oh no, of course not. He was some Italian playboy from the neighborhood where I grew up. I don’t even remember his name.”

  Fauna felt the shockwave tighten her skin from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. She was flushed with rage and iced to the core at the same time. Her fingers turned white as she tightened the grip on the receiver and pressed hard against her ear trying to make the words disappear back from where they came. Her knees began to buckle and she slowly melted to the floor with her back leaning against the bed. She swiped her mouth with the other hand removing the sweat that covered her. She took a deep breath to stiffen her resolve, trying to stay conscious. Her exhale released what felt like thousands of pins jabbing at her from inside her head. She was dazed, trying to meld the sound she was hearing with the vision of her dreams. It made no sense.

  All of her life Fauna had defended her blackness, forced to prove it over and over with a worn out birth certificate. The sun never set without the thought of “race” at the forefront. Her earliest recollections were the contrasts in skin color; the blackness of Jimmie Lee, Chris Greenwade, Homer, Rosie, Bobby, Yvette. The blackness of her friends, and virtually everyone Fauna knew. There was never doubt in her mind that she was of mixed race, and only through some quirk of genetics and the complexity of DNA was her skin white. By her culture, she was black. By dying her hair, and tanning her skin, Fauna wanted desperately to be black. She defended it at every opportunity, proving her mix with her love for the family that raised her.

  Now, through five simple words, the only person in the world who knew beyond a doubt shattered her soul. “Oh no, of course not.” That was all she heard, not another word.

  CHAPTER 20

  One lie,

  One little white lie . . .

  Caused me to fight

  For

  The rest of my life

  She wrote in her diary. Her life was a sham, and the deception was too profound to discuss with anyone. With each passing moment, she knew less and less what to do. Her life was set on a new course into waters never before explored, and she was too disheartened to come on deck. The dilemmas that she envisioned, resulting from a young girl’s action more than twenty years earlier, overwhelmed her. Humiliated and ashamed were the words she used to herself over and over again—and questions, questions, always more questions. What kind of sick minds would interfere so boldly with another person’s life? She didn’t know if anything was real anymore. She had desperately wanted to be black all of her life, now that she knew that her proudest attribute was a lie, she was a calamity. She could never tell her momma.

  That evening while she was tucking her precious child into bed, Yvette looked up at her and said, “Mommy, I’m not sleepy yet. Can I stay up?”

  “Sure, but you’ll have to stay up by yourself, because I’m drained and I’m going to bed, too.”

  “But can you stay with me for a little?” Yvette asked, her beautiful brown eyes irresistible.

  “Well, maybe just a little,” she said and looked down at her little girl. She smiled and couldn’t help but share her wonder out loud. “You‘re a vision, Yvette, a perfect vision of what I should be. All my life I wanted to know my real momma, to know for sure if I was of two races. I look at you, my baby, who I love more than anything, and I know that you’re what I wanted to be. You’re my living treasure.”

  Yvette smiled and cuddled close to her mother.

  “Now get some sleep,” said Fauna.

  “OK, Momma,” Yvette said, “I love you.”

  It was a most inopportune time in her marriage with Bobby to discover the truth about her lineage. They were already having difficulties communicating. He gambled more and more, and she was tired of paying the bills. Now that a challenging new world was opening up to her, she became bored with the routine of married life. But instead of becoming entangled in hateful accusations, Fauna brooded quietly, waiting for events to unfold. She prayed to her angels for a change in direction. She wanted to make something of herself. She wanted to fulfill what she believed was a Divine Plan.

  A few weeks after her fateful call to Tamar, a rainbow-colored letter arrived from Hawaii. She set it down on the kitchen counter near the sugar jar, reluctant to know its contents. She poured herself a glass of cold water and sat down at the table just long enough to take a sip. She stared at the envelope, and then realized that nothing could be more painful than the phone call. She reached over and promptly tore it open. Before she unfolded the scalloped-edged stationery, a photograph tucked inside dropped to her lap.

  For the first time, the woman of her dreams was no longer faceless. The image centered around a woman with dirty blond hair seated on a couch. She wore a blue housedress with one side pulled down far enough to expose her left breast, allowing a suckling infant that lay across her lap to nourish itself. To the woman’s left was a young, dark-skinned teenage girl with another baby on her lap. Above the girl’s head, in the white margin “Fauna II” was written in purple ink. At the feet of the woman two little boys, both in their underwear were seated on small stools: one busily eating out of a bowl and the other staring directly into the camera lens. Below each child was written what appeared to be their names: “Joy,” “Love,” “Peace,” and “Starr.”

  Fauna flipped over the photo, and on the back was a hastily written message:

  For you, Fauna, taken by your grandfather when he was visiting. Fauna II’s father is a Negro folk-ballad singer named Stan Wilson. I will write soon—children keep me pretty busy.

  Then there was the main letter. Fauna read it slowly.

  Dearest Fauna, I Iove you.

  Hello. I am so happy that you answered, that we answer the call
of our hearts. I am sitting at the edge of the sea watching your little brothers, Peace and Joy, run into the water and I will join them when I am through writing, light candles and wait for your answer, so sorry that I lost you—Has been a long sad time for me in my mind and heart.

  Please tell me of your life, of your heart, of how you have lived. I said that your father was a Negro because I love black people so much and thought that you were mine to raise with love. Before I knew that I could not keep you with me, it was too late, and I did not know what to do. Your actual real flesh and blood father was a local playboy, Italian, in our neighborhood, maybe about 22 years to my 16 and I don’t remember his name because I pushed him from my memory because our understanding levels were so different.

  I live now in a house in Kailua with the children: Peace (4) and a Leo too; a boy, Joy, an Aries 2 in July and his mother, your sister Deborah, or Fauna II, who will be 17 in October (Scorpio). She waits for her baby’s father Michael to join them in Hawaii, from LA; and my latest baby, whose name is Love, is a smiling boy and a Gemini.

  I am not married but am fortunate enough to share my life with a beautiful friend named Wendy. She is visiting with us after a time apart from us—he will be returning to Dixon, California by the end of September for a few months before he returns to live with us here and open a health food restaurant and other happy things. So, I believe Dixon, California is close to Reno. It would be beautiful if you could meet and talk. I will send the address to you. Write please send me a picture of you and your loved ones. I love you,

  Thanking God, all power, love that I am able to speak these sweet words.

  Tamar

  Also enclosed was a hastily written note on plain white paper. It was in Tamar’s handwriting:

  P.S. Here is the phone number of my dear friends, Michelle Phillips and Warren Beatty. . . . I would like for you to call them. Also, the number for Kenny Ortega is. . . . You can ask them questions about me, if you want.