The Color of Family (25 page)

How could anyone be so uninterested in what would be most curious to anyone else? How could he just not want to know? And as she looked at him, sitting there reading his medical journal as if there were even one thing in there that could possibly be more fascinating than what had happened to her that day, she grew bothered. Sure, she could just tell him, and though she knew she would eventually, simply telling him without so much as a slight inquiry from him would somehow suck all of the energy from the heft of the story.

So she drew in a chest-full of breath then blew it out in an overblown sigh, because maybe, she thought, he was in such deep thought about whatever medical matter he was reading about that he wasn't even aware that she was sitting right there next to him. Evidently he was aware of her, and she realized this as he continued to read without a word as she respired next to him on the sofa with all the subtlety of an air pump—for nothing. That's when she decided to shift restlessly. That would surely get his attention, because who couldn't take notice of such itchy movement so close to them. And then she knew who couldn't—a husband ignoring his wife with all his might. So finally she snapped, “Junior! Aren't you going to ask me about today?”

And without looking up from his medical magazine, Junior said flatly, “Antonia, do you want to tell me about today?”

“Well, what do you think? With all your lack of curiosity, for all you know, I could have met Clayton and resolved this thing once and for all.”

“Well, I know that didn't happen, Antonia,” Junior said as dispassionately as before.

“And you can be so sure because of what?”

“Because, Antonia, you wouldn't have been able to hold on to that for this long. You would have told us all over at Ellen's.” Junior put the magazine on the coffee table, turned toward Antonia, regarded her from over his reading glasses and continued, “Now, if you want to tell me about it, Antonia, then tell me, but don't sit there and go on and on about why I didn't ask you.”

And, oh, how she wanted to go on and on, but Junior had snapped at her reins and stopped her in mid-gallop, just as he'd always known how to do since they were one another's puppy-loves. Junior could always cut, she thought, with the precision of his sharp mind and clear vision, clean through to expose the pulsing heart of anything. Most of the time, she remembered that it was this quality of his that endeared him most to her. But then there were other times, like now, where she believed that the very part of his being that made her love him was the very thing that could one day scrape her nerves to such a red pulp that she'd have no choice but to send him packing back to where he began. And nowadays, she thought, with this Cora business, which she wanted to know about as badly as she didn't, sending him back to where he began just might be the ruin of whatever it was they still had. So she resolved that the point wasn't worth the fight, then looked at him squarely and said, “She's just as stubborn as she can be. She's still refusing to tell the truth. But I got to her, Junior. That girl nearly jumped out of her skin when I told her that I knew that Clayton was born nine months to the day after Emeril died.”

Junior perked up at that bit of news, and as his eyes widened and fixed on Antonia he said, “You mean you'd never told her about that in any of those letters you wrote to her?”

“No. I wanted to save that until I had her face-to-face. I needed to see the look on her face.”

“So what'd she say?” an excited Junior asked.

“Well, she flew off the handle, Junior. She called me a stalker and accused me of stalking Clayton just because I knew his birthday. But I'll tell you something, when she did that, that's when I knew it was true.” Antonia fell silent with the most contented
smile on her lips as she gazed past Junior's face at nothing on the wall. And she savored the thought of that exact moment when she knew, and the fear of truth shone in Agnes's eyes, like a delectable of which she'd been deprived for far too long. “And you know what else? I met Clayton's twin boys, Noah and Luke, and I'm telling you, Junior, they are the spitting image of Emeril. You remember that one little dimple Emeril had on his right cheek?”

“Yeah, I sure do remember that. That thing drove the girls wild.”

“Well, those boys have that same dimple in their right cheek. And their eyes. Those are Emeril's eyes just as sure as I'm sitting here. I've seen Emeril's grandchildren. What a miracle.”

Junior's smile faded like day into dusk, as if some dour notion had come back to him and settled itself in the place where the lightness of fancy had just sat. He reached over and took Antonia's hand lightly in his, then said, “So what are you going to do, Antonia? Because it's nice that you went and saw Agnes, and you got to see those boys too, and I know you don't want to hear this, but I've got to say it. Even if he is Emeril's boy, and I'm not saying he is, but even if he is, he will never admit it. He's got way too much to lose, being in that uppity white man's world of classical music that he's in. We may be living in the twenty-first century, but we may as well be in the nineteenth, because there's no way that this kind of thing coming out isn't going to stir up a lot of talk that his career just doesn't need. I'm not saying somebody would kill him, or anything like that, but there're a lot of people, especially in some of those places in Europe, I'll bet, that sure would make him wish he was dead. The world's not as liberal as people think it is, Antonia.”

