That Kind of Mother

by Rumaan Alam

Was she recommending Giovanni because Giovanni was, like Priscilla, a black woman?

Like this movie, did you notice the maid?” He shook his head. “Was there a maid?” “She was the only black person in the movie.” Rebecca didn’t know if it was easy to miss her or impossible not to notice her. The woman had darted through the scene, twice, spoken or nodded maybe once.

She’s right there, but she’s invisible.”

“Doesn’t it seem odd? A movie about New York City with only one black person in it?”

That Priscilla had rung the doorbell struck Rebecca as noteworthy.

“You can take this, dear.” Elizabeth placed the gilt-lipped china cup onto its companion saucer and slid them in Priscilla’s general direction.

Rebecca reached for her tea, careful not to spook the sleeping baby. Was spook racist when a verb as it was when a noun?

“Rebecca, there is not a judge in this state who is going to privilege the objections of a black man over those of a white woman. Not one.”

The complications are so scary, I know. Withdrawal, they call it?

Where the world, or Caroline, saw a crack baby, Rebecca only saw Andrew.

She’d read that caterpillars in the cocoon liquefy entirely before re-forming into butterflies.

“Sometimes . . .” Cheryl paused. “Black skin, it can require extra care. Especially in the winter.” “Skin is skin.” Rebecca tried to sound reassuring.

“Skin is not skin.”

Rebecca had wanted an American Girl for Ivy, but there were no black American Girls despite the preponderance of black American girls.

Uncle? Jacob and Andrew are being raised as brothers?

though you couldn’t say monkey, no matter how much affection you put into it, if the baby was black. Younger Jacob had worn a pair of soft pajamas emblazoned with monkeys. Rather than hand these down, Rebecca had thrown them into the garbage.

“All little black boys need to hear this from their mom or dad at some point. If Jacob were black, you’d have had this talk already.”

course, that doesn’t actually make a damn bit of difference.” “It’s not like I was . . .” Ian searched. “In jeans? A sweatshirt?

Hoodie

“Black kids don’t get to be kids much longer than twelve, really.

“I’m afraid we’ve been at the point, more than once, when Andrew was truly disrupting the class. I’ve had to have him pull his desk into the hallway so that the group can focus.” They send me to eat in the kitchen / when company comes. “You have him what?”