by Fauna Hodel
Fauna studied the photo carefully; she was captivated by the image of her mother, Tamar. She read the letter again and again trying to understand what wasn’t there—something between the lines. But after several hours of mind-squeezing agony, going over each scenario, Fauna was drained. She felt empty; her whole life had been a lie. She stood up from the table and wandered aimlessly about the house in a state of perpetual numbness. She hid the letter in a safe place with her other secrets and decided to accept it for what it was, at least temporarily: a brief, informative note introducing her to her half-brothers and half-sister—Peace, Joy, Love, and Fauna II.
She could never let anyone read it. It was evidence, proof that she was not black! For the next few days, she avoided everyone. She prayed for a glimpse of the bright side of all of this. She wrote another reflection in her diary:
When yet a seed
I loved you so
Now full bloomed
It’s doomed. . . .
Fauna’s self-confidence was at a low point. She needed to restore her poise. Living on a meager income from day to day only added to her angst. That had to change. Her life had to change. She made up her mind to be in control again. Help came in the way of Bobby’s sister, Jean. While visiting Fauna early in the evening, the conversation moved away from the baby’s latest discovery.
“I can’t believe Bobby’s missing all this with his own daughter,” Jean said.
“I know, when he ain’t working, he’s with his friends at the casino,” Fauna replied, “he thinks he’s got a system of some kind, but all he keeps doing is using money we don’t got.”
Jean was sympathetic. “He’s always been that way, thinking he could strike it rich, but he don’t realize that he’s got to take care of his own first.” Jean walked over to the stove to heat some tea. As Fauna watched her shapely figure shuffle back and forth, she suddenly turned toward Fauna with the same twinkle in her eye that made her so likeable. Her skin was very dark, and her hair short and wavy, but with a style that made her perfectly even features only accentuate her smile. “You need to make more money girl,” Jean said.
“Don’t I know it.” Fauna said, “I need a new job. The hospital don’t pay me enough for what I know how to do. It was okay in the beginning, but now I’ve been there for a long time.”
“And they ain’t giving you any more money, right?” Jean asked.
Fauna nodded and picked up Yvette who was starting to cry. “She’s getting tired, time for her bed.” She carried the baby to her bedroom and came right back.
“No, they say that the budget’s too tight for any pay raises,” Fauna said.
Jean set the two cups of hot tea on the table and sat down opposite Fauna. “I’m gonna look for a job at the EOC where I work.”
“Ain’t that a civil service job or something?” Fauna asked.
“No, I don’t mean at the same place I work, but through the companies that work with us. We promote minority works projects, minority jobs, any time there is something to do with money and minorities, we got our fingers in it. That’s why they call us the Economic Opportunity Council.”
“It’s like a employment agency, right?”
“Right, except it’s only for minorities.” Jean said.
“Well, I’m a minority. My birth certificate says my father is ‘Negro’.”
Jean grinned, and then said, “You sure don’t look like no minority, but since you got the paper to prove it, then that’s all they should need.”
“I’ll come down tomorrow, after work,” Fauna said.
“Bring the baby, too, just in case. At least she looks like a minority.”
Jean found an opening for a CRT Operator at Western Union and Fauna applied. However, convincing the EOC that she was half-black required her to tell her tale in the same persuasive manner that she had done so many times before. It was a unique appeal for understanding, each rendition fresh and interesting, as if the latest listener were the first to uncover her remarkable account. Fauna concealed the truth about her real father. In a sense, she was in denial. Instead, she used all the skills she learned growing up with her momma, easily manipulating the system to convince the EOC that she was a minority and did indeed have a high school diploma. She started work with better pay within a week. She also recognized that she would always need to explain herself.
It was obvious to everyone that Bobby and Fauna were having a difficult time with their marriage. They had fallen into a pattern of deliberate taunting. The more time he spent with his friends at the casinos, the more Fauna resented his lack of attention. She kept busy with Yvette, Jimmie, her new job, and her ambition to understand who she was and why she was on this planet. She felt driven to not only get ahead, but to also uncover the secrets of her real family.
