When I Was White

by Sarah Valentine

  “What are you saying?” I asked, exhausted, from the middle row. “Do you suspect foul play?”

  “Basically,” Tom said.

  “The autopsy report was only given to Paula,” my father said in an even tone with a hint of exhaustion. He had been silent for most of the drive. “By law, the doctors can only give it to her.”

  My mother sneered and rolled her eyes. She lowered her head and pinched the bridge of her nose like she was trying to stave off a migraine or the world’s everlasting stupidity.

  “You think Paula mismanaged his care?” I asked.

  “It wouldn’t be appropriate to ask her for the autopsy report, not now,” my father said.

  My mother gave him a look of hurt that said, Why do you always take her side?

  As we exited the New Jersey Turnpike, I remembered the sights and smells from my childhood: the weathered shingled roofs, the salty ocean air.

  Long Beach Island was a thread of sand six miles at sea and less than a mile wide. The last time I was there was three years earlier for my grandmother’s funeral; she was the one I was named for. She and Pop divorced years ago, and in her final years, my father moved her from her home with my aunt to a nursing home in Wexford. She wanted to be cremated and buried on LBI. I wondered how my father felt having lost both parents.

  Michael was an adult when he lost his parents, but when his mother died, he said sadly, “I’m an orphan.”

  We arrived at the beachfront motel, the Drifting Sands, where all the out-of-town relatives would be staying, late in the evening. The building was faded yellow with chipped white banisters and staircases lining the first and second floors. It abutted the soft, sloping dunes on which grew long stalks of seagrass fenced off by thin, dark stakes secured with rows of twisted wire that were so familiar from my youth.

  Everything here was familiar: the overcast sky, the murmur and crash of the cold Atlantic waves beyond the dunes, the path at the end of the road where asphalt gave way to sand and we’d climb the small slope, past the single wooden bench that marked the entrance to the beach, and run down from the sand that was hot, soft, and deep to the cool, firm, wet sand at the water’s edge. The difference was that we were no longer children.

  As we got out of the car into the red August evening, my father complained about a pain in his leg, and my mother became sullen, saying, “It doesn’t matter,” meaning that none of her questions about the circumstances leading to my grandfather’s death were answered. The pain for which I’d recently gone on prescription medication gnawed at my neck and back and was made worse by the long car ride and the stress I felt at being at the mercy of my parents’ arguing. Pat, who wore a thick but groomed beard, stood with the easy upright posture of one who meditated often. Tommy cracked ironic jokes, and Julie said she was craving Twizzlers. We had no plastic pails and shovels, no folded rainbow-colored beach chairs, no bathing suits, no beach badges. We each rolled our suitcases to the foot of the motel steps while my dad went into the office to get our room keys.

  Long Beach Island was a different species of beach from those on the West Coast. Santa Monica beach was wide and flat, the ocean calm and warm. The Pacific Palisades rose along the coastline in the distance, like an idyllic landscape from a film. The water was deep-blue green, the sun yellow like a child’s drawing.

  Here, everything about the beach was shaded in half tones. That evening, the sand was cold and felt like sugar. Tracks from sandpipers made the faintest imprint on the dunes, as if they were almost weightless, like tracks in newly fallen snow. There was softness in the flimsy stake fences, the shaggy dune grass. Even at night, the black of the sea and sky were more charcoal gray, more purplish blue.

  Not much had changed since my childhood. Patrick and I trudged up the same small dune from the road, sand filling my flip-flops, until we reached the small peak where the dunes ended and the beach began, sloping gently down to the ocean.

  The ocean was rugged and full of energy, even at dusk. Only a few couples stood around the water’s edge; farther down, a family was flying a kite. I couldn’t make out their faces; they were all looking at the water. I remembered when I was little, running down to the water with my brother carrying plastic buckets shaped like sandcastles. We slopped wet sand into the buckets, imagining the feat of engineering we would create when we brought them back to our blankets, carrying them gingerly back up the beach so as not to spill. We smoothed the foundation, swept pebbles and cigarette butts out of the way, and overturned the heavy buckets.

