I Am Somebody

Author: Na'Seem, Lailah, Kara, Rickiyah

"The triumph was I got to see Mama's family. But what he asked was big-ger: did that clear up the questions about my own identity? How did finding out my white half had lots of people hanging on my tree change my being black? I realized that was as murky as before."

Is this Mrs. Anthony Bo-lee?"

"Yes," she answered. Her heavy voice was put-upon, the kind people use for solicitations.

"Well, you don't know me, but I think we might be related. Would you mind answering some questions to see if you are the person I'm looking for?" I asked.

"Uh, OK, I'll answer a few."

"You grew up at 635 Woodlawn Avenue in Indianapolis?"

"Yes." Her voice became guarded.

"Your family attended St. Patrick's Catholic Church?"

"Yes, yes we did."

"Your father was named Henry Lewis?"

"Yes."

I stood up in the booth, excited now, but trying not to rush, not to scare her off.

"He was an electrician?"

"Yes, he was," she said slowly.

"He worked on the first lighting system at the Indianapolis 500 Speedway?"

"Yes."

I paused, to get the next part right.

"You had a sister who disappeared in the early 1940s?" A chair scraped the floor on her end. Silence, then, "Yes."

"Her name was Merna Elizabeth."

"Uh, no. That wasn't my sister's name."

We were both quiet. How to clarify what made no sense? She had to be the one, but what else could I say? I stared across the flow of passengers in the concourse. My fellow travelers were milling about, ready to begin boarding. There wasn't much time.

I started over with Mrs. Boehle, double-checking the same questions about her father's name, occupation, address.

She replied yes to all of them over again. "That's right. Yes, yes."

"Your name is Dorothy Lewis Boehle, right?"

"It is." Then I was back to my mother's name.

"Your sister was called Ella?" I asked her. That was Mama's nickname, the one I thought Daddy had given her.

"Yes, oh yes, that was my sister. Ella Lewis," she said.

lllill"Her given name was Merna Elizabeth, right?"

"I don't know that name. She was always Ella to us. Now tell me. Who are you?" Her anxiety colored every word.

• "I am Ella's daughter."

"Ella's daughter? You are Ella's daughter?"

"Yes, I am your sister's daughter. I've been in lIndianapolis for a week looking for you, uh, my family." I was excited but held my tongue, waiting.

"Oh, my Lord! Ella's daughter? How can that be? We thought she must be dead."

"I realize this comes as a shock after so many years, but yes, I can assure you I am Ella Lewis's daughter, the youngest of her three children."

"She was married and had three children?"

"Yes, she was."

"Where has she been all this time?"

"Buffalo. We were raised in Buffalo, New York."

"Buffalo? We never knew she was in Buffalo. After she left Indy, we never heard from her again."

"Yes, I know. But I'm reaching out to you now, hoping to meet you if you are willing, after all these years. Are you?"

"Where are you now? Still in Indy?"

"Yes, at the airport, about to catch a flight home." As I looked over at the gate again, unbelievably, the agent posted a two-hour delay on the departure board. Relief rushed through me. I wouldn't have to go home only imagining who my white people were. We'd have time to talk, if they didn't reject my race right off. I just wanted to see what their background was with my own eyes. Because of the way my parents ran to get married, and the fear of trouble if her family knew, I had no expectations beyond just saying hello. "It takes off in two hours," was all I got out before Dorothy cut in.

"Stay there. I'm coming out to you now. I want to meet you too."

"You do? Good, I'll wait for you. I'm heavyset, with glasses.

• It's you, isn't it?" She studied my features like a mother with her newborn. "I see my sister in your face," she said.

• 133

• That old prickling cold shocked my back, like in all my most anxious mo-ments. When my back froze, I lost the ability to respond in critical situations. And here I couldn't speak either. She kept peering at me, confident in her identification. Nobody had ever said I looked like Mama. But she saw it. It was her all right. Had to be.