Antonia slid her hand from Junior's and stood. She smoothed out imaginary wrinkles in the skirt of her dress, then said, “Well, I don't know what I'm going to do now. But I do know that somehow I feel a satisfaction that I have never, ever felt about this whole thing. Just seeing Emeril's face in those boys has given me half the peace I'd been looking for. I almost feel as if I don't need anything else because any doubt I had—and there was very little to begin with—was removed by the physical proof of those boys.” She walked toward the door to leave, thinking about the clothes
she'd lay out for herself for the next day, when she was stopped by Junior.

“So, those boys looked just like Emeril, you say?”

“The spitting image,” Antonia said over her shoulder at Junior. Then she turned full around to face him and added, “I know that most of the time I see what I want to see and hear what I want to hear. I will admit that that's been true sometimes in the past, but this time, Junior, I know that what I saw is real. Now, I just have to figure out if knowing that what God and I know is the truth is enough for me, or if nothing will ever be complete for Emeril until Clayton knows too.” Then she went on her way through the doors of the living room. Crossing the front hallway, she thought about her canary yellow suit that everyone at church always says makes her look like sunshine itself. Or maybe, she thought, the navy skirt and white blouse with the bow would give her a more sober, milk-toast appeal. Then there was the crimson pantsuit that was neither bright nor bland, but gave her a certain verve that made her more confident. She couldn't decide, but as she climbed the stairs, Antonia wondered just what a woman should wear to her own sanity judgment.

A
aron slid the chair from the table clutching its high back with both hands—because his chivalry had to evenly balance the perfection of her womanliness—and Tawna sat. But she didn't just sit. She smoothed her dress beneath her like a lady from another age and lowered herself into the chair with her unhurried southernness, and the lightness of down. Everything about her every move fascinated Aaron, and even if other women had smoothed their dresses and lowered themselves with as much femininity in his presence at any time, it simply went disregarded by him. There was something in her way that healed him from that which he didn't even know he ailed—and still, there was no naming it.

And as he took his seat next to her, there was absolutely no understanding why he thought of himself sick with Tawna by his side. Not sick with anything that could pluck him from the planet, but sick for a mere few days—the kind of sick that required the cooking of chicken soup and aspirin and side sitting. He imagined Tawna bringing the soup, but taking his temperature before he sipped the soup because she'd care enough to want an accurate read. And when his temperature wasn't acceptably low enough, she'd ply him full of the soup she'd made and the juice she'd squeezed. Then she'd read to him from the
Sun
papers until he fell asleep. But then, he thought, when he'd get better. Oh, when he'd get better. Just then, before his mind would let him
explore the many possibilities of the tenderness of making love to her after having been sick, Tawna shook him from his fantasy.

“This place is really nice,” she said in her songlike drawl. “I've always seen it from over at Harbor Place, and was always curious about it. Thank you for bringing me here.”

“Oh, you're welcome. When you mentioned it I thought it was a really good idea that I don't think I would have necessarily come up with.”

“You don't like it here?” she said with a surprise that seemed to have underneath it a genuine unease.

“Oh, of course I like it,” Aaron said with an unwavering forthrightness in his tone he hoped would allay her concern. “That's not what I meant at all. What I meant was that for some reason, I hardly ever think about this place. Then again, I'm hardly ever downtown.” He laughed, first low and then it grew, so he let her in on his thought. “But every time I'm down here and I see this place, Mo's, I can't help but think that the owner's some French guy named Maurice who's calling himself Mo to fit in better here in Baltimore.”

Tawna let out a very girly laugh. She took a sip of the water that had just been poured into her glass, then looked at Aaron and asked, “How's your mother?”

“She's fine” was all he would say.

Then Tawna looked off past Aaron, smiling awkwardly, as if nervous to say what she did next. “And so how's Maggie, your girlfriend?”

Aaron shifted where he sat, with the slap of that question still stinging his face. Yet he knew exactly why she asked. So without looking at her he responded, “She's okay.”

“You know that I needed to ask that, right?”

“Yes, I know,” Aaron said, now looking into her deep brown eyes, because that was the only way to pay respect to her raw honesty. “So, I suppose you're wondering why I asked you here.”

