Anais Granofsky - The Girl in the Middle: Growing Up Between Black and White, Rich and Poor

Y OU GO ON NOW, BABY GIRL . W E SAID GOODBYE quickly, my mother and me, clutching at each other, her urging me to go and me desperate to make her stay. Her long brown fingers and lean muscular arms wrapping around me; her small Afro tickling my nose as she whispered in my ear, Be polite to these people.

These people. My fathers people. I looked at my grandmothermy fathers mothersitting in her salmon-colored Cadillac that was pulled up to the curb, engine idling. I had only met her a few times, when I was an infant and then infrequently over the years when my father would take me to visit her without my mother. She was a stranger to me, this well-dressed white woman in an impossibly shiny vehicle. She stared straight ahead, looking embarrassed at the commotion I was making. She was perfectly put together, her coral lipstick applied evenly, hair meticulously styled in a chic and shiny bob that came to a curving end just below her ears. I fixed my gaze on a pair of glasses that hung from a slender gold chain around her neck. I saw her glance over at my mother, but the two women didnt speak.

My mother released me from her arms but held my hand tightly, the way she would when we passed drunks in the hallway of our rooming house, a tightening of the fingers and a hard pull to her hip when a fight broke out on the rough streets of our downtown neighborhood. To feel this now made me confused and scared. She was telling me to go but holding onto me the way she did when she was afraid. When she sensed danger. Unsure, I stood between her and my grandmother. Between worlds. Black and white. Rich and poor. My mother held me close one last time and then opened the car door and hustled me inside. Ragged running shoes on the pristine floor mat, the overpowering smell of fresh leather as my mom buckled me in. A whir and a metal snap. The two women never made eye contact. Never spoke. My mother put my bag at my feet and stepped back so that I had to strain to see her as my grandmother shifted the car into drive and pulled away. My old world retreating in the side mirror and a new world just beyond my view.

* * *

M Y mother and I had just ridden a subway and two buses to get to the York Mills subway station in the north end of Toronto, where we met up with my grandmother. We had started the morning in our room at a flophouse near Dovercourt Road and College Street in Parkdale, a rough neighborhood on the west side of downtown Toronto. Parkdale was once a wealthy enclave glutted with large Victorian homes made of red brick from the legendary Don Valley Brick Works. The belching, massive brick factory manufactured the blocks that would help to build the city. Over the years, though, Parkdale had steadily fallen into disrepair and despair, and the once grand homes had been roughly divided into rooming houses.

In the house our room was in, most of the ornamental plaster detailing was gutted, the original stain-glassed windows were shattered, the arched entrances boarded up. Garbage was always strewn in the hallways, and behind our door, a single mattress lay on the floor. My mother and I slept there together under a faded flower blanket. We had been in the rooming house for about two months, moving in after we could no longer afford the rent on the small apartment that had been our home for a year. In the mornings when addicts would shout through the thin walls, my mother would turn up the music and dance. Stalked by poverty and a pernicious insecurity, we turned to each other. That morning we had danced to Aretha Franklin over a breakfast of dry Froot Loops, loud and silly to hide a nervous energy. She told me we were going Way the hell up north to visit your grandma so we better get dressed up nice. Her behavior made me wary. I watched her closely but didnt say anything to tip the balance.

Things had been going from bad to worse for us and I had quickly learned that my own sadness and fear would not change anything. Would not help us. My mother was drowning and I was desperately trying to keep us afloat. I stayed attuned to her moods and tried not to upset her. Kept close at her side for fear that she might just slip away. So, I watched her put silver rings on her fingers and a patterned silk scarf in her hair. She threw on a wrap dress over bell-bottom jeans. I noticed she was checking herself in the mirror more than she usually did. She told me to put on my favorite frayed dress with the ruffles at the shoulders, the one that matched my maroon-colored socks. Taking a small bag, she packed it with my flannel pajamas, a Laverne & Shirley T-shirt, socks, underwear and my one-eyed bear. I diligently cleaned my scuffed sneakers with a wet rag and then put them on and tied them up. As I was rearranging my hair barrettes, she gave me a smile that was both bitter and determined. I hesitated at the door, anxious and trying to read her mood. I dont want to go, Ma. She grabbed my hand and hustled me out. Come on now, we gotta make the bus. We left our room and just made it to the stop as the bus was pulling up. We boarded, put our change in the fare box and began our long trip north. From gray to green. From need to opulence.

* * *

A S my mother and her reassuring brown hands receded in the side mirror, my heart beat hard in my chest and I held back nervous tears. My grandmother reached over and patted my leg, telling me I should call her Shirley. I didnt look over and didnt say a word, my head spinning, the smell of fresh leather, warmed in the noon-day sun, making it hard to breathe. I knew that this woman was my grandmother, but I didnt know what that meant exactly. I vaguely remembered the visits when I was younger, but they had always been short and filled with tension and sometimes outright conflict. I remembered repeated arguments about our family needing money and the realization that my mother never came with us. Her unexplained absence was confusing and I always felt relieved when we left. But even those visits had stopped when my parents tumultuous marriage fell apart and my father left.

It had been months and a couple of moves since we had heard from his family, so it had come as a surprise when my grandmother tracked us down. By then my mom and I were in trouble. Shirley found us and called to see me again, asking if I could come for an overnight weekend visit. My mother misheard and enthusiastically agreed to both of us coming up, grateful for a break from our tattered room. There was a long silence and in that silence it became clear that my mother was not invited to join me. Her pride wounded, she thought of hanging up. Then I looked around me and I was tapped out and hurtin. I didnt know if I could keep things together much longer. I thought they might have something to help you out, make life a little easier. So I swallowed my pride, she told me.

Now, riding together, I began to take Shirley in. In the way her hand rubbed my knee and the steady set of her jaw was something familiar. There was something of my dad in her and it made me miss him terribly. I hadnt seen him in months and my heart ached at his absence. I became angry at Shirley for not letting my mom come with us and angry at my dad for not being there. I couldnt understand all of the adult bitterness and unspoken rules, but I could feel them. She turned and assured me that were going to have a lovely time, Puja. You wipe your eyes. Ive got lunch ready for us.

Puja. Only my dad still called me that. Heat bloomed in my chest and I felt the sting of tears rise up again. I could tell she was trying to make me feel better, but I just didnt know what she wanted from me. How was I supposed to behave with this woman? What was expected of me in this new world without either of my parents to guide me? We turned down a tree-lined street lousy with gated mansions and I stared out the window in amazement. Massive piles hidden discreetly behind tall green hedges. Stone turrets and huge picture windows flashing by.