• 134

• She didn't share any of Mama's features, and all resemblance to the photo when she was slim and fresh-faced was gone. She was heavy, while Mama was thin. But they were half sisters, something I had forgotten when imagining her looks. The one thing she did share with Mama and me was height, at around five foot one.

• 135

• "Yes, I'm Dolores Johnson," I finally managed. "Ella Lewis's daughter." I extended my hand and put a pleasant expression on my face as we shook for-mally, the way I did business colleagues. "Good to meet you."

• 136

• She gestured to her husband, Tony, a short, no-nonsense looking man with gray hair. He stood back from her, watching me. Tony removed the pipe from his mouth and shook my hand.

• 137

• "Hello," he said. I'd have some explaining to do to satisfy a man with sharp eyes like his.

• 138

• Everything in that crowded, noisy airport disappeared except for this unassuming, working-class white aunt and uncle. So, this was who my white family was.

• 139

• Dorothy talked fast. "You gave me the shock of my life. I left the meal half cooked and rushed straight out here. I had to meet you, but now that we're here, I hardly know what to say."

• 140

• "That's two of us," I said. We got a table in the coffee shop where we could talk.

• 141

• We stirred our coffee, each staring into the steaming dark wells of our confusion in a pregnant silence. I'd been so intent on the search to just find these people I hadn't given an iota of thought to what to say if I found them.

• 142

• Dorothy looked up first. "You must know we all thought Ella died in the '40s. Your showing up is absolutely unbelievable. Why, to think she got married and had a family, and didn't let us know. What I don't understand is why would my sister have run away from her family without a word all these years?"

• 143

• I kept her gaze and just laid it out. "She married a Negro. Somebody you didn't know. Back then, 1943, was a time when race mixing wasn't allowed in Indiana."

• 144

• I barreled on to get the story out before they said anything. "She thought the family wouldn't accept it and would suffer for her decision." They stared at me with incomprehension.

• 145

• "Like your dad wouldn't get work, the family might be shunned, even that your marriage prospects would be hurt."

• 146

• Tony grunted, watching me closely. Did he believe me? Or maybe he was considering whether he'd have married Dorothy if he'd known her sister was married to a black man.

• 147

• "See," I said, "she didn't want to ruin your lives. She didn't want to leave you either, but it was dangerous for my dad to be with a white woman in Indiana and illegal for them to intermarry."

• 148

• "Illegal?"

• 149

• Dorothy was apparently as ignorant of the laws when it came to "Negro business" as Mama had been. After what happened in my life, I found it incomprehensible that she was that removed from what we black people had gone through.

• 150

• "So, as painful as it was," I said, "my mother thought it best for all of you if you never knew what she did or where she went."

• 151

• Dorothy and Tony went back to stirring their coffee again. I braced for them to get up and walk out, scandalized or disgusted with what my mother had done. I half expected them to say something ugly and racist like David had predicted, or to reject me personally. I was ready. Plenty of white folks had already toughened me up.

• 152

• I'd only wanted to see them. Find out if they existed. Know what type of people they were. Mission accomplished. I studied both their downturned faces, trying to read their reaction.

• 153

• After what seemed like forever, Dorothy said, "She was probably right. Mother especially. She would turn in her grave."

• 154

• Tony kept his head bowed.

• 155

• I opened my wallet to the family photo I carried. They held it up close to see the five of us together, taken on the day Charles Nathan graduated high school in his black gown and I graduated eighth grade in my white crinoline dress. I pointed out Mama, Daddy, my brothers, and myself, giving our ages.

• 156

• "Well, I'll be." Dorothy leaned into her husband. "That's my sister. That is Ella." She looked into Tony's eyes, and he nodded. "Look how beautiful she is here with her family." Her eyes flashed and she scooted closer to me. "Where is my sister now?"

• 157

• I put on as sincere a face as I could before saying Mama had passed away. My back tingled as the bald-faced lie slipped through my lips. Here I was trying to relate to people I'd gone to all this trouble to meet and was ruining my chances with Mama's deception. But what else could I do? A waitress bumped the back of my chair as she hoisted a tray of drinks, breaking into my dithering conscience. My loyalty was to my mother, and she'd made me pro-mise. I rationalized that I didn't even know this lady.

