The Vanishing Half: A Novel (24 page)

Years later, she would always wonder what exactly pushed her. That sly smile, or the way she’d said
your men
so casually, as if it didn’t include her. Or maybe it was because Kennedy was right. She knew how lucky Jude felt to be loved. She knew, even though Jude tried to hide it, exactly how to hurt her.

For weeks, she’d followed Kennedy around the Stardust Theater. She’d helped her dress, brought her tea, listened to her trill notes in the hallway. She’d cleaned toilets to talk to her, wondering always how this strange girl could be related to her. But she finally saw it: Kennedy Sanders was nothing but an uppity Mallard girl who believed the fiction she’d been told.

“You’re so stupid,” Jude said. “You don’t even know what you are.”

“And what’s that?”

“Your mother’s from Mallard! Where mine’s from. They’re twins. They look exactly alike and even you would see it—”

Kennedy laughed. “You’re crazy.”

“No, your mother’s crazy. She’s been lying to you your whole life.”

She regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth, but by then, it was too late. She had rung the bell, and all her life, the note would hang in the air.

M
R
. P
ARK
BROUGHT BULGOGI
on the house, setting the dish on the table. “So sad,” he said. “Never seen you so sad.” What a sight they must have been—Jude dabbing at her puffy eyes, Reese somber beside her, looking as helpless as he always did whenever she cried. He squeezed her shoulder and said, “Come on, baby, eat.” But she wasn’t hungry. On the ride over, she’d told him about the whole terrible night. She told him everything except what Kennedy had said to hurt her, because it cut too close to share, even with him.

“You were right,” she said. “You were right about everything. I should’ve never gone looking—”

“It’s okay,” he said. “You wanted to know them. Now you do. Now you can move on.”

“I can’t tell Mama,” she said.

She’d never kept a secret like this from her mother before. But if it was cruel to not tell her that Stella was alive—that she’d met her, even—then wasn’t it even worse to tell her that Stella wanted nothing to do with her? What good would come of her mother discovering that the sister she’d spent years searching for wouldn’t even call her? Maybe her mother would realize that losing her was for the best. Maybe, over time, she would just forget Stella, the way Jude had already started to lose her father’s face. Not all at once, but slowly, her memories disintegrating. Eventually remembering turned into imagining. How slight the difference was between the two.

Her mother would never forget Stella. She would stare into the
mirror for the rest of her life, reminded of her loss. But Jude wouldn’t add to her grief. She would talk to her mother on the phone, days later, and not say a word about Stella. Maybe she was like her aunt in that way. Maybe, like Stella, she became a new person in each place she’d lived, and she was already unrecognizable to her mother, a girl who hoarded secrets. A liar.

T
HE MORNING AFTER THE PLAY
, Stella awoke with a pounding heart.

She’d barely opened her eyes before the previous night returned to her: that awful play she’d finally attended, even though she knew acting was a waste of her daughter’s time and talents. But she’d gone because it was closing night—she’d sat through the dreadful thing, delighted and a little surprised that her daughter was the only bright spot. At intermission, she’d applauded as loudly as anyone, hoping her daughter would see her. But the girl ducked backstage with the rest of the cast, and Stella slipped out for a smoke. She was thinking, leaving the dingy theater, about how she could make things right. She could take Kennedy to dinner after the show, apologize for not attending sooner. Suggest that she take more drama classes, as long as she went back to school. And that was when that dark girl had emerged from the shadows. After, Stella charged into the street, not even thinking about where she was going. She’d stumbled two blocks downtown before remembering where she’d parked.

The dark girl couldn’t be Desiree’s daughter. She looked nothing like her. Pure black, like Desiree had never even touched her. She could be anyone. But how, then, had she known those stories about New Orleans? Who else would know but Desiree? Well, maybe she’d told someone. Maybe this girl thought she could come to California
and threaten to expose Stella. Blackmail her, even! The possibilities grew more lurid in her head, none of them making sense. How had the girl even found her? And if she’d wanted to blackmail her, why hadn’t she named her price? Instead of withering on the sidewalk, as if her feelings were hurt. As if Stella had disappointed her somehow.

“Your heart’s racing,” Blake said. He lifted his head, smiling sleepily at her. He liked to fall asleep with his head on her breasts, and she let him because it was sweet.

