The mixed blessing, p.1
The Mixed Blessing, page 1
The Mixed Blessing
Helen Van Slyke
“Probing, moving, sensitive and realistic”
—ABILENE REPORTER
“A satisfying love story about an up-to-the-minute subject”
—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“An involved, emotion-packed and thoroughly entertaining saga”
—ANNISTON STAR
“Absorbing and appealing”
—SATURDAY EVENING POST
“The triumphant culmination of THE HEART LISTENS”
—BOOKLIST
For Harold
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
About the Author
Copyright
Prologue
Sunlight. She loved it so. The sun was life, as love was life, strong, vital and sensual, the very essence of existence. Even with her eyes closed Toni felt it dancing seductively across her body. At moments it became a solid rush of warmth, like a stream of concentrated energy, giving of its strength, renewing her with its infinite light. Then the golden particles became individual fingers, playing on her skin like a lover’s hands, searching, demanding, nudging her to responsiveness.
I am a child of the sun, Toni thought. All the peaceful moments, the joyous ones have been spent in its healing aura. Why did the poets, the lyricists equate the moon with romance? Starlight had its twinkling beauty, and utter darkness its sensuous cloak of mystery. But the moon was cold, empty, green-white with the pallor of death.
The thoughts were like extensions of the dream from which she slowly emerged. Lying under the sun she felt suspended, disembodied, a thing apart from herself. Half awake, she saw in her mind the innocent child she’d been, the loved and sheltered child secure in the fierce adoration of her parents. The image shifted slowly to the picture of a bewildered young woman, torn with guilts and confused by loyalties that stripped her of the most basic loyalty of all—that to herself.
As though she were watching a rerun of her life, she saw the years in which she searched for love, believing it within her grasp, only to see it torn from her by cruelty and rejection. Those were the moonlight years, Toni thought. The ones filled with cold fears and desolation, with losses more terrible than she thought she could bear.
But she had borne them, hiding the pain as best she could, groping her way back into the sunlight, finding it once again. And she had not been alone, neither in the icy depths of despair nor in the happy emergence into the light. There had been the people she loved, to soothe her with glorious moments of serenity and faith, to give her glimpses of ecstasy, to provide those smooth surfaces of joy that covered the pits of sorrow that lay like pockmarks on her soul.
Toni weighed the good and bad in her life like jewels against ugly stones. And the jewels generously tipped the balance in her favor.
She smiled.
Life was golden and good.
Like the sun.
Chapter 1
Charlene leaned across the front seat of the station wagon and opened the door on the passenger side.
“Be a good girl,” she said.
Seven-year-old Antoinette Jenkins gave her mother a quick kiss before she hopped out of the car and ran eagerly toward the grade school where her classmates were gathering. Halfway up the walk she turned and squinted into the sunshine of that bright morning. She waved happily at the smiling woman behind the wheel and then was swallowed up in the noisy, pushing, shoving mass of tiny humanity.
Antoinette loved school. But then, Antoinette loved everything about her life: the beautiful young mother, the handsome, adoring father, the modest but comfortable Pasadena house the three of them shared. She loved the uncomplaining invalid Elizabeth, her maternal grandmother, who lived serenely with a friend-companion in the big, beautiful house far up the California coast. Antoinette adored animals, flowers, her second-grade teacher and her neighborhood playmates, especially Karen Golden, her very best friend, with whom she shared her toys and her secrets.
In every way, Toni was a delight. She was a slim, sturdy child. Her small-boned frame belied robust health and stamina. The big, dark-brown eyes revealed a surprising depth of compassion and understanding in one so young. Her features were delicate, her mouth almost always upturned in pleasure, and her black curly hair was cropped short in the crisp “Greek-god cut” of the late 1950s which fashion models affected and which came naturally to her. The skin was ivory-colored, almost the same shade, she and her mother secretly agreed, as the morning mug of milk into which Charlene surreptitiously slipped a spoonful of coffee. Surreptitiously because Toni loved the taste and Jim disapproved of caffeine for children, not matter how minute and innocuous the amount.
There was no better word for her disposition than joyous, no more apt description for her grace and movements than the one her grandmother had pronounced when Toni was five.
“If butterflies walked instead of flew,” Elizabeth had observed, “they’d walk like Antoinette.”
It was true. She danced through her early days, happily unaware of what most of the world considered at best a burden and at worst a curse. Toni had no idea that she was what the scientific world called a “mulatto,” what her parents knew as a “mixed-marriage child” and what unfeeling strangers would ultimately call “nigger.”
