The Vanishing Half: A Novel by Brit Bennett Page B

alone.
    “Yes,” Desiree said. “I suppose so.”
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    T HE MORNING E ARLY J ONE S ARRIVED , the sky hung heavy and hot with rain. From the edge of the couch, Desiree listened to the spring storm as she braided Jude’s hair, remembering those first weeks in New Orleans, ducking with Stella under eaves when the showers caught them unaware. She eventually grew used to the capricious rain, but back then she’d shrieked at every sudden storm, laughing with Stella as they pressed against the side of a building, water splattering against their ankles. On the rug in front of her, Jude squirmed, pointing at the porch.
    “Mama, a man,” she said, and there was Early standing on the front steps, jacket collar flipped up, his beard flecked with raindrops. Desiree scrambled to her feet, feeling strangely nervous, and she didn’t realize until she opened the door that they were standing exactly where they’d first met a lifetime ago.
    “You can come in,” she said.
    “You sure?” he said. “Don’t wanna make no mess.”
    He looked as nervous as she felt, which emboldened her. She beckoned him inside, and he kicked his boots against the porch, shucking off mud. Then he followed her, standing in the doorway, one hand balled up in his jacket pocket.
    “This is Jude,” she said. “Jude, come say hi to Mr. Early. I’m goin on a little drive with him, remember?”
    “It’s just Early,” he said. “I ain’t nobody’s mister.”
    He smiled, holding out his hand. Jude slid hers into his for a second, then darted off into the bedroom to fetch her book bag. Later, on the interstate, Early asked if Jude was always so quiet.
    Desiree gazed out the window, watching the sunlight glint off Lake Pontchartrain.
    “Always,” she said. “She ain’t like me at all.”
    “Like her daddy, then?”
    She didn’t like talking about Sam to Early, didn’t even want to imagine both men existing within the same expanse of her life. Besides, Jude wasn’t like Sam either. She was, in a way, like Stella. Private, like if she told you anything about herself, she was giving away something she could never get back.
    “No,” she said. “Not like anybody but herself.”
    “That’s good. For a girl to be herself.”
    “Not in Mallard,” she said. “Not a girl like Jude.”
    Early touched her hand, surprising her, then remembering himself, he pulled away.
    “Won’t be easy,” he said. “Wasn’t easy for me. You know a man smacked me once at church? Right on the back of my neck. All because I put my finger in the holy water before his wife. Like I ruined it somehow. I thought my uncle was gonna stick up for me. I don’t know why, I just thought. But he told the man sorry like I done somethin wrong.”
    He let out a bitter laugh. On the other side of the interstate, a freight train rumbled along, rainwater sloughing off the tracks. She turned back to him, eyes also wet.
    “I should’ve said somethin,” she said. “When my mama run you off like that.”
    He shrugged. “Long time ago.”
    “So why you helping me then? Why really.”
    “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “Guess it make me sad, thinkin about you and your sister.” He stared ahead, refusing to look at her. “And I guess I just like talkin with you. Ain’t talked to no woman so much in all my life.”
    She laughed. “You ain’t said but two words at a time.”
    “It’s enough,” he said.
    She laughed again, touching the back of his neck, and later, he would tell her that was the first time he knew. That gentle hand on the back of his neck as he steered the car across the bridge.
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    T HEY WE RE CHASING THE PAST , searching for Stella down streets and stairwells and alleyways.
    Trampling up the steps of the twins’ three-story walk-up, where an elderly colored couple now lived. Desiree asked, as politely as she could, if they might have received any mail intended for a Desiree or Stella Vignes, but they’d only lived there for two years. The