The Vanishing Half

by Brit Bennett

She was the type of girl that boys only kissed in secret and, after, pretended that they hadn’t.

Even now at Venice Beach, she pictured sunbathers laughing as soon as she tugged off her shirt. Snickering at Reese, too, wondering what on earth is he doing with that black thing? That night, when they came home from the beach, Reese slid on top of her and she asked if she could flip on the light. He laughed a little, burrowing his face into her neck. “Why?” he murmured. “Because,” she said, “I want to see you.” He stilled for a moment, then he rolled off her. “Well, I don’t want you to,” he said.

Barry went to faculty meetings and family reunions and church, Bianca always lingering on the edge of his mind. She had her role to play and Barry had his. You could live a life this way, split. As long as you knew who was in charge.

A body could be labeled but a person couldn’t, and the difference between the two depended on that muscle in your chest. That beloved organ, not sentient, not aware, not feeling, just pumping along, keeping you alive.

He was quiet a long moment, then he told her that his father had caught him fooling around with his sister’s friend.

To be honest about the past meant that he would be considered a liar. The only safety was in hiding.

Besides, in all the time he’d known her, she’d never spoken kindly of a Negro. It embarrassed him a little, to tell the truth. He

She was jumpy around Negroes, like a child who’d been bit by a dog.

Of course passing wasn’t that easy. Of course that colored guard recognized her. We always know our own, her mother said. And now a colored family moving across the street. Would they see her for what she was? Or rather, what she wasn’t?

The idea of pregnancy terrified her; she imagined pushing out a baby that grew darker and darker, Blake recoiling in horror. She almost preferred him thinking that she’d had an affair with a Negro. That lie seemed kinder than the truth, momentary unfaithfulness a gentler deception than her ongoing fraud. But after she’d given birth, she felt overwhelmed

If he pitied her, he wouldn’t be able to see her clearly. He would refract all of her lies through her mourning,

Mr. Dupont only picked her because he sensed her weakness. She was the twin who wouldn’t tell. And she didn’t. Her whole life, she would never tell anyone. But when Desiree came up with the plan to leave after Founder’s Day, Stella felt Mr. Dupont shoving her against the pantry shelf and knew she had to go too. In New Orleans, when Desiree began to waver, Stella felt his fingers worming inside her underwear and found the strength to stay for the both of them.

Even after all these years, she still felt nervous around white women, running out of small talk as soon as she opened her mouth.

Why would anyone insist on doing such a thing? To make a point? To make himself miserable? To end up on the nightly news like all those protesters, beaten or martyred in hopes of convincing white people to change their minds? Two weeks ago, she’d watched from the arm of Blake’s chair as cities across the country lit up in flames.

The country was unrecognizable now, Cath Johansen said, but it looked the same as it ever had to Stella. Tom Pearson and Dale Johansen and Percy White wouldn’t storm a colored man’s porch and yank him out of his kitchen, wouldn’t stomp his hands, wouldn’t shoot him five times. These were fine people, good people, who donated to charities and winced at newsreels of southern sheriffs swinging billy clubs at colored college students. They thought King was an impressive speaker, maybe even agreed with some of his ideas. They wouldn’t have sent a bullet into his head—they might have even cried watching his funeral, that poor young family—but they still wouldn’t have allowed the man to move into their neighborhood.

She couldn’t tell what unnerved her more, picturing a colored family moving in or imagining what might be done to stop them. —

“It’ll be fine, Stel,” he said. “They’ll keep to themselves, if they know what’s best.”

Because even though she knew she hadn’t done anything wrong, she still felt sick each time she pictured Loretta standing on her porch, hugging that doll. It would’ve been better if Loretta had sworn at her. Called her a backward, small-minded bigot. But she wouldn’t. She was decent because she had to be, which only made Stella feel more ashamed.

“A legal letter,” Cath said. “From some big lawyer, saying that if they don’t let her girl come here in the fall, she’ll sue. Can you imagine that? A whole lawsuit over that one little girl? I swear, some people just love the attention—” “She doesn’t seem that way to me,” Stella said.

She felt almost angry at her parents for denying it to her. If they’d passed over, if they’d raised her white, everything would have been different. No white men dragging her daddy from the porch. No laundry baskets filling the living room. She could have finished school, graduated top of her class. Maybe she would have ended up at a school like Yale, met Blake there proper. Maybe she could have been the type of girl his mother wanted him to marry. She could have had everything in her life now, but her father and mother and Desiree too.

