professional admiration. He knew that all Coleses and their sons were doctors, and now apparently their daughters were too.
Liz was just beginning her internship at the hospital where Linc was in heart research. That Liz had entered medicine was indeed in keeping with the Coles tradition. Since Clark and Corinne had no son to propagate the faith, Liz had always known that she, the elder daughter, could follow no other course. After her marriage to Linc, however, Liz had given up medicine, choosing the more traditional roles of wife and mother instead.
The baby had fallen asleep in Shelby’s arms, lulled by the rise and fall of her breast. One hand had curled around Shelby’s ringer, and Shelby’s eyes grew tender with compassion at the sight. After four months of life on earth, the long span of years to come still had cast no shadow. Shelby looked up at Liz. She knew she should somehow defend Meade’s parents, even if she felt a funny twinge in her side at thethought. “Liz, do you have to be so honest? Meade’s parents weren’t crude about it. They begged to be excused with polite regrets and a present. If their explanation was an out, at least it wasn’t outright rude. Meade says his father does have high blood pressure, and the long trip here at this time of the year wouldn’t help it any. Meade made the joke, a bitter joke, that our wedding plans had probably put him in bed for a week. And of course it wasn’t really a joke. In his wildest nightmare I’m sure the poor man never had a dream about Meade getting married to a colored girl. If he had to sit through the real thing it might be more than that blood pressure could bear. He’d likely go into shock.”
“Well, I think it’s just a beautiful thing that you can be so understanding,” Liz said wryly. “When I pinch myself, I don’t feel colored. I just feel the hurt of it—maybe that’s what being colored means for most of us. You feel the hurt of it.”
Liz got up from the foot of the bed and went to the window. She stared out at the Oval. She had loved it so in her childhood, this safe, contained world where she had come every summer except for the summer past when her marriage and two-week honeymoon and getting settled into her small flat gave her no time to wish she were here. But when Laurie was born in April, and the flat seemed smaller and the Harlem streets noisier, then the sentiment grew in Liz that Laurie should spend her first summer on earth in the quiet Oval, in a large convenient house where gracious living was taken for granted.
She had asked Linc to join her for two weeks in August to share the week’s gaiety preceding the wedding and therestful week following it, when her mother would take charge of the baby and free her and Linc to do what they pleased, when they pleased. But Linc said without apparent regret that he couldn’t afford a vacation. The first year of their marriage, after the expense of furnishing a flat and adding a member to their family, had put a considerable strain on their by no means endless supply of money. When Liz had countered that his vacation would cost him nothing but his fare, he reacted as if she had insulted him by offering him her family’s hospitality, refusing to see it as the gesture of reconciliation that he was in no way ready to accept. And now he was not even coming for the day of the wedding, despite the pleas in her letters and phone calls, even if it meant embarrassing her before her Ovalite friends. They thought they could easily guess why he had no wish to insert his dark face into the family picture.
With her back still turned to Shelby, Liz said quietly, “When I knew I was going to have a child, I wasn’t happy about it. I wasn’t ready to be a mother. I wanted more time to be a bride. Then Laurie was born, and I was ready to resent her. They brought her to me and put her in my arms, and I saw that she was brown. She was a completely colored child, without the protective
Liz was just beginning her internship at the hospital where Linc was in heart research. That Liz had entered medicine was indeed in keeping with the Coles tradition. Since Clark and Corinne had no son to propagate the faith, Liz had always known that she, the elder daughter, could follow no other course. After her marriage to Linc, however, Liz had given up medicine, choosing the more traditional roles of wife and mother instead.
The baby had fallen asleep in Shelby’s arms, lulled by the rise and fall of her breast. One hand had curled around Shelby’s ringer, and Shelby’s eyes grew tender with compassion at the sight. After four months of life on earth, the long span of years to come still had cast no shadow. Shelby looked up at Liz. She knew she should somehow defend Meade’s parents, even if she felt a funny twinge in her side at thethought. “Liz, do you have to be so honest? Meade’s parents weren’t crude about it. They begged to be excused with polite regrets and a present. If their explanation was an out, at least it wasn’t outright rude. Meade says his father does have high blood pressure, and the long trip here at this time of the year wouldn’t help it any. Meade made the joke, a bitter joke, that our wedding plans had probably put him in bed for a week. And of course it wasn’t really a joke. In his wildest nightmare I’m sure the poor man never had a dream about Meade getting married to a colored girl. If he had to sit through the real thing it might be more than that blood pressure could bear. He’d likely go into shock.”
“Well, I think it’s just a beautiful thing that you can be so understanding,” Liz said wryly. “When I pinch myself, I don’t feel colored. I just feel the hurt of it—maybe that’s what being colored means for most of us. You feel the hurt of it.”
Liz got up from the foot of the bed and went to the window. She stared out at the Oval. She had loved it so in her childhood, this safe, contained world where she had come every summer except for the summer past when her marriage and two-week honeymoon and getting settled into her small flat gave her no time to wish she were here. But when Laurie was born in April, and the flat seemed smaller and the Harlem streets noisier, then the sentiment grew in Liz that Laurie should spend her first summer on earth in the quiet Oval, in a large convenient house where gracious living was taken for granted.
She had asked Linc to join her for two weeks in August to share the week’s gaiety preceding the wedding and therestful week following it, when her mother would take charge of the baby and free her and Linc to do what they pleased, when they pleased. But Linc said without apparent regret that he couldn’t afford a vacation. The first year of their marriage, after the expense of furnishing a flat and adding a member to their family, had put a considerable strain on their by no means endless supply of money. When Liz had countered that his vacation would cost him nothing but his fare, he reacted as if she had insulted him by offering him her family’s hospitality, refusing to see it as the gesture of reconciliation that he was in no way ready to accept. And now he was not even coming for the day of the wedding, despite the pleas in her letters and phone calls, even if it meant embarrassing her before her Ovalite friends. They thought they could easily guess why he had no wish to insert his dark face into the family picture.
With her back still turned to Shelby, Liz said quietly, “When I knew I was going to have a child, I wasn’t happy about it. I wasn’t ready to be a mother. I wanted more time to be a bride. Then Laurie was born, and I was ready to resent her. They brought her to me and put her in my arms, and I saw that she was brown. She was a completely colored child, without the protective
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