“Yes, I am wondering that, because I think you're aware that I know you didn't ask me out to dinner to talk about the financial services at T. Rowe Price.”

Aaron breathed deeply, and was about to answer when he saw the waiter headed for them. “I think they're about to take our order.”

“Hello, I'm your waiter, Sidney. How're you this evening?” the waiter said with as much cheer as he seemed able to muster.

“We're fine,” Aaron answered.

“Are you ready to order?” he asked with a peculiar smile.

Tawna hurriedly grabbed the menu and said, “Uh, yes, in just one second.”

“I can come back.”

“No, that's not necessary,” Aaron said. “We can find something.”

“Well, would you like to hear our specials this evening?”

So when Aaron and Tawna agreed, the waiter recited a memorized list of dishes, and Aaron forgot each one as soon as the next was told. By the time Sidney had finished, all Aaron knew was that there had been four, and there was halibut prepared some sort of way, so he inquired, “How was the halibut prepared?”

“Grilled, with portabello mushrooms.”

“That sounds real good to me,” Aaron said, but actually he didn't much care what he ate. “I'll take the grilled halibut.”

“And I'll take the pan-seared salmon,” Tawna said.

“Would you like wine with your dinner?” Aaron asked her as the waiter hung around for her answer.

“Yes, that would be nice. I'll have a glass of chardonnay.”

“I'll take the same,” Aaron said.

The waiter finished scribbling their orders down, and when he was done, said, “Thank you.”

“Well, he was a laugh a minute, wasn't he?” Aaron said.

“Now, that's a man who clearly does not love his job,” Tawna said. Her eyes grew distant and her countenance pensive.

But Aaron knew what was whispering in her head, and he had to answer it, clear things up before the evening was through and she was certain she would never want to see him again. “Tawna, I'm not a playboy.”

“I never called you that,” she said with a kind smile.

“No, you didn't, but I know what it must look like, me being involved with Maggie and asking you to dinner.”

And as if continuing the thought for him, Tawna said shyly, “Under false pretenses.” Then she laughed.

Aaron laughed as well, hanging his head with embarrassment, and said, “Yeah, under false pretenses.” Then he looked up at
Tawna. “It's just that sometimes, I'm kind of sitting around reading, or at work writing scripts, or in a production meeting and suddenly I think about you. I just needed to find out why.”

“So what do you think?”

“I think there are a lot of women who don't make apologies for who they are. But who they are often offends and rubs against most people's grain. They believe they're excused from the fallout because they're only being who they are.” He paused, because though he never mentioned Maggie's name, he was certain Tawna would think him a brute for speaking so ill of a woman he loved. When reality told him that Tawna could not possibly know, he continued, “You don't make any apologies for who you are, and who you are, what you seem to be more than anything else, is this bright light. You don't even have to smile for it to shine. It's almost blinding and too much for someone like me to take sometimes. And believe me, Tawna, I wouldn't be telling you any of this if I didn't know that if I don't say it now, I most likely never will, and then I just might lose my chance forever. But I just can't imagine anyone meeting you, whether it's a man or a woman, and not falling in love with you.” It was then that he realized just how contagious honesty could be, because the truth in which she seemed to him to live gave him no choice but to try his best to live up to it, and then honor the virtue. But the contagion of truth brought him to suddenly know exactly how much integrity was in what he just said when it was clear to him that whether he'd love her completely as a man can love a woman, or if he'd simply love her as plainly as she compelled anyone to love her, he would always know that something special had happened the night she appeared in his life.

Tawna watched him silently through eyes that had become liquid. She lowered her head bashfully, then said softly, “That was so nice. I don't think anyone's ever said anything quite that nice to me.”

“I doubt that's true,” Aaron said, finding himself struck by shyness.

Tawna slowly looked up at Aaron and said, “Well, maybe it's who's saying it to me that makes it special.”

“Well, it's how I feel.”

And then, through nothing that was forced, a tender silence
landed between them. Aaron tapped one nervous finger on the table to the beat of some tune in his head that had never been real outside of himself. He watched Tawna, who seemed to be formulating something to say. So he said, “Were you going to say something?”

“Well, I was just going to say that you don't have to apologize to me if your relationship with Maggie is dying a natural death.”

Aaron's head reared back with a certain surprise before he said, “Who said anything about my relationship dying a natural death?”

