Black Cake(77)

Byron is still standing at the counter when the night sky gives way to a morning gray. There’s no time to sleep. Charles Mitch is due back at the house in two hours to finish playing his mother’s recording. But first, Byron needs to talk to Lynette. Though he isn’t sure what to say. How does he get her to understand how much he wants to see her again? How much he wants to watch this child of his grow up, to keep him safe in these times. How he needs her to spell it out for him, tell him what to do, tell him what she really wants.

How he realizes he’s been getting it wrong for years, not quite knowing how to be there for the people he loves.

Once he’s cleaned and dressed, Byron dials Lynette’s number. Her phone rings and rings. He calls again but she still doesn’t answer. Heart hammering, Byron grabs his car keys and pulls open the back door, but Mr. Mitch is already here, coming up the driveway.





Who I Am





B and B, I don’t know how you will feel after hearing everything that I’ve had to say. I ran away, I changed my name, I invented a past. Until now, you children didn’t really know where I had come from or how I had lived before coming to the United States. You had no idea that you had an older sister. You may be upset about this, I can see that. You may be asking yourself if you can ever really know who I am, if you can believe anything that I say. When your father died, I, too, had my moments where I thought, who am I? What’s left of me? But then I came to realize that the answer had been there all along, right in front of me. And this is what I need you two to understand: You have always known who I am. Who I am is your mother. This is the truest part of me.





Marble





When Marble gets the message from Eleanor Bennett’s lawyer, she is leaning her head back under a stream of warm water while the hairdresser rinses fake-pineapple suds from her hair. She’s in one of those salons that specializes in hair extensions for African women in Rome, the term africana, in this case, not referring to the continent but a wide range of clients from any number of countries in Africa, Europe, and the Americas.

Marble isn’t the only non-africana who comes to this shop. There are always a couple of women who know they can get a good deal on quality hair extensions, or people who, like Marble, are relieved to have found a parrucchiere who actually knows how to work with their thick, springy hair. Marble loves her slovenly hours at the beauty shop, chair-dancing to the music on the audio system and trading quips with the chatty mix of black and brown and parchment-colored women who form this small, multilingual community.

Marble feels the buzz of her mobile phone through her purse. Once her hair is wrapped in a towel, she reaches into the mouth of her handbag and taps the screen of the phone. She reads the email a couple of times. The subject heading is Estate of Eleanor Bennett. The lawyer would like to schedule a telephone call to speak with her about a confidential matter of relevance to Marble regarding this Bennett woman. From the wording of the email, Marble might not have guessed right away. Had she been petite and blond, like her mummy, she might not have guessed right away. Had she not been living with a growing sense of unease about her identity, she might not have guessed right away.

She sets up a call with the American lawyer for the next day, and afterward she just sits there, trembling. She must fight the urge to call her mother in London. Her mum is the first person Marble thinks of whenever she needs to talk. It has always been this way, even when her husband was still alive. But this is not the kind of news that a daughter can share with her mother by telephone. This is not the kind of anger a daughter should express by telephone. She swipes at the phone’s screen and starts looking up flights. She needs to go to London tonight.





Wanda





Wanda and Ronald Martin are just sitting down to supper in their London townhouse when they hear someone wiping their shoes on the doormat outside. It’s Marble. They recognize the weight and drag of those feet. They recognize the way she presses her finger against the doorbell.

“I didn’t know she was in London.”

“Nor did I.”

“Why doesn’t she let herself in?”

“Maybe she left her keys in Rome.”

Wanda pulls open the front door, her chest swelling with the feeling that the arrival of her daughter always brings, but when she sees Marble’s face, everything falls inward. She knows, instantly, why her daughter is here unannounced.

Fifty years.

Their daughter is almost fifty years old.

Wanda had hoped that after five decades, they’d be safe.

Wanda had hoped that she and Ronald would never need to have this conversation with Marble, this talk about another woman, a young, unwed mother from the Caribbean. Their daughter’s birth mother. Wanda’s true life began when she took little Mabel into her arms all those years ago. Now, looking at her daughter’s face, Wanda fears that the charmed life that she and Ronald and their child have lived all these years is about to crumble.





Benny





What a strange feeling. Benny is about to meet her long-lost sister for the first time. Marble Martin is coming to the United States and, after several weeks in New York, Benny is on her way back to California to join Byron. When Benny first heard the name Marble in her mother’s recording, it had seemed familiar to her, but it had taken a while for her to place it.