Whenever they discussed the problems that kept them at odds, Bobby tried to placate her in some way, which usually lasted about two weeks. During one such respite, she took inventory of her possessions. Among the clothes, dolls, old photos, school projects with silver stars pasted across the top, parts of toys, magazine cut-outs of her favorite movie stars, odd slips of paper with phone numbers long ago disconnected, and her fragmentary diaries, there stood out the notes from her first conversation with Tamar. The pain of that debilitating call held open her wounded heart, blinded her rationale, and blocked any cognitive associations whether real or imaginary. But the name Dorothy Barbe was scribbled and heavily underlined. Below it, an address and phone number in San Francisco. The name resonated in her head as she said it aloud. It was Tamar’s mother, her own maternal grandmother. It was just the mechanism Fauna needed to rekindle her quest.
She dialed the number and was more prepared than before. “Hello, Dorothy?”
“Yes, this is she.”
“Hi, this is Fauna, Tamar’s daughter. The first one.”
“Oh!” she said, clearly surprised.
“I know this is unexpected, and I’m real sorry to bother you. I’ve talked to Tamar on the phone in Hawaii and she sounded so nice. She even sent me a picture.”
“Yes, I’m sure she did. What is it that you want from me?”
“I’ve been thinking about you for a long time and I’d really like to meet you sometime.”
“Meet me? Whatever for? I’m not important. No, you don’t need to meet me. Besides, I’m not feeling very well and I don’t need to have company.”
“Yes, but you’re important to me and it’d mean a lot just to finally meet someone in my real family. All my life I wondered what my family’s like. I really need to meet you and you’re the closest to me from here in Reno. Can I come next week?”
“Next week? Oh, no, not next week. That’s much too soon.” Dorothy was fumbling for an excuse. “Perhaps, sometime later.”
“But we’ll be in San Francisco next week. I promise I won’t take up no time at all, and I just want to meet you and talk with you about my family.”
“We? Who is we?”
“Oh, you didn’t know? My husband, Bobby and I have a daughter, too.”
“No, you must not bring anyone with you. I cannot meet with a stranger to discuss anything with you. You’ll have to come alone. There’s too much to talk about with you. And with a stranger, even a husband, it would be too much interference.”
Fauna was delighted, “Fine, we’ll be there on Friday.”
“I will only meet with you alone. Your husband will have to wait in the car. And you must ring the bell four times so I’ll know who it is. Otherwise I never answer the door.”
With Bobby in tow, Fauna arrived in San Francisco. She was surprised to learn that Dorothy’s apartment was quite old and rundown, not at all what she expected. They rang the bell four times as instructed, and waited only a few seconds before an elderly, dour looking woman answered the door. She was petite, with graying, short hair. Underneath her sagging jowls, her face was stern with a chiseled look about it. Her glasses, too, were dated, as were the slacks she wore. A “Victorian matr
on,” Bobby later described her, and he was right. She had the air of someone who had been lost in another era, trying to retain the dignity of what might once have been her glory days.
Dorothy looked at them coldly. Fauna smiled and said, “Dorothy? I’m Fauna.” Bobby looked at Fauna strangely. He had never called her Fauna; it was always Pat.
Dorothy was stone-faced, eyes darting back and forth between the two of them, and then fixing on Fauna. They widened, almost as if she was in shock. She caught herself staring, and then hesitated only momentarily to look them over. “I thought I made myself clear when I told you that we must meet alone,” she said.
Bobby understood. He had lived with prejudice his entire life. “I know you both got lots to talk about, so I’ll just leave. Be back later.” He was gone.
Dorothy motioned her inside. Fauna’s need to know, after coming this far, doused her spark of resentment at what appeared to be this woman’s narrow-mindedness regarding Bobby.