  Once we sorted out our rooms, my father rounded my brothers, Julie, and me up to go to a dinner hosted by Paula at the home she and my grandfather had shared for the last fifteen years. Our family referred to it as Pop’s house or the house on Sixteenth Street even though the house belonged to Paula.

  “Mommy isn’t coming,” my dad said when we got back into the Yukon.

  Thirty-six

  We were death itself as we stepped out of the hulking Yukon, six black-clad figures slanting against the sunlight.

  The ride to St. Francis was silent. The New Jersey day was bright, the sun bearing down with no shade, hotter than usual for August on Long Beach Island. Our heavy black clothes stood out even more, incongruous with the day’s radiance. Sweat beaded behind my sunglasses.

  The church was high ceilinged with cream-colored walls and long stained-glass windows. The altar stood in the middle, and before it two columns of pews stretched back to the church’s main entrance. The crucifix above the altar held the figure of a serene, white-robed Jesus, not in the agony of death but already risen.

  The memorial objects were arranged on the right side of the altar, with the box containing Pop’s ashes on a small white-clothed podium, large framed photographs of my young grandfather around the base. The altar was covered with floral arrangements; white roses in the shape of a heart, purple and yellow flowers in the shape of the Rotary Club’s wheel logo, and more roses, lilies, and carnations.

  The scene was dramatically different from my grandmother’s funeral a few years before. It was a cold March morning; a single rose and photograph stood near the urn. Only a few of us dotted the pews.

  Now the church was full with family members arriving from Pop’s and Paula’s sides to give their condolences to the receiving line in front of the altar: Paula, my aunt Kathleen, my father, his brothers Steven and John, and Paula’s four daughters, Debbie, Patty, Karen, and Caroline.

  My mother sat in the pew in front of me, and I could tell by her set jaw that she felt she should be part of that line.

  Paula was tan and fit, with short gray hair and glasses. I expected to see her pale and weepy or fragile and distant, maybe even needing a family member’s support to walk, but she was in charge as usual, even today. She wore a black pleated skirt and a short-sleeved top with white, pink, and red polka dots. Her eyes were red but clear, and before taking her place in the line, she walked around handing out small packets of tissues to other family members. She approached my mother and offered a packet, but my mother turned away, her face stony.

  I reached out and took the tissues from Paula and whispered the only condolence I could give. “I’m so sorry.”

  After an hour, everyone took their seats.

  “That looked exhausting,” I said to my uncle Steven as he returned from the receiving line and sat in the pew behind me. I hadn’t seen Steven in over a decade. He looked like my father but with piercing blue eyes that always seemed a little sad. He introduced me to his girlfriend, Dana, who was the only other African American in the church. I wondered if she recognized me or wondered how I was his niece with no other black people present. I wondered if she felt as alienated as I did in the sea of old white faces. Maybe she guessed I was adopted, or maybe she was counting the minutes until this whole thing was over.

  The music began. To my surprise, under the priest’s vestments he wore the brown cassock of a Franciscan monk and waterproof hiking sandals. I’d only attended mass led by priests
who wore a black-and-white collar and black trousers below their colorful vestments. Without realizing it, I’d felt a kind of comfort in the formal, conservative appearance of the priests I knew from childhood; it echoed the spirituality and solemnity of the mass, which, despite my disagreement with most other things about the Catholic Church, I’d always respected. Father Steve wore his white hair in a buzz cut like a retired quarterback.

  Looking at Father Steve and his monk’s attire, it occurred to me that this was the St. Francis Parish my grandfather had been involved with since we were kids. He was always doing charity work in the church and community organizing. Every year when we were young, we would receive a T-shirt for the annual St. Francis eighteen-mile run. Standing in the pew waiting for the processional to end, I wondered if the race still went on, and if so, what color the T-shirts were this year.

  When we were seated, my aunt Kathleen approached the podium to read the eulogy, my father, red-eyed, standing behind her for support. She began with a quotation from Robert Frost, who—unbeknownst to me—was one of my grandfather’s favorite poets. With a breaking voice, she read from “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”:

  The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,

  But I have promises to keep,

  And miles to go before I sleep,

  And miles to go before I sleep.

  As many do, perhaps unconsciously, she inserted the word lonely for lovely. It seemed like a more fitting image: the poem’s speaker alone at night, staring into a cold, dark forest before traveling on. It fit better with the occasion; it fit with the way we all felt at that moment.