At first, passing seemed so simple, she couldn’t understand why her parents hadn’t done it. But she was young then. She hadn’t realized how long it takes to become somebody else, or how lonely it can be living in a world not meant for you.

Loretta said that, a couple months ago, Cindy asked her what assassination meant. She told her the truth, of course—that an assassination is when someone kills you to make a point. Which was correct enough, Stella supposed, but only if you were an important man. Important men became martyrs, unimportant ones victims.

That she hadn’t meant to betray anyone but she’d just needed to be new.

In New Orleans, Stella split in two. She didn’t notice it at first because she’d been two people her whole life: she was herself and she was Desiree. The twins, beautiful and rare, were never called the girls, only the twins, as if it were a formal title.

At least Loretta’s parents would be proud. She had come upon her nice things the honest way, not by stealing a life not meant for her. Then again, she and Loretta had both wound up in the Estates by marrying well. Maybe there wasn’t such a big difference between the two after all.

“I’m not one of them,” she would say. “I’m like you.” “You’re colored,” Loretta would say. Not a question, but a statement of blunt fact. Stella would tell her because the woman was leaving; in hours, she’d vanish from this part of the city and Stella’s life forever. She’d tell her because, in spite of everything, Loretta was her only friend in the world. Because she knew that, if it came down to her word versus Loretta’s, she would always be believed. And knowing this, she felt, for the first time, truly white.

Whenever they hung up, Jude always felt a little guilty knowing that the life she most feared was the one her mother was already living.

Why wouldn’t you be white if you could be? Remaining what you were or becoming something new, it was all a choice, any way you looked at it. She had just made the rational decision.

It baffled Stella, protesting out of a sense of duty, or maybe even amusement.

If nakedness would not reveal who you were, then what would?

She could think of nothing more horrifying than not being able to hide what she wanted.

just hate to see you make yourself small for him. Just because he’ll never see you the way you see yourself.”

once been keyed by a jealous understudy. She liked to invent stories about her life, as if the reality were too dull to repeat.

father died years ago. She’s the only one left.” Sometimes you could understand why Stella passed over. Who didn’t dream of leaving herself behind and starting over as someone new?

“I’d hate everyone staring at me like that.” “Why?” “I don’t know. It makes me feel . . . exposed, I guess.” Kennedy laughed. “Yes, but acting is different,” she said. “You only show people what you want to.”

Nobody really expects someone like him to be with you, do they?” Kennedy laughed. “You know I don’t mean anything by it. I’m just saying. Your men usually like the light girls, don’t they?” 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.

“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.

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.

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.

A secret transgression was even more thrilling than a shared one. She had shared everything with Desiree. She wanted something of her own.

She could tell the truth, she thought, but there was no single truth anymore. She’d lived a life split between two women—each real, each a lie. “I’ve just always been this way,” Stella said. “I’m not like you. Open. It’s a good way to be. I hope you stay that way.”

She only played white girls, which is to say, she never played herself.

She would know, she decided. You couldn’t go through your whole life not knowing something so fundamental about yourself. She would feel it somehow.

The three looked like a set, like they all belonged to each other. But Jude belonged to no one. And what about Kennedy? Who the hell did she belong to?

It occurred to Kennedy then that if she suddenly had a heart attack, right here in the hospital lobby, Jude would be her nearest relative. Cousins. They were cousins. But if Jude told a nurse this, insisting on the right to visit, who would ever believe her?

“They only like light Negroes out there. You’d fit right in.” She’d said it so offhandedly that Kennedy almost didn’t realize it. “I’m not a Negro,” she said. Jude laughed again, this time uneasily. “Well, your mother is,” she said. “So?” “So that makes you one too.” “It doesn’t make me anything,” she said. “My father’s white, you know. And you don’t get to show up and tell me what I am.” It wasn’t a race thing. She just hated the idea of anyone telling her who she had to be. She was like her mother in that way. If she’d been born black, she would have been perfectly happy about

All the stories she knew were fiction, so she began to create new ones. She was the daughter of a doctor, an actor, a baseball player. She was taking a break from medical school. She had a boyfriend back home named Reese. She was white, she was black, she became a new person as soon as she crossed a border. She was always inventing her life.

The language bothered Stella most of all. You didn’t just find a self out there waiting—you had to make one. You had to create who you wanted to be.

And did you know Jude does things like this, she would’ve asked him, befriends white girls? It’s a new world, ain’t it? Did you know the world is so new?

And even if she had, somehow, found Stella, her daughter would have told her. She never would’ve kept a secret like that from her.