Chapter Text
In retrospect, it’s a little embarrassing how long it takes me to realize. But it’s long after the Hail Mary enters Erid’s orbit, after my health has stabilized, after the dome is built for me with its own weather and its miniature sun, that I get the first clue.
Most days are foggy, and I like it that way. But it’s after a splash of rare sunny days that I’m looking at my tan lines in the mirror.
“Jeez,” I mumble, pulling up my sleeve to examine the stark contrast. “Look at that. Who knew I was so…”
“Hey, Ry! Lil Ry. Baby G, you listenin’?”
I looked up from my book just in time for a crumpled piece of paper to hit me in the face instead of bouncing off the top of my head. Looking around in confusion, my gaze landed on the thrower. It was one of the Vontes. Davonte or Javonte. Twins, and I couldn’t ever tell which was which. Neither could anyone else, and they didn’t much seem to care.
“Nah, I wasn’t. What?”
“Been wonderin. Whatcha so pale for?” the Vonte asked, leaning over to look at me. I was spending recess under a tree with my book, alone, which was normal for me. And he was here to bother me, which was normal for… one or the other of them.
“My daddy white.”
“Ohh. Issat why you act like that? Because you’re white?”
“I ain't white!” I exclaimed, with all the indignation a seven-year-old could manage.
“Sheesh, my bad. Half, then. That why?”
“No!! Never even met him. He got nothing to do with me.”
“Right, okay.”
That actually seemed to strike a chord with him. At least, he changed the subject. But it stuck with me the whole rest of the day. My mother noticed something was wrong as soon as she got home.
“Rybaby, what’s the matter?”
I looked up at her. She was beautiful: deep brown skin, long and neatly braided hair. And she looked tired. It must have been a long day at work. But here she was, still checking on me.
“Mama… am I white?”
She tried very hard not to laugh, but I could feel her shoulders shaking when she pulled me into a hug.
“Ryland Darius Grace, who the hell told you that? Course you ain’t. You’re my baby.”
I pressed my face into her shoulder. Somehow, it was a relief.
“Vonte,” I answered sheepishly.
“Well, don’t you listen to him. You’re mine and my family’s. You Black as any of us. Alright?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I look at my definitively darker hands in disbelief.
“I’m… what?”
I spend the next several hours poring over my features. I haven’t been doing much of that in space. In my defense, there’s been other stuff going on.
Sure, my nose is round. I’ve been keeping my hair short, but it curls when it gets long enough. I’m getting pretty tan, but... That seems like the type of thing I wouldn’t forget. So does my mother’s face, though, and this is the first time I’ve seen it in my memories. We have the same wide, flat nose, the same tired brown eyes.
You’re my baby.
By the time I left Earth, I had no family. Stratt was very clear about that. I didn’t even have a dog.
I hold the memory close, and I wonder what happened to my mother.