Family Tree Page 11

  All in all, it was a relief to be out of the house. As tentative as her body still felt, Dana relished the control that came from having her foot on the gas. Gram Ellie had it right. She said that life was like raw wool, filled with slubs and catches that required diligent spinning to smooth.

  Diligent spinning. That was all. Dana would be fine. She would be fine.

  Turning into The Stitchery’s drive, she saw her grandmother’s car parked beside the verandaed house. Passing it, she went on to the shop. She climbed from the driver’s seat and opened Lizzie’s door. “Hi, sweetie,” she said, leaning in with a bright smile. “Wanna see where Mommy grew up? Want to see where Mommy’s mommy used to spend time?” Her voice caught, so she busied herself unlatching the baby carrier from its base.

  “You look very pretty in green,” she told Lizzie, admiring the baby’s onesie and matching cap. Seconds later, though, she removed the cap and tossed it back in the car. “We do not need this.” She fluffed Lizzie’s curls and kissed the child’s forehead. “Or this,” she said, leaving the receiving blanket in the car.

  She had barely opened the screen door when Gillian was at her side. In the space of a breath, Tara, Olivia, Corinne, and Nancy surrounded her, all oohing and aahing over the baby.

  Laughing, Dana set her bags on a bench by the door. Ellie Jo, who was leaning against the long oak table watching, opened her arms to Dana. “You shouldn’t have driven,” she scolded. “It’s too soon.”

  “The doctor didn’t say no. I feel fine, Gram, really I do.”

  “You look tired.”

  “So do you. I have an excuse. What’s yours?”

  Ellie Jo smiled. “Worry.” Linking her elbow with Dana’s, she drew her away from the girls. “How’s Hugh?”

  “The same.” Dana looked around the shop. She loved the wild colors, raised her face to the ceiling fan, breathed in the essence of early McIntosh apples. “Ahh,” she said. “Better.” She turned back to the baby.

  Gillian was holding Lizzie, with the others hovering around her. “We need a picture,” Dana said.

  Corinne took Gillian’s camera and began shooting.

  Dana directed. “There.” The flash went off. “Now Gillian and Lizzie alone. Oh, that’s perfect.” Another flash. “Ellie Jo, you join them now.” When someone suggested that Dana get in the picture, she did it happily, thinking that this was what having a new baby was about.

  Gillian insisted on showing Lizzie the cradle that the group had bought for her.

  “I love it,” Dana cried, but, with her hands covering her mouth, she was looking at the knitted quilt that was artfully arranged over its side. It had the baby’s name and the date of her birth, and was so beautiful that Dana burst into tears. She hugged everyone, then insisted on taking the quilt and draping it around Lizzie. Corinne took pictures of that, too.

  The baby fussed.

  “Too warm,” said one of the many mothers.

  “Or hungry,” said another.

  Using the quilt as a cushion, Dana settled into one of the chairs to nurse. The speed with which Lizzie latched on—a first, really—spoke of either her hunger or the comforting atmosphere in the yarn shop. Convinced it was the latter, Dana was glad she had come. Drawing strength from her friends, she broached the issue of her father.

  “I have to find him,” she said softly.

  “That’s a tall order, sweetie,” Gillian told her. “Looking at Lizzie, I’ve been trying to remember what I know, and it’s next to nothing. I grew up with your mom. We were best friends, and the only time we were apart was during college. We saw each other at Christmas and during the summer, but calling on the phone was really expensive back then. My understanding is that Liz met your father during spring break, then got involved in term papers and finals. By the time she came home for the summer, she knew she was pregnant.”

  This was consistent with what Dana had already found out. “Was he a student there?”

  “I don’t know. Your mom wouldn’t talk about it. All she said was that it was over, that she wanted you, and that she wasn’t going back to school.”

  “Why wouldn’t she talk about it?”

  “Likely because it was painful.”

  “Because she didn’t want it to end?”

  Gillian smiled sadly. “I’m guessing yes. Every woman dreams that her hero will show up and whisk her away. Well,” she caught herself, “back then, we dreamed it.”

  Dana didn’t think times had changed so much. With only a tiny edit or two, Gillian’s scenario described her own experience with Hugh.

