“You could have just told us a long time ago.”
“It caused me a lot of pain finding out Kitty was my mother. Seeing how close all of you were to her, I knew how it would make you feel.” Sarah dropped her head between her palms. “I miss her so much, but her death—God, strike me down for feeling this way—it relieved me from the heaviness I’ve felt my whole life.”
Tears streaked down her bronzed cheeks. She seemed embarrassed to cry but wasn’t in control of it anymore.
In a gesture that surprised them both, Elise got up to hug her.
“How did you find out?”
“She came to the hospital when you were born, broke down crying, and just blurted it. Your grandma Nellie was furious. They started arguing, and Kitty left. Your grandma tried to tell me everything she knew but having just had you, I didn’t want to hear it. I couldn’t empathize with Kitty’s decision to give me up.”
Elise challenged this. “But you didn’t really want kids.” Her mother’s admission on a public stage had felt like betrayal, because they would have drowned in the cocoon of extremity had it not been for their grandma Nellie and Kitty who, like a fairy godmother, took the reins after Nellie’s death.
“I wasn’t itching for motherhood but, Elise, when you came into this world, you were mine.”
“You were seldom around.”
Both Nellie and Kitty had begged Sarah to work less, but neither challenged her or forced her to listen. They just continued picking up the slack with her children. Sarah ate dinner at home maybe twice a month but always returned with gifts. After a long absence, she’d pick them up early from school for a trip to Disneyland, or surprise their class with an ice cream truck. One time they went on a hot-air balloon ride. She was the perfect mother in these moments—attentive, generous, and gregarious—but they didn’t happen often and after Grandma Nellie died, never. There was cruelty in her rejection. Sarah didn’t suffer her ambivalence about motherhood in silence.
“I could have done things differently, but I think you can now understand how demanding acting can be. I was booked for years, Elise. But coming home to you and your sisters was always my greatest joy.” She paused before a bit of comedic relief. “Cut me some slack. Fuck—I labored for what felt like days to have you naturally, only to find out I couldn’t.”
Elise scrunched her face, knowing the rest. Sarah’s hip bones never adjusted for delivery; she’d had an emergency C-section and then two more, and had the keloid scars to prove it.
“So, to go through hell for none of the joy? I couldn’t understand it. I don’t see how she couldn’t have kept me.”
“What did Grandma Nellie say?” Elise sat down next to her.
“She left it alone. She understood my anger and respected my decision when I refused to see Kitty, or let her see you, until your first birthday party. She only saw you then because she crashed your party, knowing I wouldn’t make a scene.”
Picturing it, Elise emitted a sad giggle.
“She started showing up more to see Nellie. We just tried to be as polite to each other as possible.”
“You never talked about it again?”
Sarah looked regretful. “She tried several times, but I didn’t see the point. I tried to repair our relationship when my mother died, but Kitty wouldn’t leave it alone.”
Elise remembered her mother and Kitty going shopping and out to lunch in the months after Grandma Nellie died. These outings quickly drew paparazzi attention, and their sitcom, cancelled in 1979, was put back in syndication. Soon after, Sarah started another film and detached again.
“I thought we could have a relationship, but being around her always ended up making me angry.”
“You never suspected it until she told you?”
Sarah chuckled. “I’ve asked myself that many times.”
Elise had suspected something. She could never name it—and never would have guessed the truth—but had always sensed there was something more behind Nellie and Kitty’s bickering. Sometimes it was over Jeopardy! or a board game, but the underlying quarrel always centered on their dueling philosophies about raising the girls. They argued about everything: how they liked their oatmeal prepared, what their favorite books and colors were, how they liked to wear their hair. It made Elise—who, as the oldest, was the only one with an accurate pulse on her sisters’ picky and abrupt changes in preference and interest—nervous. There were many times she wanted to correct one or both of them, only to sit back, feeling their argument wasn’t about the thing they said it was.
The polarities, Sarah admitted, had inflicted an undercurrent of sadness that left her confused about her place in the world. “I had the mother who raised me and the one who gave me this incredible life that everyone dreams of. One was White and the other was Black. My Black mother was comfortable thanks to my rich White mother. When my mother died, I felt disloyal for loving Kitty so much. I wanted Kitty’s attention and to please her in a way I never felt the need to do with my own mother.”
“She was a star. You looked up to her.”
“I’ve often felt she gave me this life as an apology,” Sarah said. “As if fame and wealth would surpass any possible longing for what I missed.”
“Did it?” Elise said.
“Until I found out she was my mother.” Her tone changed. “I should be grateful. There are millions of talented Black women. Kitty gave me my start, and the sad truth is she only had the opportunity—to make things better for her kin—because she pretended to be White. So I kept Kitty’s secrets, because of what was at stake. Our livelihoods, and thus our lives, were on the line.”
Elise nodded, understanding the dilemma. Sarah pushed her plate to the side and began to swivel James’s gold wedding ring, which was on her left thumb. He always gave it to her before departing for the studio, to avoid the risk of scratching it and his equipment. When her hand began to shake, Elise reached for her.
“Mom, we don’t have to talk about this anymore. But I do have to tell you something,” she started, but Sarah stopped her.
“Let me finish. The night she died, I got this urge to go see her. I laid next to her and held her hand.” Sarah wiped her eyes. “About an hour or so later, she stopped breathing. I could feel the air leave the room.” Sarah teared again. “I should have come earlier. You were right.”
“I was so angry at you. I thought you missed it.”
“You’re always so angry at me. But don’t you remember? I woke you.”
Elise’s grief had made her forget.
“Mom, we’re going to have to tell people about Kitty.”
Sarah shook her head so hard, the horn, secured with dozens of bobby pins, finally shifted. “The safest thing is leaving her White.”
“‘Safest’? She didn’t commit a crime.”
“It could be argued that what Kitty did was fraud, and if that happens, your inheritance could be in jeopardy.”
“No one would dare make that case and open the studio up to that kind of scrutiny. They’d all look like racists. Can you imagine? The boycotts, the hashtags?”
“Elise, there are some things that are just best left unsaid, unspoken. The more things change, the more they stay the same. People don’t like to be reminded of their shame. You’ll be at the center of a controversy you can’t stop.”
“It wouldn’t be a controversy—”
“You see how they’ve been acting now! We can talk about her being my mother and your grandmother, but not that she was Black.”
Elise was puzzled. “How do we get around that?”
“We’ll say Kitty had an affair, and I’m the product of it. She gave me up for adoption, told everyone I was dead. But she can’t be Black.”
“So tarnishing her reputation is better?”
“Kitty wanted to be White. Die White.”
“She told you that?”
“Well, she didn’t give up her Whiteness for me.”
“She had to protect herself then—her money, her name.”
“And so do you. It isn’t worth gambling your Oscar over. You see Kitty didn’t.”
“I don’t care about winning.”