“But it’s not time. For God’s sakes Claudette, it’s only March.” Bishop Emanuel would say, that cold snowy morning on March 30. Exactly 4 1/2 hours from the time his life would change with the birth of a baby that, “God revealed to me,” he said to his wife later that night, “could not possibly be mine.”
My mother named me May in a desperate attempt to save both of our lives. The name was supposed to convince everyone, my father included, that although she recognized the perfect timing of the lord, I definitely should have been born in the spring. We’re due in May, I’m sure she said convincingly over one hundred times to as many different people as would listen. But the concealed truth of the previous summer bloomed full and unruly that spring. My untimely arrival caught her in a bald-faced lie, and in the end she could not hold out.
If I knew my mother, she probably knew I was ready for arrival days before she gave that first high-pitched soprano scream into Bishop’s ear. The baby is coming, she likely said to him as she tried to remember what kind of breath to take, after which sort of pain, for how many minutes? She probably sat in those giant oak pews for days, snatching bits and pieces of breath out of the atmosphere, praying to the god who always answers the effectual-fervent-prayers-of-the-righteous. Please Lord, not right here. Not right now. I can just imagine her, surveying the furthest corners of the cathedral, confirming the safety of her secret. Praying that no one saw her sinking, becoming silently buried in pain every twenty or so minutes. If I know her at all, she was in labor while still counseling young women on the turmoil that they would face if they operated outside of “the will.” I can see her performing the laying on of hands, administering holy water blessings and trying to keep me from bursting into this carnal world, smack dead in the middle of the crimson cathedral carpet.
Upon arrival I was singularly another man’s child. My appearance paid no homage to my mother nor, for reasons that were made obvious to me later, Bishop. Whatever freedom she may have felt in another man’s arms was replaced, at the moment of my first breath, by the lifelong burden of an adulterer’s shackles. Bitterness was her steadfast companion. She would not say these words and give herself up to the wrath of Bishops secret God, but I knew she felt betrayed. Yet strangely enough, not by Bishop or by God, but by me.
Maybe that inner sense that people say children have, is something that they invest in while they process bodies. Maybe I always knew I would never see the man who had offered my mother respite and lifelong regret all in the same stroke. Maybe I knew he would never be able to comfort me as I lived under the gaze of unforgiving eyes, so I excavated the whole of him.
The physical difference between me and the other members of my family, immediate and extended, was unforgivable. Both of my sisters, Sibyla and Zuri, were a visual blend of Bishop’s warm brown complexion, which they wear without blemish to this day, and the sharp exotic placement of my mother’s features and figure. Their piercing felinus eyes, the color of pinecone, were inherited like crown jewels from our maternal grandmother’s procreant Carribean lineage. As children, both wore long thick braids the color of midnight, which lay obediently down the center of their backs; a second softer spine.
They were incredible replications of the Emanuel mold. Same build, same posture, same air. So it was always a source of wonder for me, that my mother would allow foreign passion to take root in her womb and to grow into a child whose appearance would never keep her secrets or hide her lies.
Having married and already borne two children into one of the most powerful religious families in the country; the most powerful in Oaklawn Indiana and its surrounding cities, she must have known what the early arrival of a peach-skinned, freckle-faced, red-head baby girl would do to the delicate, carefully woven fabric of our highly revered, religious family administration.
Our Family’s history was rich and well chronicled. Leather bound and on display in every Oaklawn library, museum and the City Hall. It is also core curriculum at every educational institution in the city. Considered pertinent and invaluable by every one of its citizens who knows better than to suggest otherwise. The library in our home housed the original accounts, which we were advised to know and spread.
Roland, the third generation of Emanuel Bishops and the only father I have ever known, followed in the stead of a long line of confident and adamant men. Social and political influence was their gift. Careers were both built and set to ruin on their sole confirmation. The city’s politicians and men of the highest social regard moved through our homes, churches and businesses with humble hearts and carefully elected words. Yet every Emanuel man demanded much and accomplished more, they all confessed, because of the persistent and steadfast nature of the women who provided them with urging, devotion, nourishment and legacy.
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