  Getting back to her father, she asked, “Did he know about me?”

  “My impression is that he took off before Liz ever knew she was pregnant.”

  “The picture I have was taken when they were at a bar. Who took it?”

  Gillian shook her head. “A friend? Maybe her roommate?”

  “Do you remember the names of any of her friends there?”

  “Some names. There was a Judy and a Carol. Last names? No.”

  “The roommate was Carol,” Ellie Jo said. “I don’t recall her last name.”

  “Would their names be in a yearbook?” Tara asked.

  But Dana knew the answer to that one. “If so, we don’t have it. Mom didn’t graduate. She dropped out after junior year to have me, and, besides, even if we got our hands on the yearbook, can you imagine how many Carols and Judys there are in a school of, what, twenty thousand students?” She turned back to Gillian. “Would she have confided in anyone else? Maybe her doctor?”

  “Her doctor was Tom Milton, right here in town, but he’s been dead for years.”

  “Then we’re back to the roommate,” said Dana. “There must be a name somewhere. Maybe in the box in the attic?”

  “Textbooks,” Ellie Jo replied. “They’re only textbooks, and not many at that. Elizabeth wasn’t nostalgic about school. Come the end of exams, she sold the books she was done with. She hadn’t gotten around to selling these.”

  “Why do you keep them?” Tara asked.

  Ellie Jo thought for a minute before she said, “Because they were hers.”

  And, oh, Dana knew about that. Hadn’t she kept boxes of her mother’s knitting—wool that had never been worked, patterns never followed, odd-ball remnants?

  “Maybe there’s something in the textbooks,” she asked, “a scribble in a margin that might mean something?”

  “I’ve searched every one of those books, and there’s nothing,” her grandmother insisted. “Don’t waste your time. You have a baby to take care of.”

  Propping Lizzie on her lap, Dana rubbed her back.

  Corinne walked over and joined them. “Her skin is just beautiful, Dana. Oliver and I have a good friend whose great-grandmother was visibly African American. Our friend has blond hair and blue eyes. I’ve always thought she would look much more distinct if she had some of those earlier traits.”

  Distinct. Dana liked the sound of that word. “Distinct” could mean unique, as in special, which was how Dana saw the baby. Or it could mean having immediately recognizable traits, which was how the Clarkes saw it. “Does your friend identify with her great-grandmother at all?”

  “Identify? Perhaps privately. Acknowledge? Not publicly. Her life is very white.”

  Dana winced. “Why does that remark jar me?”

  “It’s blunt,” Gillian said.

  “Blunt,” confirmed Corinne, “but not inaccurate. Black people ‘pass’ all the time.”

  Dana liked that remark even less. “How do you define ‘black’?” she asked.

  “This country adheres to the one-drop rule,” Corinne said smoothly. “That’s why my friend is quiet about her history. She and I were in the same dorm at Yale. Soon after Oliver and I started dating, she began seeing a friend of Oliver’s who was noticeably African American. Her mother had a fit when she found out. The experience brought us closer. I respect who she is and understand what she does. We serve together on the board of the m
useum.”

  “Then is the difference between races a socioeconomic one?” Dana asked.

  But Corinne was glancing at her Rolex. “Speaking of the board, I have to run. We’re in the final countdown for our major fundraiser. The baby really is adorable, Dana. Enjoy her.”

  Dana watched Corinne glide to the table, slip her knitting in a project bag, and head for the door. Annoyed by the conversation, she said a little bitterly, “How can Corinne wear linen and never wrinkle?” Her own blouse looked slept in. Granted, there had been a baby beneath it minutes before. Still, “I look at linen, and it wrinkles.”

  “Starch,” Tara said. “She’s that kind of woman.”

  Dana agreed. Prior to talking with Corinne, she had actually been feeling good about herself.

  She lifted Lizzie, and looked at her face. “Corinne is odd.”

  The baby burped. Dana and Tara laughed.

  “She always buys the cheapest yarn,” Dana went on. “Have you ever noticed? She’ll admire a skein of pure cashmere and talk about how much of it she needs for a particular sweater, then she’ll say something like ‘I’m buying that yarn right after I finish this scarf.’ It’s always scarves now. It used to be sweaters.”