She knew, of course, that her father’s skin was dark compared to her mother’s fair complexion. But it meant nothing to her in those first years of innocence. Her own was somewhere between the two. She could have been of Latin extraction. For that matter, she was even lighter than many of her little friends whose skin was burned deep mahogany by the blistering California sun. It never occurred to her that she was “different.” The all-white, upper-middle-class, somewhat conservative community in which she lived compassionately concealed the fact that they would have preferred, given a choice, that their neighborhood not be “integrated.” Most of them were long-time residents, second-generation Pasadenians as Charlene was. Their parents had known Elizabeth when she lived in the same house now occupied by her daughter, her granddaughter and her son-in-law. They were kind people. And if they did not “socialize” to any degree with Jim and Charlene Jenkins, neither did they make them feel uncomfortable. Charlene was a charming young woman. And Jim was a gentle, well-educated man who provided a better-than-average living for his family through his good job as an aeronautical engineer. It was unfortunate, the neighbors told each other privately, that Charlene had chosen to marry a black man and have a child. Unfortunate? It was incomprehensible. Almost frightening. But being basically well-mannered people, they did not communicate this to their own children. And so it was not until she was seven that Antoinette had her first confrontation with a very special kind of cruelty.
It happened at recess on the day that she had cheerfully waved goodbye to her mother. As usual, the second-grade class was turned out into the sunshine for half an hour of mid-morning play. As always, the boys went off by themselves to organize games of baseball or mumblety-peg or whatever mysterious things seven-year-old males did in groups. The girls had their own games: hopscotch and tag and hide-and-seek. Toni, about to join a group of rope skippers, suddenly saw a face that was unfamiliar to her, a sullen-looking little girl sitting alone on the school steps. Toni tugged at Karen’s sleeve and pointed at the small stranger.
“Who’s that?”
Karen shook her head. “I don’t know her name. She’s new.”
Toni frowned. “She looks lonesome. Let’s go over and see if she wants to play with us.”
Karen, always blissfully happy following Toni’s lead, nodded. Cautiously they approached the silent figure, who did not even look up.
“Hi!” Toni said. No answer.
“My name’s Toni Jenkins. And this is my friend Karen Golden. What’s your name?”
The little girl hesitated and when she spoke there was no friendliness in her voice. “Nadine Thompson,” she said finally. Then she raised her head. “What’s it to you? Go ’way.”
“Come on, Toni,” Karen said. “Miss Nadine Stuck-up Thompson doesn’t want to be friends.”
Toni didn’t move. She’d never met anyone who didn’t want to be friends. Maybe, she thought, Nadine is sick.
“Do you feel bad, Nadine? Should I call Miss Hanson? If you have a stomach ache, she can fix it.”
Nadine stood up. She was a big girl, bigger than Karen, much bigger than Toni.
“I don’t have a stomach ache,” she said. “I just hate it here. I hate this school. And I hate my father for bringing us here from New York. Now go away and leave me alone!”
Toni wo uldn’t be budged. “It must be awful to leave your friends, Nadine, but you’ll like it here. The kids are nice. Really they are. Come on. Play with us.”
Nadine’s face became even uglier. “I don’t play with colored kids. Back home we keep them where they belong, in Harlem. I know about you, Toni Jenkins. Your father’s black. You’re a nigger.” She began to hop around a bewildered Toni. “Eeny meeny miney mo. Catch a nigger by the toe! If he hollers let him go! Eeny meeny miney mo!” Nadine was enjoying herself. “Eeny meeny miney mo. Toni’s a nigger ain’t that so?” Over and over she repeated the phrase, pleased with her own interpretation of the horrid rhyme.
Toni and Karen stood rooted to the ground. They had never heard of “niggers” or some place called Harlem. All they knew was that this new schoolmate was angry with Toni for some reason they could not understand. The words were strange but the tone was terrible. Karen began to cry. Toni stood dry-eyed, looking at Nadine as though she were some weird creature, frightening and ugly. A crowd had gathered now, drawn by Nadine’s high-pitched chant. Some of the children looked at her curiously. Others watched Toni. Quite a few knew what the words meant, but with the cruelty of children, none stepped forward to silence Toni’s tormentor.
It was Miss Hanson, calling them in from recess who discovered what was going on and quickly snatched Nadine away. Out of hearing of the others, she took Nadine by the shoulders and gave her a little shake.
“You bad child! What a naughty thing to do, Nadine!”
She was met by defiance. “Why was it bad? It’s true, isn’t it? Toni’s father is a nigger.”
Miss Hanson wanted to strike her.
“Where did you hear such a thing?”
“From my mother.”
“And did your mother teach you to say cruel things to your schoolmates?”
Nadine stood her ground. “She doesn’t want me to play with people like that. In New York I went to a private school. The black kids went to public schools.” She wrinkled her nose as though she smelled something bad. “Like this one,” she added.
Miss Hanson released her. “Please tell your mother that I’d like to have a talk with her. I’ll send home a note with you this afternoon.”
Slowly, sorrowfully, Miss Hanson returned to the classroom. In the second row, Toni Jenkins sat unusually still. Beside her, Karen continued to smile. I’ll talk to Mrs. Thompson, the teacher thought, and I’d better talk to Mrs. Jenkins as well. That will be even harder.
