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of the above at once.
    I had never even thought about dating a black guy until I met Howard. It was his smile and the silk in his voice that caught my attention more than his skin color. He was also polite and warm and extremely sexy and didn’t even seem to know it. No one was more surprised than I was how much I found myself being attracted to him. I fell in love with him and his blackness was just an added bonus.
    When the twins were still babies and I proudly pushed them around in their double stroller, some folks would do double takes. We got used to the stares, and white and black alike would ooh and aah and smile at the children, but most looked at me like they weren’t sure if they were mine. Sadly, it was mostly white people who would say, “Aren’t they just adorable!” Their problems didn’t start until elementary school but lasted through middle school. They were called niggers and half-breeds and nerds and got hit because a lot of the black children picked on them. On top of this, too many kids didn’t believe they were real twins, because Montana looked like me, blonde and blue eyes, and Max (short for Max) looked just like his dad: a beautiful root beer, with curly black hair. On too many occasions I had to leave work and go to their school, and there one or both of them would be sitting in the principal’s office in tears, sometimes with a busted lip or a bruise or some token of the hatred or anger they faced for being mixed. This is when we took them out of one and then another school and finally into what was called a charter school. It was full of every ethnicity we could possibly imagine, including so many varieties of mixed-race children we felt comfortable. The kids thrived there. And we slept good at night.

    I put the envelope back and look around this living room like I’ve done hundreds of times. I love how the walls are covered with family photographs but then there’s me and Howard and the twins, too. The Rainbow Coalition.
    When the doorbell rings, I’m thinking Nurse Kim has finally realized that this is a real job and is not only on time, but early. “It’s open!” I yell.
    “Mom, it’s me! Tanna!”
    What in the world is she doing here, and up so early?
    Lately, she’s been working as a fitting model for wedding dresses because she’s a perfect size six, but they don’t usually get started until ten or eleven. “What in the world are you doing up so early? Is something wrong?”
    “Not for me. But maybe yes, in your eyes.”
    I study her face to see if I can detect whether this is going to be something my heart needs to be prepared for. Her cheeks are rosy. She’s a dirty blonde. I’m a bleached one. Her eyes are almost cobalt blue.
    “I’m pregnant and I’ve decided to have it. I know you’ve been hoping I’d become a model or an actress like you wanted to be but it’s not in my cards. Motherhood apparently is. Please be happy for me. And good morning.”
    And she just stands there. Smiling. She’s too damn young to have a baby. She’s too damn smart to have a baby. She’s too damn stupid to have a baby. After graduating from Loyola two years ago in history, she’s been trying to “find herself” since she decided “history was not helping me grow.” She sounded just like a little Valley Girl, when we’ve always lived in the hood. What about the fucking Peace Corps? She even has an interview coming up! And what about that amazing voice, which she got from her father’s side of the family? I push the lever on this La-Z-Boy and spring up to a standing position. I tighten the sash on the robe. I’m forty-six years old. Too young to be anybody’s grandmother. Especially a baby’s. I clear my throat. “Are you kidding me?”
    She lifts her T-shirt to show me her belly. It’s flat. “It’s in there. Growing.”
    “And how pregnant might you be?”
    “Six weeks. Be happy for us, Mom.”
    “Who is ‘us’?”
    “Me and Trevor.”
    I want to say,