She finished her dissertation and was awarded her Ph.D. in American History with a specialization in the antebellum era. She's bright and articulate and not a bit ashamed to be, as she put it, "an Affirmative Action Hire" (the way she said it made the capitalization clear) at the local regional branch of the state university system. Her dissertation had been on, no surprise here, the slave experience as the Civil War approached. She was teaching American History 101 again. She said at least the students were better than at the junior college. But the thing that would be so important to both of us was the graduate-level combination class and seminar on slavery she was teaching.
The change was slow and subtle, but I noticed it. She wasn't as, well, as happy, as perky, as bubbly, hell, I'm not sure what word is right. I guess she was just more serious than I was used to. When you got down to it, I didn't see that wonderful smile as often as I used to and, well, I was missing it.
Finally, one Friday evening we got home from one of those silly rom-coms, those romantic comedies she couldn't seem to get enough of, and it had drawn barely a smile, let alone the big belly laughs I enjoyed so much from her. When Sandra Bullock couldn't bring a laugh from her, I knew something was wrong.
When we got home I made her a Margarita and had her sit on the couch.
I got one of our dining room chairs and placed it in front of her and sat, scooting forward so my knees lightly touched hers.
I took the Margarita, set it on the coffee table, captured her hands in mine, and said, "Okay, toots, what is going on?"
She said, "Nothing," and I said, "Bullshit."
She giggled and said, "Oh, David, it's really nothing."
"Dammit, Latitia," I said, "I want YOU back. I want that happy bright vivacious witty woman I fell in love with BACK. Now what is going on?"
She held my eyes for a very very long time and then took a deep breath and said, "David, I love you, but I honestly don't think it's anything any white person could understand."
And for maybe the third time in the five years we had been married I got angry.
"You're fucking KIDDING, right," I snapped.
"David," she started but I talked over her.
"In case you hadn't noticed, my beautiful negress, I was white when we jumped over that fucking broom, I was white when we danced our first dance and I was FUCKING WHITE WHEN I PAID FOR OUR FUCKING MOVIE TICKETS," I was yelling by the time I got to the end of that rant.
Her eyes had been getting bigger and bigger as I carried on until they were almost a caricature, making me think of one of those old movies featuring some black character or other who would do that sort of thing.
She started giggling then and I started giggling too, coming down off of the adrenaline rush. We laughed together as we hadn't for weeks, maybe for months, great whooping gales of laughter. We'd wind down and then our eyes would meet and we would start again. Before I got myself completely under control I was gasping for breath, feeling like I hadn't felt since I used to get the giggles in my own college days when we'd get a particularly good batch of pot.
When we finally got ourselves under control, down to those little chuckles that follow such hilarity, I said, "Okay, my Nubian Goddess, now, once again, what is going on?"
She took a deep breath, a drink from her Margarita, and met my eyes.
"David, do you think I'm a reasonably bright African-American woman?" she asked.
The
non sequitur
caught me by surprise but I said, "Yes," without any hesitation.
"You see, that's the thing," she said and took another drink from her glass, taking her time and getting her thoughts in order, "so do I but it's not true. But it is true. Oh, fuck."
I chuckled and said, "Take your time."
She took a deep breath.
"Okay, my skin has a high melanin content," she said and giggled when I nodded energetically, "and my ancestors did come from Africa. But that was so many generations ago."
She wound down, took another drink, and said, "Oh, fuck, I'm making a mess of this but that's the thing, David. It's hard to articulate when I'm not sure myself."
"Take your time," I said again.
Another deep breath and she started for the third time.
"I've been studying, you know, for my slavery class, well, it's kind of hard to call it a class since it's all graduate students, more like a seminar," she giggled and stopped and took another drink.
"FUCK, I'm babbling," she said.
I laughed, took her hands in mine, kissed them, and said, "I'm not going anywhere," and added "Take your time," for the third time.
"Okay," she said and took a deep breath, "David, I just can't help but wonder that it was like, you know? The two months on the slave ship, barely able to move. Walking into a new world with a new language and new climate and new rules, in a collar, chained to a hundred others, barely able to walk, stinking, scared..." and she kind of wound down.
I knew this was getting to her when I saw a tear roll down her cheek.
So I moved to sit beside her on the couch and laid my arm across her shoulders, pulling her gently to me.
"It's okay," I said, kissing her forehead lightly, "take your time."
I held her for a few minutes, just holding, brushing her forehead with my lips, telling her I love her.
"Okay," she said, taking a deep breath, "I'm kind of obsessed I guess you'd say, trying to figure out what that must have been like."
"I see," I said, my mind starting to chase down strange pathways.
"Tell me I'm not crazy," she said.
I chuckled, laid my hand on her cheek and turned her to face me, kissed her, a slow, lingering kiss, and said, "You're not crazy."
We kissed like that, slowly, a tender kiss, until I felt something change in her body, the kiss becoming more intense, more passionate.
She squirmed around until she was on her knees before me. She took my hands and kissed my palms.