When she came home that afternoon, Toni headed straight for her room with barely more than a “Hi, Mommy” to Charlene, who was working in the garden. Charlene, trowel in hand, sat back on her heels and looked after the straight-backed little figure disappearing so quickly into the house. It was out of character for Antoinette to rush by her that way, as though she wanted to avoid conversation. Their pattern was always a hug and a kiss, an account of the school day, some companionable chatter about her classmates or her teacher or Karen. It occurred to Charlene that she and Toni approached each other on an unusually adult level. That came, Charlene supposed, of Toni being an only child who was used to, and felt at ease with, adults. It was also, Charlene speculated, because there was only twenty years’ difference in their ages. She smiled to herself at the phrase “only twenty years.” It still represented another generation with inherent problems of communication.
For a moment she considered following Toni to find out what was wrong. It was obvious that something had seriously upset her. But Charlene didn’t move. Slowly, she went back to digging in the rose bed. Even at seven she has a right to privacy, her mother thought. Charlene was a great respecter of privacy. Being married to Jim had taught her how precious was the right to be one’s own person, to consider and solve one’s own problems without the interference, no matter how well meant, of others. As she carefully loosened the soil around the plants she reflected that all living things had to have room to breathe. She would not smother her daughter with concern. When Toni was ready to talk about whatever was on her mind, she would.
It was not until the three of them were at dinner that Charlene found out what it was all about. Toni had been silent during the meal but her mother, unobtrusively watching her, noticed that she ate well. Whatever was wrong was not physical.
During dessert Toni, looking down at her plate, suddenly said, “Daddy?”
“Yes, honey?”
“What’s a nigger?”
Charlene gasped. “Antoinette!”
Jim gave her a little signal to be quiet. In a calm, measured voice he said, “A nigger is a vulgar way of referring to a Negro, a person with black skin.” He waited.
“Are you a nig … a Negro, Daddy?”
“Yes, I am, Toni.”
Charlene wanted to cry out, to ask what had happened today. She wanted more than this constrained exchange of slow-moving questions and answers. But Jim’s eyes sent her a silent message to stay out of it. A few endless seconds passed while Toni considered this piece of information.
“Mommy’s not a Negro, is she?”
“No,” Jim said. “She belongs to the white race.”
The adults could almost see the child’s mind absorbing this new information, adding it up, bringing it back to herself.
“Then if I’m your child half of me is Negro,” Toni said. For the first time she looked directly at her father. Jim looked back, unflinchingly. The tone of his voice did not change.
“That’s right, darling. Half of you is.”
Charlene could contain herself no longer. “Toni, what’s this all about? What happened today?”
The whole story of Nadine Thompson came pouring out, told not in terms of self-pity but in an amazingly orderly fashion.
“Karen cried, but I didn’t” Toni said proudly. “And Miss Hanson is sending a note to Mrs. Thompson. She told me after school that she wanted to talk to you, too, Mommy.” The child paused. “Is it bad to be like me? Is that why Miss Hanson’s going to call you? Did I do something wrong?”
Charlene bit her lips to hold back the tears. She wanted to rush to her baby, to assure her that none of them had done anything wrong, to try to explain how people felt about mixed marriages and the product of them. But the words wouldn’t come. She looked at Jim, begging for his help. Her husband rose from his seat at the table and as though Antoinette were a grown woman he pulled back her chair and said, “Let’s all go in the living room and talk this over.”
Seated beside her on the sofa, Jim took his child’s hand and began to speak very matter-of-factly.
“Toni, you know there are different races, don’t you? There are white people and black ones and yellow-skinned ones like Chinese and American Indians who are called redskins. You’ve read about them in school, haven’t you?”
She nodded solemnly.
“Well,” Jim said, “these people may look different on the outside but underneath they are all the same, all human beings with things about them that are good and things that are bad. They are born with their color. There’s nothing they can do about that. I was born black and your mother white, but that had nothing to do with the kind of people we turned out to be. It didn’t affect our minds or manners or the way we look at things. It is simply something over which we had no control. Intelligent people, nice people, understand that. They judge us for the way we behave, accept or reject us for the things we contribute to the world. They don’t care about the color of our skins any more than they’d care if we had big noses or ears that stuck out.”
Toni frowned. “Then why did Nadine say mean things about you and me, Daddy?”
“Because, unfortunately, there are a great many people who must consider themselves superior to people who aren’t like them. It’s a kind of protection for them, honey. They need something to make them feel important and better than the next guy. They must have someone to look down on. It’s called prejudice. That’s a big word for such a little girl, but you’ve run up against it for the first time, so you’d best understand it. The Thompsons are prejudiced people and they’ve made the sad mistake of giving their little girl their same wrong values. They don’t like black people. And it upsets them terribly when Negroes come into their lives. People like that are especially angry when a Negro man marries a nice white woman. And even more so when they have a beautiful child like you.”