  “Scarves are fashionable.”

  “The ones she makes use a single skein of sock-weight wool for a total of five bucks.”

  “She does a beautiful job,” Ellie Jo said in Corinne’s defense. “Not all women can.”

  “But she never does buy the expensive yarn, does she?”

  Ellie Jo nodded. “She does. Just last week, she bought a skein of Jade Sapphire 2-ply. That’s thirty-five dollars.”

  “A skein? One?”

  “That’s all the pattern called for. She’s making a beret.”

  “Okay,” Dana said, offering Lizzie the other breast, “maybe I’m wrong about that, but forget buying yarn. She’s just too smooth to be real. Nothing ruffles her.”

  “That’s a good thing,” argued Ellie Jo. “I wouldn’t ridicule it.”

  “I’m not,” Dana said, struggling to verbalize what she felt. “It’s just that she’s so calm. I mean, she’s told stories about her mother running off to be part of a religious cult and her husband surviving childhood leukemia and the guy who renovated their house bilking them of hundreds of thousands of dollars. It’s like her life has a gazillion traumas, but she doesn’t blink.”

  “You missed the one about her father dying in a plane crash,” Gillian murmured.

  “Her father?” Dana asked in disbelief.

  “She’s convinced it was sabotage.”

  Dana looked from one face to another. “See? That’s what I’m saying. How can one have all of these awful experiences, and still be even-tempered?”

  “She’s rich,” Tara remarked. “That helps.”

  Technically, as Mrs. Hugh Clarke, Dana was rich, too. That didn’t keep her from suffering emotional ups and downs. And now Corinne mentioned the one-drop rule? Dana didn’t feel black. How could she look in the mirror, at pale skin and blond hair, and feel African American? Was that how the Clarkes were seeing her? No, she didn’t feel black. But she was starting to feel exposed.

  “Maybe Cousin Emma knows something,” Dana suggested. “She always claimed she was close to Mom.”

  “Do not call Emma,” Ellie Jo said. “She knows nothing.”

  Dana was startled by her grandmother’s force. “Don’t you think, even for Lizzie’s sake—”

  “I don’t. Your father had no part in raising you. He doesn’t even know you exist. He spent a week with your mother and never bothered to call her afterward. That was neither caring nor responsible.”

  “What if he wasn’t a student but was just passing through?” Gillian asked. “What if he did try to reach her afterward, only she was already gone? There could be any number of innocent explanations.”

  But Ellie Jo’s mind was made up. With uncharacteristic vehemence, she said, “Do not look for the man, Dana. It will only cause you grief.”

  Silence followed her outburst. Dana was as mystified as the others. Talk about calm characters, Ellie Jo topped the list. The only explanation now was that she felt threatened by the possibility of Dana’s father reappearing and vying for her affection.

  Ellie Jo stood. “I’m going back to the house for a bit.”

  “Are you feeling all right?” Gillian asked.

  “I’m fine. I’m fine. There is absolutely nothing wrong with me. I have a right to be seventy-four, don’t I?”

  “Gram?” Dana called, sharing Gillian’s concern.

  But Ellie Jo didn’t stop. The screen door dinged open and slapped shut.

  Chapter 11

  Dana stared after her. When the door dinged again a few seconds later, she thought it was Ellie Jo regretting her brusque departure, but it was Saundra Belisle, looking behind her, probably puzzled that Ellie Jo hadn’t stopped to speak.

  Saundra was an elegant African American, tall, slim, and stylish. She wore her gray hair cropped close to her head and today was dressed in white pants and a burgundy blouse. Neither had a designer label. Saundra was far from wealthy, but she did have class.

  A retired nurse, she had only been frequenting the shop for the last few years, but she was a lifelong knitter. That made her the first to tackle complex patterns, which she was happy to teach to others.

  Dana caught Saundra’s eye and gestured her over. Taking the baby from her breast, she put her to her shoulder and patted her back. But when she glanced at the door again, Saundra hadn’t moved. Her large dark eyes were on the baby. She seemed unsure.