  My brother and I gave readings. I went second, and when I reached the podium, looking out into a sea of sad, mostly unfamiliar faces, I realized I was more nervous than I expected I’d be. After all, I lectured to classes of 150 students. I was used to standing in front of a crowd. But this was different. I was aware of my own difference in a roomful of people I was supposed to be related to but was not. Great-aunts and uncles I hadn’t seen since I was a child looked at me as if I were a stranger. In the program, I noticed that my mother had rendered my name as Sarah (Dunn) Valentine, perhaps so people would remember who I was; perhaps so that I would.

  After the readings and gospel, Father Steve began his homily.

  “Sometimes it seems like the wood is lonely, dark, and deep, but Bob’s wood was not lonely, nor was it dark or deep. His wood, his life, was full of love. Just look around.” He gestured toward all of us, the pews packed even to the back row, even the section located to the side of the altar. Most of these were people from the community, other retirees who knew my grandfather as “Bob.”

  The priest’s sentiment was sincere, but the wording sounded off. I elbowed Pat gently, eyebrows raised, and he replied by imperceptibly shaking his head and slightly rolling his eyes as if to say, Figures. I even heard my mother chuckle slightly in the pew in front of us. Later, in our motel room, over a bag of Twizzlers, Pat and I would talk about how the priest missed the point of the verse, misinterpreting the poet’s metaphor of death, which was terrifying, unknown, but somehow still beckoning. We were much more comfortable with a literary interpretation.

  “As Christians, we believe that death is not the end, but the beginning of our eternal life with God,” Father Steve continued. “I believe Bob is with God now in a way we don’t understand. And I believe he is there in his unique personhood. And what make a person, a life, unique, are memories—memories of family and friends. So, if you follow my Franciscan logic, because we are all in Bob’s memories, a little piece of us is up there with God now, because of Bob.”

  This I had never thought of, that it is all these tiny moments that make a life, moments shared with the people who are most dear to you. Books, work, one’s legacy or thoughts or beliefs or ideas in the abstract; the import of these is constructed afterward, mostly by people who don’t know you. One way or another, nothing exists that isn’t shared.

  “The communion hymn is ‘Here I Am, Lord,’ page 412,” Father Steve’s voice cut in.

  Here I am, Lord. Is it I, Lord? We sang.

  I was overwhelmed by the tune, so familiar from my childhood, from masses I attended every Friday and Sunday in elementary school. The cantor’s operatic voice soared, carrying all of us with it.

  All the songs and prayers I learned in childhood I could recite to that day. As the lines formed for communion, I thought: should I go? I had not been to church, not received communion in over a decade, not counting one Christmas with my parents and my grandmother’s funeral. I supposed I didn’t care then, but I did now. For some reason I wanted to do what was right, as a person and as a Catholic, to honor both my grandfather’s memory and the religion that the family shared. A funeral is also a celebration that the rest of us are still here, and somehow, receiving communion seemed to represent, amidst death, our continuity of life.

  Pat was sitting closest to the aisle and I wonder: would he go? Like me, he hadn’t had anything to do with the Church for a long time. But the people in the row in front of us were rising, and Patrick and I stood up and walked with folded hands toward the altar.

  I felt there were no words for who I was, for what I felt at that moment. I was sad for all of us; sad because of sadness, sadness that is not yet loss, but our collective panic at the incomprehensibility of what has happened, of what was happening. I was my grandfather’s first grandchild, the daughter of his eldest son, the older sister of Tommy and Patrick, the niece of Stevie, John, and Kathleen, the second cousin of Jimmy, Jeffery, Tommy, Kevin, and Wedge. I never thought of my identity in relation to the others in my family, and how my role in their life might be important to them. I always saw myself as autonomous, which is a lie we comfort ourselves with as we move through the world. For me, to acknowledge otherwise was too humbling, and I felt ashamed for dismissing the love and relationships of the people around me. Even if the Dunns were not biologically related to me, I wouldn’t be here without them. I sniffed, unsuccessfully fighting back tears. Until then I never realized how important it was for me to not let my family see me cry.