Entering the small parlor was like walking into a museum. Fauna was overwhelmed by the amount of unusual pieces: oriental objets d’art, nudes, oils of Hawaii, and the finest she ever observed up close. Fauna’s enthusiasm was obvious; she was fascinated. Dorothy watched closely as Fauna’s eyes roamed from one sculpture to another. She saw Fauna marvel at a copper piece of a mother and child. “Do you like that one?”
“Oh, it’s like something I’ve never seen before. It’s beautiful.”
“It’s by my sister, Beryl. She and her husband Ray Boynton are both well-respected artists. Many of these pieces are from their studio—the sculptures, and the drawings, and some of the paintings. The other pieces we’ve collected over the years.”
“What about the nudes? Are they also by him?”
“No, of course not, those are by Matisse. Not originals of course, just copies, but they look fine, don’t you think?”
Fauna gave a nod and smiled.
“I’m sorry for staring,” Dorothy said, “You look so . . . so white.”
“Yeah, I guess I take after my mother’s side,” Fauna said, surprised at how quickly this woman seemed to be warming to her despite the frosty reception. Perhaps, Dorothy rarely had company and hungered for the chance to gossip, especially with someone who was completely in the dark. Fauna felt trusting, realizing that Dorothy was relieved to find someone to confide in about the family secret that she had carried around all these years.
“I’m sorry,” said Dorothy, “about wanting to speak to you alone. I don’t have anything against your husband. But it is the neighbors. They would be very concerned about his blackness,” she said.
That surprised Fauna. This was San Francisco; the Fillmore area was mostly black. What difference did it make? Could it be all in her head? Or has nothing changed, was everyone racist?
“There is a slight resemblance to the family,” Dorothy continued, “I just hope you haven’t inherited your mother’s temperament.”
“Why,” asked Fauna, half amused, “What do you mean?”
“Oh, please!” said Dorothy, suddenly alarmed, “You don’t want to know!”
Fauna hesitated, trying to collect her thoughts. “Dorothy,” she began, “I came here to find out about my life. I’ve been in the dark about my real family for twenty-one years. I don’t think you understand how important this is to me. My life has been one question mark after another. I need to know where I came from.”
“I’m sorry, you’re right,” said Dorothy, “Please sit down. Would you care for some tea or something?”
“Sure, that’d be good, thanks.” Dorothy shuffled into the kitchen while Fauna sat on the edge of her chair, looking around the room searching for something that would help her connect to this family, but the furniture and wall coverings and artwork and lamps were never in her dreams. It was a different world, foreign and musty, a place where history is kept, but a history of which she knew nothing. Fauna closed her eyes and breathed deeply, trying to feel her real past, but only Jimmie came to view and a world far different from this. Moments later, Dorothy returned with a silver tray. The cups and saucers carefully placed with what Fauna assumed was an accurate arrangement. Dorothy poured a cup of tea from a dainty silver teapot and asked Fauna if she wanted cream and sugar. Fauna said “Yes”, and allowed Dorothy to fix her cup. Dorothy sat back on the solitary, wing-backed chair opposite the coffee table.
She looked up at Fauna warmly and said, “You have a right to know. You want to know about your family. Wait here, I’ll show you.”
She rose from the old chair and walked into another room, immediately returning with a cardboard box stuffed with yellowed papers, envelopes, folders, pictures. She handed Fauna a file folder with a neatly buttoned manuscript titled:
Fillmore Family Record
Descendants of John William Fillmore
Of New Brunswick and Illinois
And some of his Ancestors
I.A. DeFrance
November 1971
“What’s this?” asked Fauna.
“This is a history of my family, that is, our family. Actually, it’s a fairly detailed account of the Fillmore family, of which both Tamar and myself are included. It traces the roots back to their beginnings in the seventeenth century when Captain John Fillmore first arrived in Massachusetts from England. It’s fascinating.”
“Really! That’s amazing! I’d never imagined,” said Fauna, perusing the material.
