Gold, Fire & Refinement

Chapter Sixteen

"Who you are speaks so loudly I can't hear what you're saying." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Bettina started talking faster, like she had to get everything she wanted to say said before some invisible timer chimed. "I knew he'd been dating you," she said. "Drake told me that. But I thought it was just another fling with another exotic, different-looking black girl. He'd done that before, you see. Many times. I thought it was just something he needed to do every once in a while to get something out of his system. Some white men are like that. Something held over from slavery time, no doubt. You see, things happened, for hundreds of years on plantations like this one. Men sometimes sowed their ... "wild oats" with slave women. They committed wrongs against white women ... and all their wives could do was suffer in silence. Decent white women had to just put up with their husbands' infidelity. I'm sure you know all about that messy business, though. More likely than not, white men cheat'n is why you look the way you do."

Zarah's face wasn't revealing any emotion. She knew Bettina was trying to make her angry. She felt like telling the old woman everything she knew about Harvey's African genes. The look on Grandma Betty's face would be priceless, she thought, if she survived it without dying of a heart attack. It was only the promise she made to Harvey never to talk about it that kept her from lighting the deadliest stick of dynamite she'd ever held.

"I'm old now," Bettina said. "Set in my ways. I hoped to have at least one white granddaughter-in-law in my family. Thought Harvey Evan would surely give me that. He married a white woman once, so I had no doubt he'd marry another one after he divorced Dinah. I was certain I would have a few pure white great-grandchildren before I pass away. I believe I would have too, if he hadn't met you before he could meet another nice white girl. I mean, you can color your hair blonde all you want and act like you think you're white, but you're not."

Zarah stood up, put her hands on her hips, and stared hard at the maternal grandmother of her  fiancé. "Well," she said. "If you're an example of what being white means, then white is the last thing I'd ever want to be. And just so you know? I was born with blonde hair. White people don't own it. And even if I hadn't been? I'm free to color my hair blonde, blue, pink, or green if I want. I'm even free to marry the man I love ... without your permission. I'm free to do whatever the hell I want with my life with no interference from you." She sat back down.

Bettina McNeese didn't acknowledge having heard what she said. "I never expected you to understand, but before I leave this world for good," she rested a hand on her left breast, "I'd like to have some great-grandchildren to love."

"You have four," Zarah said. "Tyler and Laura have four children, two little girls and twin boys. And Ashley and Phoebe? They have your eyes. And those boys? The twins? They look a lot like your husband Mrs. McNeese. How can you ignore your own daughter's grandchildren?"

"It's one of my dreams to see my daughter's pure white lineage carried on. In white great-grandchildren. That's what I want and I won't apologize to anyone for wanting it."

"Believe it or not," Zarah said. "I think I understand. My children probably won't have my father's beautiful dark-brown skin. But I love your grandson, Mrs. McNeese. And he's the man I want to be the father my children."

Bettina looked down at the floor. "I'm not wrong for wanting white great-grandchildren. And I'm not wrong for begging you to step aside. Please leave my grandson. This could be my last wish." Looking toward Zarah, she attempted a smile. "This could be my last wish."

"I don't mean any disrespect," Zarah said, without smiling. "But your grandson has the right to choose who he wants to marry. Even if I left him tonight, you still wouldn't be able to choose a wife for him. And by the way? There's no such thing as a 'pure white person' or a 'pure black person' in America or anywhere else. We're all mixed. And ... by the way? Every white person on this planet is a descendant of a black person." Never before had she wanted to yell out loud the Wilson family secret, but she held back. For Harvey.