All afternoon the words “nigger” and “Africa” echoed in my mind. Later that day, sitting in the family room at home with Cynthia, I couldn’t concentrate on the book I was trying to read. I needed to talk. “How do you feel about being adopted?” I asked, breaking the silence, happy to have a common issue we could discuss.
“Sometimes I wonder who my real parents are. But I don’t really care.” Cynthia shrugged and buried her head in her Nancy Drew book.
It now occurs to me that she probably didn’t care about being adopted as much as I did because she had our parents’ skin color. Besides, she had no recollection of a life without the Winstons. And I did.
“Why did you fight that girl?” I asked, determined to hold her attention.
“Didn’t you hear what she called you?”
“What’s a nigger?”
“I’ll answer that question,” Mom said, walking into the room with Dad.
The headmistress had contacted Dad about the fight, and he had picked us up from school after calling Mom at work.
“Racists in this country use this name to insult black people,” she said, taking a seat next to me.
“I don’t understand.”
“Those kids didn’t want you to sit with them because they don’t like people who are different.” Mom leaned back and crossed her legs. “They have a disease called racism. A lot of people in this country are infected with it. Dr. Martin Luther King is trying to cure them.” She touched my hand gently as she spoke.
“Are they in a hospital?”
Mom and Dad looked at each other, smiling at my confusion.
“Dr. King is not a medical doctor,” Dad explained. “It’s just like people call Margaret ‘doctor’ because of the degree of education she has earned.”
“How is Dr. King going to cure them?”
“With his ideas,” Mom answered. “He wants to make them understand we can live together no matter how different we are. But he doesn’t believe we can achieve that through violence.”
That evening, I overheard Mom and Dad’s whispering in the living room on my way to the kitchen to get a drink of water. I stopped to listen when I heard my name.
“I wonder if adopting Iris was the best thing for her,” Dad said.
“Why do you say that?”
“I don’t know if this country is ready for a black child living with a white family. I’m afraid she may suffer from more racist acts.” He took a deep breath and went on: “Maybe we’re taking this dream of little black and white children living happily together a bit too literally.”
“I still think she’s better off here than in Haiti.”
“What happened on the phone?”
“The father said he didn’t owe me any explanation, that liberals like us are ruining this country, and that life would be better here if we would leave Negroes where they belong.”
I didn’t want to hear anymore. Tears filled my eyes as I wondered where people like me belonged. The girl in the cafeteria said Africa.
Chapter 2
For the black man there is only one destiny.
—Frantz Fanon
I sat in the waiting room with Mom and Dad, trying to figure out why I had to see Dr. Connelly. Mom had said he was a different kind of doctor who was just going to talk to me.
“Is he going to give me shots?”
“No, no shots.”
“What is he going to do then?”
“He’s going to help you understand the things that bother you.”
“Nothing’s bothering me.”
“It’s good to have somebody to talk to,” Dad insisted.
“Why can’t I talk to you and Mom and Cynthia?”
“It’s not the same.”
Dr. Connelly looked like some of the professors at the university where Mom taught. He wore brown corduroy pants, a plaid shirt, and a brown tweed jacket with patches on the elbows. His gray hair matched his beard; his eyeglasses were perched on the tip of his nose. He sat in a black leather chair behind a desk, and held a pad and pen in his hand.
“You told me over the phone you adopted Iris when she was five. Is that right?”
“Yes,” answered Mom.
“Where is she from again?”
“Haiti,” Dad answered this time.
Dr. Connelly wrote on a yellow pad. “That’s where Papa Doc is, right?” He raised his head.
“Correct,” Dad said, nodding.
“Iris,” Dr. Connelly turned to me, “tell me how it feels to have a white family.”
I wondered why he needed to know, and I didn’t think it should be of any concern to him. So I offered no answer.
Turning to Mom and Dad, Dr. Connelly said, “It should be expected that a child would be traumatized when she’s taken away from her rudimentary living environment, put on an airplane, and brought to live with people who are different from her in every way.”
Mom straightened her back and pushed her hair behind her ear. “Iris has adjusted to her new life here,” she said, “and as you can see, she is fully Americanized.”
“Separation and loss may still be an issue,” Dr. Connelly explained. “I would like to speak with Iris alone. Please wait for her outside.” On their way out of the room, Mom smiled at me, and Dad touched my shoulder.
“Are you happy living with the Winstons?” Dr. Connelly asked.
“Yes.”
“What is it like to live with them?”
“Nice.”
“How old are you?”
“Eight.”
“Do you miss your Haitian mother?”
I swallowed hard to get rid of the lump in my throat that wouldn’t go away. I had been separated from my natural mother for three years and had learned to adjust to life without her. I didn’t like to think about her because I became sad whenever I did. I shrugged and looked away from Dr. Connelly, who raised his eyebrows and wrote again on his yellow pad.
“Can you draw a picture of your family for me?” he asked, handing me a piece of paper, a pencil, and a box of crayons.
A few minutes later, he examined the picture of the red house with four people standing in front of it. I had colored in all the faces.
“Who are these people?”
“Mom, Dad, Cynthia, and me.”
“Why does everyone have a beige face?”
I shrugged again.
“Think about it,” he said in a soft voice, leaning forward. Seconds went by, and I remained silent. “Tell me why,” he coaxed in an even softer voice.
“Because . . .” I uttered, thinking how I could get him to stop asking me questions.
“What’s that behind the house?”
“I don’t know.”
“It looks like a moon.”
“It