“I had a strange dream,” she said.

“A scary one?”

She ran her fingers through his graying blond hair.

“I used to have these nightmares,” she said. “That these men would drag me out of bed. It felt so real. I could feel their hands on my ankles, even after I woke up.”

“That’s not why you keep that bat here, is it?”

She started to respond but instead turned away, her eyes filling with tears.

“Something happened,” she said. “When I was young.”

“What happened?”

“I saw something—” But her voice cracked, and she couldn’t say any more. Blake kissed her cheek.

“Oh honey, don’t cry,” he said softly. “I don’t know what you’re so afraid of. I’ll always keep you safe.”

She kissed him before he could say anything else. They made love desperately, the way they had when she was nineteen, touching Mr. Sanders for the first time. The image would have made her younger self blush. Two middle-aged people gripping each other’s bodies, knocking off the covers, as sunlight cracked through the blinds, the alarm clock blaring, calling each to a separate day. Her body changed, his body changing, familiar and foreign at the same time. When you
married someone, you promised to love every person he would be. He promised to love every person she had been. And here they were, still trying, even though the past and the future were both mysteries.

That morning, she was late for class. A quick shower, then she was pulling a blouse onto her damp shoulders, Blake smiling at her through the mirror as he shaved. “I do believe I made you late to work, Mrs. Sanders,” he said, which didn’t have as nice a ring to it as Dr. Sanders, but maybe that was okay. Maybe it was enough to be Mrs. Sanders, maybe it was enough to have her Introduction to Statistics class, and her house, and her family. That dark girl. She saw her again, tried to shake her out of her mind. She’d been arrogant, that was her problem. So focused on what was next that she didn’t appreciate what she’d already gotten away with. She couldn’t let herself slip up like that again. She’d have to focus. Stay alert.

She was running out the door when she bumped into her daughter, lugging a bag of laundry up the steps. Both women jolted, then Kennedy flashed the disarming smile she’d inherited from her father. It was impossible to ever be angry at that smile, and Kennedy had tested it often: when she’d begged for a puppy but left Yolanda to care for him, when she’d failed ninth-grade geometry in spite of Stella’s attempts to help her, when she’d crashed her first Camaro and, somehow, convinced Blake to buy her a second one.

“Well, she’s got to have a way to get around,” he said, and Stella, tired of being the difficult one, finally agreed. Not that she’d had much say. Kennedy learned long ago that if she wanted anything, she ought to ask her father. Telling Stella was a mere formality.

“I was hoping to speak to you,” Stella said. “Listen, about last night—”

“I know, I know, you’re sorry. But if you weren’t going to come, you could’ve just told me. I would’ve given the ticket to someone else—”

“I did see your play! I just had to slip out early, that’s all. I wasn’t feeling well—something I ate, probably. But I promise I was there. I thought it was very clever. The ghosts and all. And that song you did in the saloon. I loved it all. Really.”

Her daughter was wearing big shiny sunglasses so Stella couldn’t see her eyes, only her own face reflected back at her. She looked calm, natural. Not like a woman who had awakened with her heart racing.

“Did you really like it?” Kennedy asked.

“Of course, darling. I thought you were marvelous.”

She pulled her daughter into a hug, running a hand along her thin shoulder blades.

“All right,” she said. “I’m running late. Have a good day.”

She fumbled with her attaché case, searching for her keys, when she heard her daughter call, over her shoulder, “You’ve never been to a place called Mallard, have you?”

Stella never expected to hear that word fall out of her daughter’s mouth, and for the first time all morning, she faltered.

“What do you mean?” she said.

“I met this girl from there—she said she knows you.”

“I’ve never even heard of the place. Mallard, did you say?”

That disarming smile again. Kennedy shrugged.

“That’s okay,” she said. “Maybe she was thinking of someone else.”

W
HEN
B
L
AKE CAME HOME
from work that evening, Stella told him about the dark girl.

All afternoon, she’d debated whether to say anything before deciding that she should. A preemptive strike. She didn’t want him to think that she had anything to hide, and she preferred him to hear the story from her. She hated the idea of her husband and daughter whispering about her. So while he undressed for bed, she told him that a dark
girl, claiming to be a cousin, had cornered Kennedy after her play. She watched his face the entire time, waiting to see it change. A flicker of recognition, maybe. Relief that a question he’d always wondered had finally been answered. But he just scoffed, unbuttoning his dress shirt.

