Black Cake(6)

The last time around, Byron countered that line of argument by putting on his best team-player smile and saying he could do an even better job from the operations office, while helping the center to sharpen its way of doing things. He walked out of that uncomfortable conversation with a slight swagger to his step, just to show how much he was taking their decision in stride.

So, one more try. If the institute still won’t grant him greater say in their organizational affairs, then he’ll continue to find other ways to build his influence. It was Byron who was called to speak on television about the underwater volcano in Indonesia. Byron who was asked to give that paper at the Stockholm meeting. Byron who was called by the Japanese about the seabed-mapping project. He’s been photographed with two presidents and was recently held up by the current one as a shining example of the American Dream, realized. It was at about that time that his girlfriend told him he was full of himself and broke off their relationship.

“This is not the kind of example I would want my children to follow,” Lynette shouted at Byron that last night. It was the meanest thing a woman could say to a man, really. He didn’t even know that Lynette had ever thought about children.

Lynette just didn’t get it. If you were invited to the White House, you simply went, no matter who was sitting in the Oval Office. Here was another opportunity to advocate for things that mattered. To speak out against cuts in research funding, to push for broader access to quality science education. Here was another chance for a black man to be at the table with the decision makers, instead of flinching from abuse. Instead of standing outside yet another closed door.

But Lynette didn’t agree. Lynette didn’t seem to understand what he had to go through to be seen and heard in this world. Though his mother had understood.

“What are you willing to do?” his mother once asked him when he’d made a comment about taking flak from some of the guys in high school. “Are you doing something wrong, Byron? Do you think you’re a bad person for getting a perfect score on that test? For being recognized for your work? Are you going to let someone else’s view of who you should be, and what you should do, hold you back? Do you think those boys are really your friends?” His mother’s eyes took on that glint that he saw whenever she stood at the edge of the sea.

“So, what are you willing to do?” she said. “Who are you willing to let go of?”

Anyway, Byron hadn’t meant to let go of Lynette. She was the one who had done the letting go. Had it been up to him, he’d still be holding on to her right now. But she had made her decision and Byron wasn’t the type to grovel. That was another thing Lynette didn’t understand. What Byron could not allow himself to do.

Strange, how things have turned out with Lynette. It had never been Byron’s style to date the people he worked with. For years, he’d managed to stick to this rule. He knew a lot of guys who didn’t worry about those things, but workplace dynamics and harassment issues aside, he just didn’t like to go there. And, yeah, it could get lonely.

All that time spent working on calculations and having meetings and writing papers and, in the early days, the ship expeditions, carrying out deep-water mapping for weeks at a time. Then later, the books and public appearances. Airport lounges and hotel rooms. Where was a guy like him supposed to make a connection that went beyond a one-night thing?

Cable, Byron’s self-appointed advisor in all things, swore by Internet dating. Well, sure, that’s how Cable had met his wife. Cable was lucky that way. But where was Byron supposed to find the time to sift through all those descriptions and set up all those encounters with new people? Byron met new people all the time, that wasn’t the issue.

Then along came Lynette.

“Sorry,” Benny is saying now, and Byron’s thoughts come back to the room. “Sorry, Mr. Mitch,” she says, again, waving a hand, “we can keep going.” Mr. Mitch clicks on the audio file.

You children need to know about your family, about where we come from, about how I really met your father. You two need to know about your sister.

Byron and Benny look at each other, mouths open.

B and B, I know, this is a shock. Just bear with me for a moment and let me explain.

Byron and Benny look at Mr. Mitch now and simultaneously mouth the same word.

Sister?





Sister





Sister? What does this mean? What happened to her? She and Byron are both talking at once, asking the same questions in different ways, asking, in essence, How could this be?

Mr. Mitch is shaking his head, insisting that Benny and Byron listen to the entire recording first, as their mother requested. He juts his chin toward his laptop. Benny looks at her brother’s face, his large, dark eyes, so much like Daddy’s, so much like her own, and thinks back to all those moments with her brother, running along the beach together, making faces at each other across the dinner table, Benny sitting bowed over her math homework with Byron next to her, talking her through the exercises. All those times, they were missing a sister?

How is it possible they didn’t know this? Benny’s ma and dad had been married forever and Benny’s dad once told her that he and Ma had hoped for more babies, but there had been only Byron, at first. Then Benny came along years later, surprising her parents and delighting them with her chunky little body and her goofy smile.