• 158

• "Dead?" Dorothy cried. "Ella's dead? How did she die?"

• 159

• I hadn't thought ahead about any explanations. I searched for more lies to make this trusting soul believe. My tingles turned to ice.

• 160

• "Well, she had a sudden heart attack," I mumbled, "and died on the spot."

• 161

• "When, when did my sister die?"

• 162

• "Two years ago. She's buried in Buffalo," I said, wondering if it sounded true.

• 163

• "To think we missed all those years of being together," she said. "Only to find out too late she's already gone." Her shoulders slumped. She spoke so softly I could hardly hear her amid all the conversation at tables around us.

• 164

• "What I would have given to see her again."

• 165

• Was she saying she was OK with Mama marrying a black man? That she loved Mama even now? That had to be her meaning, if she wanted to see Mama again. My mind was blown; I couldn't put an answer together.

• 166

• She said the last communication from Ella was a postcard from New York the week after she left to visit a friend in Massachusetts. When they didn't hear from her, they got worried.

• 167

• "Dad scraped together the money and went to New York to search in the last place she was ever heard from. The police opened a missing person's case and they searched ever' where, in Indianapolis and New York. But they couldn't find any trace of her, and her body was never found. The police declared her a victim of foul play."

• 168

• "How awful for all of you," I said, thinking how Mama would cry to know they suffered so trying to find her.

• 169

• "It surely was. Dad never got over it. She was his favorite, you know."

• 170

• I'd expected to defend myself against a racist, but instead here I was teary eyed over these people's pain, my own relative's pain. Everybody had suffe-red, in both Indiana and Buffalo. I'd been so shortsighted about stirring this pot I hadn't imagined how it could burn those involved. Dorothy was as stunned now as Mama had been when I said I wanted to search for her family. So now I was responsible for Dorothy's feelings too, even as I told her one lie after another. Why hadn't I thought this through?

• 171

• Dorothy brought out a photo of her four daughters, born in the same time as my brothers and me. All of them were in Indianapolis except one who lived in Florida with her family. Dorothy confirmed that her dad died in 1949 and her mother in 1947 from consumption.

As I readied to board the plane, I asked if they wanted to exchange contact information. We did, and agreed to talk again, although neither of us suggested a specific plan. We shook hands good-bye. It wasn't jubilant and it wasn't hostile. We were daunted, two shocked parties, newly related but not knowing what to do about it.
__________

174

When Luther picked me up at Newark Airport, he'd only heard the blow-by-blow each night on the phone, not what happened that final day. He hugged me and said, "I'm so sorry it didn't work out after all the hopes and work you put into it."

175

I pushed back a bit from him and laughed.

176

"What?"

177

"It did work out. Today, I met my aunt at the Indianapolis airport." The day's events tumbled out of me on the drive home, Luther whistling and grunting with every reveal.

178

We sat together on our brown Naugahyde couch in the den that evening, talking through my highs and lows in Indy. We drank white wine late into that night until I ran out of steam.

179

Luther asked, "So now, tell me, does all this help you know better who you are?"

180

The triumph was I got to see Mama's family. But what he asked was big-ger: did that clear up the questions about my own identity? How did finding out my white half had lots of people hanging on my tree change my being black? I realized that was as murky as before.

181

"Honestly, I don't know what this means."

182

"What now?" Luther asked.

183

"I don't know. It's just been a few hours. Maybe I'll get back in touch with them someday."

184

"But how can you, when you've said your mother is dead?"

185

"Huh?"

186

"You think they'll trust you when they find out she's not? Those lies cannot stand, and you know it." Luther got into bed, telling me to straighten that out with Mama. "Com' on now, gimme that wing, and let's get some sleep" he said, turning onto his side.

187

I climbed in with him, wondering if I'd found and then lost Mama's family in a single day by telling that lie. He just might be right.

DMU Timestamp: January 23, 2025 13:46