The Vanishing Half(3)
She barely remembered him now; it scared her a little. Life before he died seemed like only a story she’d been told. A time when her mother hadn’t risen at dawn to clean white people’s houses or taken in extra washing on the weekends, clotheslines zigzagging across their living room. The twins used to love hiding behind the quilts and sheets before Desiree realized how humiliating it was, your home always filled with strangers’ dirty things.
“If it was true, then you’d do something about it,” Stella said.
She was always so practical. On Sunday nights, Stella ironed her clothes for the entire week, unlike Desiree, who rushed around each morning to find a clean dress and finish the homework crushed in the bottom of her book bag. Stella liked school. She’d earned top marks in arithmetic since kindergarten, and during her sophomore year, Mrs. Belton even allowed her to teach a few classes to the younger grades. She’d given Stella a worn calculus textbook from her own Spelman days, and for weeks, Stella lay in bed trying to decipher the odd shapes and long strings of numbers nestled in parentheses. Once, Desiree flipped through the book, but the equations spanned like an ancient language and Stella snatched the book back, as if by looking at it, Desiree had sullied it somehow.
Stella wanted to become a schoolteacher at Mallard High someday. But every time Desiree imagined her own future in Mallard, life carrying on forever as it always had, she felt something clawing at her throat. When she mentioned leaving, Stella never wanted to talk about it.
“We can’t leave Mama,” she always said, and, chastened, Desiree fell silent. She’s already lost so much, was the part that never needed to be said.
* * *
—
ON THE LAST DAY of tenth grade, their mother came home from work and announced that the twins would not be returning to school in the fall. They’d had enough schooling, she said, easing gingerly onto the couch to rest her feet, and she needed them to work. The twins were sixteen then and stunned, although maybe Stella should have noticed the bills that arrived more frequently, or Desiree should have wondered why, in the past month alone, their mother had sent her to Fontenot’s twice to ask for more credit. Still, the girls stared at each other in silence as their mother unlaced her shoes. Stella looked like she’d been socked in the gut.
“But I can work and go to school too,” she said. “I’ll find a way—”
“You can’t, honey,” her mother said. “You gotta be there during the day. You know I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t need to.”
“I know, but—”
“And Nancy Belton got you teachin the class. What more do you need to learn?”
She had already found them a job cleaning a house in Opelousas and they would start in the morning. Desiree hated helping her mother clean. Plunging her hands into dirty dishwater, stooping over mops, knowing that someday, her fingers would also grow fat and gnarled from scrubbing white folks’ clothes. But at least there would be no more tests or studying or memorizing, no more listening to lectures, bored to tears. She was an adult now. Finally, life would really begin. But as the twins started dinner, Stella remained silent and glum, rinsing carrots under the sink.
“I thought—” she said. “I guess I just thought—”
She wanted to go to college someday and of course she’d get into Spelman or Howard or wherever else she wanted to go. The thought had always terrified Desiree, Stella moving to Atlanta or D.C. without her. A small part of her felt relieved; now Stella couldn’t possibly leave her behind. Still, she hated to see her sister sad.
“You could still go,” Desiree said. “Later, I mean.”
“How? You have to finish high school first.”
“Well, you can do that then. Night classes or somethin. You’ll finish in no time, you know you will.”
Stella grew quiet again, chopping carrots for the stew. She knew how desperate their mother was and would never fight her on her decision. But she was so rattled that her knife slipped and she cut her finger instead.
“Damn it!” she whispered loudly, startling Desiree beside her. Stella hardly ever swore, especially not where their mother might overhear. She dropped the knife, a thin red line of blood seeping out her index finger, and without thinking, Desiree stuck Stella’s bleeding finger in her own mouth, like she’d done when they were little and Stella wouldn’t stop crying. She knew they were far too old for this now, but she still kept Stella’s finger in her mouth, tasting her metallic blood. Stella watched her silently. Her eyes looked wet, but she wasn’t crying.
“That’s nasty,” Stella said, but she didn’t pull away.
* * *
—
ALL SUMMER, the twins rode the morning bus into Opelousas, where they reported to a giant white house hidden behind iron gates topped with white marble lions. The display seemed so theatrically absurd that Desiree laughed when she first saw them, but Stella only stared warily, as if those lions might spring to life at any moment and maul her. When their mother found them the job, Desiree knew the family would be rich and white. But she’d never expected a house like this: a diamond chandelier dripping from a ceiling so high, she had to climb to the top of the ladder to dust it; a long spiraling staircase that made her dizzy as she traced a rag along the banister; a large kitchen she mopped, passing appliances that looked so futuristic and new, she could not even tell how to use them.