Tawna laughed with a certain confidence when she replied, “Aaron, you're not a cad. I didn't need you to tell me that you're not a playboy to know that you weren't one of those. So what else is there to explain why you've asked me out?”

Aaron chuckled nervously like a man who'd just been caught. “Well then, I guess you know people, huh?”

“I don't know if I know people, but I feel as if I know you. And I'll tell you another thing, I know what it looks like when a relationship has lived as long as it was ever destined to live. I left one of those back in Virginia.”

“Really? Well, what happened, if I'm not overstepping?”

“It just went as far as it was going to go, and we…or at least I, knew from the beginning that it would come to an end eventually.”

“Did you love him, or were you guys just hanging out—you know, having fun?”

Tawna took Aaron in with a face that seemed just shy of offended, but she continued, “Of course I loved him. I wouldn't have been with him for four years if I didn't. It's just that there was an issue between us that was never going to change. He was white, and while that never, ever got in the way of our love, it certainly got in the way of our future. He wanted to get married, and I swear, I definitely think we would have had a wonderful marriage, but he also wanted children, and, well—”

“You don't have to tell me if it makes you uncomfortable to talk about something so personal,” Aaron said as he shifted nervously, thinking she was going to tell him that she couldn't have children. And while that wouldn't have mattered one wit to him, it just seemed to him to be too much to tell him on a first date.

“No, it's okay. The truth is, I have dated white men and black
men, but when it comes to the idea of interracial children, I know that for that reason I couldn't marry a white man. I think a child has enough pain and heartache to navigate from childhood through puberty and into adulthood, and to add the whole issue of dual races to it. I don't know, it just seems like it's unfair for two people to make that kind of decision, play God in that way with another life.”

“So, how do you date someone without the idea that one day you two will get married?”

Tawna looked at him with a Cheshire grin and asked, “How do
you
date someone without the idea that you two will get married?”

Aaron only nodded and smiled with a thin smile of nonplussed awkwardness. Then he said quietly, as if he didn't want her to hear, “I just thought it was different for women.”

“Different how?”

“Just different in the way women want to get married.”

“Aaron, I mean this in all loving kindness, but when the glacier melted down, you just stepped right on out, didn't you?” and then she laughed with complete abandon, and seeming comfort. “I'm not sure I'd feel right about saying
all
women want to get married, but this woman wants to get married. I'm not on such a mission to get there, though, that I can't welcome and appreciate a sound and profound relationship with someone for whom I care deeply for however long it lasts, even if going into it I know it's not going to end in marriage. Hopefully along the journey I've learned enough about myself and life to make me that much more prepared for when I do get married. But that's just how I see it.”

Aaron thought that what she was saying sounded quite progressive for a southern woman, but thought better of saying it out loud because then she'd truly think he was the missing link. So he said instead, “I guess I've just never thought it all through before about interracial children.”

“It's an issue, at least to me it is because this is a world that will love them or hate them for all the wrong reasons.”

“Love them for the wrong reasons?” Aaron questioned, because it didn't make much sense in any way he looked at it.

“Now, you know there are some black people who're going to love an interracial child just because of their exotically colored light skin. To those people, it's not going to much matter what the
child really looks like or how smart the child is, as long as one parent is white, those people will think that child is pure perfection in every way.”

“That's a pretty sad statement of things, if that's how they really are.”

“Yeah,” Tawna said pausing to let the waiter put her salad in front of her and Aaron's salad in front of him. When he was gone, she continued, “It's sad, and it's cruel too, because it gives them a false sense of reality that'll do nothing to prepare them for the hatred that'll come from some whites and blacks alike just because they're not one thing or another.”

Aaron put a heavy-handed sprinkling of pepper on his salad, then looked at Tawna with a serious stare and said, “So you've given this quite a bit of thought, it seems.”

“From the first time I was blown away by finding myself attracted to a white man,” she said before putting a forkful of lettuce into her mouth and chewing rigorously so that she could swallow. Then she quickly said, “Look, I've thought about it because when I do have children, I want to be able to give them the best of myself in order to make them the best they can be. I can't do that if I can't get a complete understanding of how to raise a child who has to find a way to bring two halves together in a way that society tells them they can't and shouldn't and still try to make them somehow whole. I mean, how do you introduce the concept of color the way it's understood here in America to a child? I think even if that child were, through some miracle, to somehow make it all the way to adulthood before knowing that they're two races, I think from the very moment they found out, it would change forever their concept of themselves, from who they knew they were to who they might be now.”