  Before the service ended, Father Steve left us with one last thought.

  “Patrick Mollar brought his Eagles van today,” he said, referring to the RV in the parking lot painted bright white and green, with the Eagles insignia and GO EAGLES! emblazoned on either side—a gaudy, portable cheering section. “And I know how much it would have meant to Bob to see that here today.” He paused. “Even though I’m a Giants fan. I guess everyone has their faults.”

  An appreciative chuckle rose from the pews. The buzz cut, neoprene sandals, even the Bluetooth mic Father Steve wore in his ear to deliver the homily started to make sense. Pat leaned over and whispered, “They should have replaced the Jesus on the crucifix with Randall Cunningham or Mike Schmidt.”

  April 18, 1987. My dad, my brother Patrick, my grandfather, and I were at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh on the day Mike Schmidt, the third baseman for the Philadelphia Phillies, hit his five hundredth home run against the Pittsburgh Pirates. Even after steroid use became rampant, hitting five hundred home runs remained a feat most players could not match. I was nine years old, Pat was four, and my dad was thirty. My grandfather was young, too, with a full head of black hair just like my dad’s that set off his light-colored eyes. We had good seats, down the third base line, midway up in the stands so we could see the whole field. My dad put my brother on his lap and explained the game to him. He made sure we got nachos, hot dogs, popcorn, and soda. I was more interested in my nachos than in the game, but even at nine I could follow football, baseball, basketball, and hockey, live or on TV. Watching and playing sports was what my family did. It was a common language we shared.

  It was the top of the ninth inning, and the Phillies were losing 5–6 when Mike Schmidt stepped up to bat with two runners on base. Pittsburgh had Barry Bonds and Andy Van Slyke in the outfield, Bobby Bonilla playing third. It was a sunny day, a rarity in Pittsb
urgh, and we had just gotten popcorn from the vendor. Mike Schmidt made contact, and the ball sailed over left field into the stands, far above the heads of Bonilla and Bonds. We were loyal Pittsburgh fans, loyal to our city, but for my dad, who grew up in Philly, the Phillies, Eagles, and Flyers would always come first. Before I knew what happened, he was out of his seat, yelling, “Yeah! Home run! Five hundred!” The popcorn went sailing to the grimy floor as the rest of the stadium joined in the cheer as Schmidt and his teammates rounded the bases. The Phils kept their lead and won 8–6. After the game, an elderly woman sitting behind us tapped my father on the shoulder and told him admiringly that she’d never seen a dad be so nice with his kids. My dad was already beaming from the victory and the history-making moment we’d just witnessed, but this made him proudest and happiest of all.

  Thirty-seven

  Sitting beside my brother in a sea of pews instead of stadium seats, black suits and dresses instead of team jerseys, faces blanched with tears instead of rosy with joy, I thought about how rare it was that my dad, brother, grandfather, and I gathered to share something special. There were birthday parties and graduations, family vacations to the shore, and most recently, my wedding. But those included the whole family. Never again did the four of us share an experience like we did that day at Three Rivers Stadium. At that moment, Father Steve’s buzz cut, Patrick Mollar’s Eagles van, and Randall Cunningham in place of Jesus didn’t seem like a joke anymore. They were something I’d shared with my brother, dad, and grandfather before I was old enough to realize how special it was.

  After the service, there was a small reception in a room adjacent to the church. Trays of cold cuts, chips, potato and macaroni salads, and cookies were set out. We filled our paper plates and mostly ate in silence.

  My mother set up a laptop and slide projector, which we thought was going to be a memorial to Pop’s life. The slideshow did show my grandfather’s life from a young man in a military uniform, to his later years as a grandfather, but she completely left out the last twenty years that he’d spent as Paula’s husband. The photos only showed him with our side of the family, and with my grandmother, a woman who, while beloved by her family, had not been part of his life for many years. Paula left the room without confrontation, accompanied by her daughters. When we realized the slideshow was intended to rewrite the history of my grandfather’s life to exclude Paula and reinstate the version of his life my mother wanted, we disconnected the projector to save everyone, including my mother, from further embarrassment. When I asked why she would do something so blatantly cruel and untrue, I got the response: “This is how it should have been.”