“It’s the Camaro,” he said. “I’m sure she saw it and thought, boom. Payday.”

“Exactly,” Stella said. “That’s exactly right. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell her.”

“This city, I swear, sometimes.”

They’d been talking recently about leaving Los Angeles. Moving to Orange County, maybe, or even farther north to Santa Barbara. She’d resisted at first, not wanting to leave her job, but now she kept imagining that dark girl creeping up to her again, poking her head in doorways, tapping on the windows. Or worse, the girl following Kennedy around the city, appearing at her shows, stalking her between auditions. What could she possibly want? Again, her face flashed through Stella’s mind. How she’d stood under that eave, wounded.

Stella’s mistake had been to think that she could settle anywhere. You had to keep moving or the past would always catch up to you.

“You know those people downtown,” she said. “High out their minds, half of them.”

“Hell, more than half,” Blake said, sliding in bed beside her.

The first time she’d ever been white, Stella couldn’t wait to tell Desiree what she’d done. Desiree would never believe it—she didn’t think Stella was capable of doing anything surprising. But that evening, when Stella returned home, she passed her sister in the hallway and said nothing. A secret transgression was even more thrilling than a shared one. She had shared everything with Desiree. She wanted something of her own.

She was forty-four now; she’d spent more of her life without Desiree than with her. Still, as the weeks passed, she felt Desiree’s pull on her tighten, like a hand gripping her neck. Sometimes it felt like a gentle rub; other times, it choked her. She blamed the dark girl, although she hadn’t seen her since that night outside the Stardust Theater. The city was large; the girl would never find her again. Stella never thought of her as a niece.
Niece
didn’t seem the right word for a girl you didn’t know, a girl who looked nothing like you. Then again, wouldn’t Desiree feel the same way about Kennedy? Sometimes even Stella stared at her daughter and saw a stranger. It wasn’t Kennedy’s fault that Stella had decided, long ago, to become someone else. Now her whole life had been built on that lie and the other lies Stella stacked in order to maintain it, until one dark girl appeared, threatening to send them all tumbling down.

“Did you ever have a sister?” Kennedy asked one night. Stella, bending over to sweep crumbs off the table, stiffened.

“What do you mean?” she said. “You know I didn’t.”

“I just thought—”

“You’re not still thinking about that black girl, are you?”

But her daughter bit her lip, staring out the darkened window. She was—she just hadn’t said anything about it, which felt like an even bigger betrayal.

“My God,” Stella said. “Who do you believe? Some crazy girl or your own mother?”

“But why would she lie? Why would she say those things to me?”

“She wants money! Or maybe she just wants to poke fun at you. Who knows why crazy people do things?”

Blake wandered into the kitchen, pausing, like he always did before stepping into one of their arguments, as if to remind himself that it wasn’t too late to disengage and pretend this had nothing to do with him. He hadn’t been interested enough in the dark girl to say much
else about it, except that if Kennedy saw her again, she ought to call the police. Now he squeezed his daughter’s shoulder.

“Just drop it, Ken,” he said. “You can’t let that girl get to you.”

“I know, but—”

“We love you,” he said. “We wouldn’t lie to you.”

But sometimes lying was an act of love. Stella had spent too long lying to tell the truth now, or maybe, there was nothing left to reveal. Maybe this was who she had become.

I
N
J
UNE
, Stella and Blake surprised their daughter with the keys to a new apartment in Venice. They’d pay the rent for one year while she went on auditions, and after, she’d have to go back to school or find a job. Technically it wasn’t a bribe, but when Stella handed her ecstatic daughter the keys, she felt so awash in relief that it seemed like one. Maybe now her daughter would stop barraging her with questions about her past. She’d always worried about Kennedy discovering her secret and rejecting her, Blake leaving, her whole life disintegrating in her hands. What she hadn’t pictured was doubt. It would almost have been better if Kennedy just believed that dark girl. Instead, she seemed to mull over her claims, sometimes considering them, sometimes rejecting them, and Stella never knew where she would land. She couldn’t predict what she might ask, or what she believed, and the uncertainty made her crazy. The new apartment would at least be a distraction. Maybe even a solution.