  “I’ll send her over,” Gillian said as she rose. “I have to leave anyway.” She kissed Dana, then the baby. “I’ll have the pictures printed. Lotsa copies. Keep an eye on Ellie Jo, okay?”

  “I will,” Dana said, “and thank you for the quilt. You know what it means to me.”

  Gillian smiled and went to Saundra, who approached with her eyes on the baby. She went behind Dana’s chair and bent down to better see Lizzie’s face. She touched the child’s head with a trembling hand.

  “I heard about this little one,” she said ever so softly. “Hello, Elizabeth.” She stroked Lizzie’s head, then, still softly, asked Dana, “May I hold her?”

  Dana transferred Lizzie to unquestionably able arms.

  “Oh my,” Saundra cooed. She had one hand under the baby’s head, one under her bottom. “Look at this. Look at this.”

  “Didn’t expect it, did ya?” Dana quipped.

  “No, ma’am, I surely did not,” Saundra said with a drawl not usually heard in her voice. “She is clearly a face from the past. This is quite stunning.”

  Dana liked that word. “It’s also mystifying. We had no idea I had a relative who was African American.”

  “It isn’t something that people of color who have lost that color often discuss.”

  “But you saw it right away.”

  “Oh yes,” Saundra said with the arch of a brow. “She is not Hispanic. My, my, my,” she sang to the baby.

  Dana studied Saundra’s features. Her lips were full, but her nose didn’t have the breadth it would have had if she’d been of pure African descent.

  “You’re part white, aren’t you?”

  “I am,” Saundra said, still singing to the baby. “My mama was black and my daddy white.” With the utmost care, she put the baby to her shoulder. Holding her there as though she were delicate crystal, she drew slow circles on Lizzie’s back with the flat of long, red-tipped fingers.

  “Did you worry about having children yourself?” Dana asked. They had never before discussed race; as with David, it had always been irrelevant.

  “I never had children,” Saundra reminded her.

  “Because of this?”

  “Because there were too many others to care for. But if it’s color you’re asking about, no, I wouldn’t have worried. I’m comfortable in my skin. I’d have been comfortable with theirs.”

  Tara joined
the conversation. “Do you have siblings?”

  “Not now. I did, though. A brother. He died several years back. He was much older.”

  “What did he look like?” Dana asked.

  Saundra smiled crookedly. “Even more gray and wrinkled than me.”

  “You are not wrinkled,” Dana said, because other than a few crow’s feet, Saundra’s skin was remarkably tight. “And, besides, that’s not what I mean.”

  “I know,” she said, relenting. “In his youth, my brother was a handsome devil. He was tall, lean, and lighter than me.”

  “Did he ever have children?”

  “Oh yes,” she enunciated clearly, “quite a few.”

  “Huh,” Tara mused. “He spread it around.”

  “I would have put it more delicately,” Saundra said. “But yes.”

  “What did the children look like?” Dana asked.

  “He preferred white women, so the children were white.”

  “Very white?” Dana wanted to know how many generations it took for color to vanish. It might give her a hint as to how far back to look.

  “Some were very white. Others looked like this sweet one here.”

  “Why did he prefer white women?” Tara asked.

  Putting her cheek to the baby’s head, swaying now from side to side, Saundra said softly, “I guess he thought white had more status than black.”

  “Do you?” Dana asked.

  Saundra shrugged. “I think higher percentages of poor people are uneducated and criminally disposed, and more poor people are black than white. I don’t necessarily buy into the stereotype, but I understand its source.”

  Dana was unsettled. “Do you see me as superior to you because my skin is white? I must have some mixed blood.”

  Saundra snorted. “You’re not black.”

  “I am,” Dana insisted. “The one-drop rule says I’m black.” But she felt like an impostor.

  Saundra rolled her eyes as if to say, Spare me. “I don’t see you as superior to me, because you’ve never acted that way. You relate to me as you relate to your own grandmother, and Ellie Jo and I are alike. We both came from upwardly mobile families and have solid enough nest eggs to live comfortably.” She frowned. “Is Ellie Jo all right, by the way? She seemed disturbed when I passed her.”