Brit Bennett - The Vanishing Half

For the first time in his life, he found a job, a real one, at the oil refinery. Now he went to work every day—like a proper man, Adele would have once said—in gray coveralls with his name stitched over the heart. Early Come Lately, his foreman called him, since he was the oldest roughneck in the crew. He worked mornings when Desiree closed, evenings when she went in early, seesawing their schedules so that Adele was never left alone.

One morning, he took Adele fishing down on the river. Swallows swooped overhead, rustling through the pines. Adele glanced over, tightening her sweater around herself. She wore her hair in two long braids now. Each morning Desiree combed her hair, or if she had to get to Lou’s, Early did. She’d taught him how to braid one afternoon, demonstrating with pieces of yarn. He’d practiced, again and again, amazed that his fingers were capable of anything so delicate. He liked the mornings when he braided Adele’s hair. She only allowed him to because she was forgetting, and he could forget, too, that she wasn’t his mother.

“You warm enough there, Miss Adele?” he asked.

She nodded, gathering her sweater closer.

“Desiree said you like goin fishin,” he said. “That true?”

“Desiree say that?”

“Yes’m. I told her we find her some fish to fry up tonight. Sound good, don’t it?”

She stared up at the trees, wringing her hands.

“I ought to be gettin to work myself,” Adele said.

“No, ma’am. You got the day off.”

“The whole day?”

She was so surprised and delighted by the idea that he didn’t have the heart to tell her that she hadn’t gone to work in the past nine months. The white folks she cleaned for had been the first to notice her lapse in memory. Dishes ending up in the wrong drawers, laundry folded before it dried, canned beans chilled in the refrigerator while chicken rotted on the pantry shelf.

“Oh, I’m old,” she’d said. “You know how it is. You just start forgettin things.”

But Dr. Brenner said that it was Alzheimer’s and it would only get worse. Desiree cried on the phone when she called to tell Early. He cut a job in Lawrence short to be with her. It’d be all right, he’d told her, rocking her, even though he couldn’t think of anything more terrifying than looking into Desiree’s face one day and only seeing a stranger.

“Are you my son?” Adele asked.

He smiled, reaching for his fishing rod.

“No, ma’am,” he said.

“No,” she repeated. “I don’t have any sons.”

She turned, satisfied, to the trees, as if he’d just helped her solve a riddle that was troubling her. Then she glanced at him again, almost shyly.

“You not my husband, are you?”

“No, ma’am.”

“I don’t have one of those neither.”

“I’m just your Early,” he said. “That’s all I am.”

“Early?” She laughed suddenly. “What type of fool name is that?”

“The only fool name I got.”

“I know who you are,” she said. “You that farm boy always hangin around Desiree.”

He touched the end of her gray braid.

“That’s right,” he said. “That’s exactly right.”

—

WHEN THEY RETURNED to the house, there was a white woman sitting on the porch.

Early had caught two small speckled trout, delighting Adele, who’d watched them wriggle on his line. Now, heading back home, Adele humming, her arm looped though his, he spotted the white woman through the clearing and gripped her arm tighter. Once a woman from the county came by to check on Adele. Desiree was humiliated, some strange white woman wandering around her house to make sure that the living conditions were suitable.

“It must be suitable enough,” she told Early, “she been livin here sixty years!”

He hated the thought of government workers poking around, as if the two of them were not capable of looking after one forgetting woman, but the visits came with the assistance. They needed money for the medicines, the doctor visits, the bills. Still, he wasn’t too thrilled about meeting the county woman. No surprise what she’d think of him.

He patted Adele’s hand.

“If that lady ask, we’ll tell her I’m your son-in-law,” he said.

“What you talkin about?”

“That white lady on the porch,” he said. “From the county. Just to make it all go down easier.”

She pulled away.

“Quit foolin,” she said. “That ain’t no white woman. That’s just Stella.”

In all the years he’d hunted Stella, imagined her, dreamed about her, she’d become larger in his eyes. She was smarter than him. Clever, twisting away each time he drew near. But this not-white woman, this Stella Vignes, looked so ordinary, he lost his breath. Not like Desiree—he wouldn’t have confused the two, even as he drew closer, Stella clambering to her feet. She wore navy blue slacks and leather boots, her hair pinned into a ponytail. Pitch black, like she hadn’t aged at all, unlike Desiree, whose temples began to streak silver. It wasn’t just her clothes, though, but the way she held her body. Taut, like a guitar string wound around itself. She looked scared, but of what? Of him? Well, maybe she ought to be. He wanted to rage at her for every night Desiree fell asleep thinking of her, not him.

But Stella wasn’t looking at him. She was staring at her mother, her mouth open like a trout gasping for breath. Adele barely glanced at her.

“Girl, come help us clean those fishes,” Adele said. “And go get your sister.”

—

HER MOTHER HAD LOST HER MIND.

Stella realized this, slowly, as she followed her down the narrow hallway to the kitchen, where a strange man unloaded fish from an icebox. All the times she’d imagined what her mother might say if she came home—she would be angry, might even slap her across the face—she’d never pictured this: her mother a shell of herself, bustling around the kitchen as if the only thing on her mind were fixing dinner. As indifferent to Stella as if she’d been gone twenty-five minutes, not years. The strange man following after her, picking up a knife after she’d set it down, keeping her away from the stove, finally convincing her to have a seat at the table while he made her a cup of coffee.

“Are you Desiree’s husband?” Stella asked.

He let out a low laugh. “Somethin like that.”

“Well, who are you, then? What’re you doing with my mother?”

“Why you actin like that, Stella?” her mother said, handing her a spoon. “You know this your brother.”

He couldn’t be the dark girl’s father. He wasn’t nearly as black as her, even though he looked grizzled and tough, like the type of man who might bully a woman.

“How long has it been like this?” she said.

“Year, maybe.”

“Jesus.”

“Girl, don’t take the Lord’s name in vain,” her mother said. “I raised you better than that.”

“I’m sorry, Mama,” she said quickly. “Mama, I’m so sorry—”

“I don’t know what you talkin about,” her mother said. “Probably don’t need to know. Start workin on that fish.”

Her daddy had taught her how to gut a fish. She’d trounced alongside him in the river, water splashing up to her knees. Desiree marching up ahead, stomping so loud, Daddy said, that she’d scare all the fish away. They were his twin sprites, following him through the woods. The fishing part always bored Desiree; she wandered off, sprawling on her stomach somewhere making daisy chains, but Stella could sit with him for hours, so still, imagining that she could see through the murky water to every living thing swirling around her bare toes. After, he showed the twins how to clean the fish he’d caught. Lay it flat, slide the knife inside the belly, and then what? She couldn’t remember. She wanted to cry.