Empathy

Chapter Twelve

"I heard from Gemma what one of your classmates called you today," Mom opened with as soon she got home from work. I looked up from her from my place on my bed, taking out my earbuds.

"What?" I asked, pretending to be confused for my mom's benefit.

Her hair in a bun always meant business and when it wasn't taken out as soon as she got home, that business went to her children.

Mom walked over to me from my doorway. "How did Gemma find out?" My sister is a two grades below me and a little over a year younger than me. So how in the seven hells could she possibly have found that out? None of her friends were in my grade.

Mom sat down on the edge of my bed. She pulled her hair out of the bun, natural red cascading down in voluminous waves that I used to envy but now no longer thought necessary.

"Peri told her," my mother stated. My eyebrows furrowed. Peri?

"Since when did Peri tell Gemma anything?" I asked. "Since when were they close?"

Mom shrugged. "Who knows? But what is important, Sweetheart, is that someone in your class called you "mixed trash". How did you not think that I wouldn't find out about this, Marvel Rae?"

It was my turn to shrug. "I didn't think the situation was important."

My mom's mouth opened slightly in disbelief. "No, no... honey. Stuff like this is always important. No one should treat you differently for having a darker skin tone," she told me, placing a hand on one of my own, which were tangled in my sheets.

"Mom, people will treat me differently because of it. I may be mostly white, but there will always be a part of me that's colored," I said. I tugged my hand away from her, holding me in my safe place where no could get to me. "And I've gotten used to it, it's fine."

Mom shook her head. "It is not fine. People are people no matter what you look like. You being mixed makes you unique. You're a part of your father and me. I made a promise to your father that I would take care of the race issue the best I can." Mom paused, trying to find the right words to say. "I just never thought shit like this would still be going on."

"Mom, you can't quite understand this because you don't have the same experience," I said, trying to make her feel better. I really did appreciate that my very white mother was trying to fix this, but there was nothing to fix, just to understand. "I know one other person who understands what it's like to be mixed and looked down upon."

"Your aunt or possibly your sister?" Mom guessed.

I shook my head. "Well, yes, but not just them. Luna, too."

"Hi, Ms. Cheng," I said as the door opened up at Luna's house. After the "trash" fiasco as Mom and I dubbed it, I had called Luna up to talk to her and she had me come over to her house and eat dinner. Of course I said yes. On Friday of this week. It was rather chilly out tonight, being that it was closer to October now, the time of Spookiness as Peri called it. I clutched my sweatshirt closer to my body to trap in the heat that slowly leaked from it, like a faucet.

I walked up to Luna's front door and rang the bell. I waited for less than a minute before the door opened, revealing a beautiful Asian woman, Luna's mother. She grinned sweetly at me, her white teeth practically blinding me. I waved at her. "Hi, Ms. Cheng. You're looking lovely this evening," I addressed.

Ms. Kathleen Cheng was Luna's Chinese mother, a woman of very high standards. She wasn't new to the United States, far from it actually. She was, I believe, a third generation American. She worked at the local hospital as a child therapist, where her husband, Dr. Melrose, also worked as a general surgeon. So it was safe to say that Luna was pretty well off but didn't flaunt it like most people in her situation would. She was just too down to earth for shit like that.