“Yes, it gets quite interesting just before my great-great-uncle, I think it is, Millard Fillmore, the former president, is introduced; but don’t bother with that now, take it with you, or make a copy and return it to me, perhaps on your next visit.”
“Yeah, of course, it does seem involved.” She put the folder down and asked again. “What about Tamar? What’s she like?”
Dorothy looked uncomfortable, looked away, took a deep breath, and placed her hands up to her chin. “Well, you might as well know the truth rather then hear rumors, or lies from Tamar.”
“Lies? What do you mean?”
“Tamar has always been a problem. She makes up stories. Not your average childhood fantasies that most children do when they have an imaginary friend or something like that. No, not Tamar. Her stories are very complex and completely false, but with such detail that they sound believable. I have no idea where she got such an imagination, but it has caused problems for the entire family and they all try to avoid her as much as possible.”
“What kind a stories?”
“The kind of stories that hurt people’s reputation, that makes her look like a victim. Stories that cause people to gossip, point fingers, stare at you when you walk down the street, or avoid you because they think you’re evil. Those kind of stories.
“She’s always been like that,” said Dorothy, “a liar, a pathological liar! Ever since she was a child, she had difficulty distinguishing between realities, the way things are, and the way she wanted them to be. She makes up lies in order to manipulate, to use, and bend the truth in order to get what she wants. She uses everything and everyone. It’s been a nightmare.”
Fauna was stilled by what Dorothy was saying about her daughter, a woman she’d been yearning to know and love since she first had heard about her. But Dorothy’s expression of resignation, of failure and utter hopelessness, made it difficult to doubt what she was saying.
“Her father was so frustrated by her continued scandalous remarks that it virtually ruined his practice. He had to move out of the country to get away from her.”
Fauna noticed that the old woman’s lip was vibrating, her face was white and chalky with a small bead above her lip. Dorothy paused for a moment, then regained her composure and continued. “Well, as you can see, I don’t like talking about her. There are too many unpleasant memories. I will let Tamar tell you what she did.
“Now, Fauna,” concluded Dorothy, “what about you? What have you been doing with your life? I want to know everything.”
Fauna accommodated her, but
all the while protecting her family. She told her about her school and her job, and Jimmie and Homer, leaving out all of the unpleasant details and making herself sound as though she had a very normal childhood, deserving of being included in this illustrious family of which she was so proud.
They talked in small bits, allowing the other to comment politely, and trying to feel each other out. They parted after planning to meet again. Dorothy offered to take Fauna to meet the rest of her family on her next visit. Fauna left with a bundle of unanswered questions, feeling uneasy about the bitter Dorothy and the strange Tamar tales.
Bobby and Fauna drove back to Sparks. He felt put out at not being included in her meeting with Dorothy. She felt sorry for him and they talked about everything Dorothy had said. He was interested in the details but somehow didn’t grasp the scope of what all this meant. She didn’t either, not all of it. Dorothy was right; it was a private matter. Nor did she want Bobby to know how disappointed she was in what she was learning. They grew even more distant after that day.
During the next few weeks Fauna became noticeably dispirited. For her entire life she had wondered about her real family, who they were and what they were like. She only had her Momma’s explanations. Now Tamar’s mother, her maternal grandmother, had presented her with a far more complex puzzle with most of the pieces missing. And the pieces she had didn’t quite fit. She was disheartened.
Her cousins and friends often nudged her to go out and meet new people, to do something other than work and be a housewife and mother. After much urging, Jean finally persuaded her to go to a local nightclub.
The Driftwood Lounge in Sparks was not a large place, but it did have a live band and catered primarily to whites. They were there no more than fifteen minutes when a well-dressed black man, sporting a wide, friendly smile, approached.
“Well, what do we have here?” he said smoothly. “Two of the most lovely ladies ever encountered in this quaint little town. Let me introduce myself. I am William Sharpstein, Jr. Perhaps you’ve heard of me,” he said confidently with a flamboyant gesture.