“It’s when someone owns someone else.”
I watch the little girl turn this over in her head. “Like a pet?”
Kennedy puts her hand on my arm. “You don’t have to do this,” she says quietly.
“Don’t you think I already had to, once?” I glance at her daughter again. “Kind of like a pet, but also different. A long time ago, people who looked like you and your mama and daddy found a place in the world where people looked like me, and like Edison, and like Taisha. And we were doing things so fine there—building homes, and cooking food, making something out of nothing—that they wanted it in their country too. So they brought over the people who looked like me, without asking our permission. We didn’t have a choice. So a slave—that’s just someone who doesn’t have a choice in what they do, or what’s done to them.”
Violet sets down her crayon. Her face is twisted in thought.
“We weren’t the first slaves,” I tell her. “There are stories in a book I like, called the Bible. The Egyptians made Jewish people slaves who would build temples for them that looked like huge triangles, and were made out of bricks. They were able to make the Jewish people slaves because the Egyptians were the ones with the power.”
Then, like any other four-year-old, Violet bounces back to her spot beside my son. “Let’s color Rapunzel instead,” she announces—but then she hesitates. “I mean,” she corrects, “do you want to color Rapunzel?”
“Okay,” Edison says.
I may be the only person who notices, but while I’ve been explaining, he has taken off that chain from his neck and slipped it into his pocket.
“Thank you,” Micah says, sincere. “That was a really perfect Black history lesson.”
“Slavery isn’t Black history,” I point out. “It’s everyone’s history.”
A timer goes off, and Kennedy stands up. When she goes into the kitchen, I murmur something about wanting to help her and follow her. Immediately, she turns, her cheeks burning. “I am so, so sorry for that, Ruth.”
“Don’t be. She’s a baby. She doesn’t know any better yet.”
“Well, you did a much better job explaining than I ever would have.”
I watch her reach into the oven for a lasagne. “When Edison came home from school and asked if we were slaves, he was about the same age as Violet. And the last thing I wanted was to have that talk and leave him feeling like a victim.”
“Violet told me last week she wished she could be just like Taisha, because she gets to wear beads in her hair.”
“What did you say?”
Kennedy hesitates. “I don’t know. I probably bungled it. I said something about how everyone’s different and that’s what makes the world great. I swear, when she asks me things about race I turn into a freaking Coke commercial.”
I laugh. “In your defense, you probably don’t talk about it quite as much as I do. Practice makes perfect.”
“But you know what? When I was her age, I had a Taisha in my class too—except her name was Lesley. And God, I wanted to be her. I used to dream that I’d wake up Black. No joke.”
I raise my brows in mock horror. “And give up your winning lottery ticket? No way.”
She looks at me, and we both laugh, and in that instant we are merely two women, standing over a lasagne, telling the truth. In that instant, with our flaws and confessions trailing like a slip from a dress, we have more in common than we have differences.
I smile, and Kennedy smiles, and for that moment, at least, we really, really see each other. It’s a start.
Suddenly Edison comes into the kitchen holding out my cellphone. “What’s the matter?” I tease. “Don’t tell me you were fired because you made Ariel a brunette?”
“Mama, it’s Ms. Mina,” he says. “I think you better take it.”
—