He knew, or at least he thought he knew. Somehow none of it made sense—the way that he came to conclusions when it had to do with me—he made up his mind fast, and he was always irrational...

“No, no, no Brenda is my wife, Tami is Jamie’s wife and Freda and Heidi are girlfriends,” declares my oldest brother, James. Heidi and I nod innocently and unquestioningly. It never occurred to us that it should or could be any different. It made perfect logical sense that my oldest brother would marry Heidi’s oldest sister, the middle two—my brother Jamie and Heidi’s sister Tami—would be an item, and naturally Heidi and I, being the leftover youngest two, would be girlfriends. As a five-year-old I loved Heidi. I remember her cocoa butter skin and her insanely unruly hair. Her hair was a beautiful sandy color—it was the same hair that taunted her white mother. Often times, her mother did not know how to manage Heidi’s hair so it would sit—a mass of a curly ponytail—on top of her head day after day. Every time Heidi came to visit, my mama would shake her head from side to side and say to Heidi, “Child, come here and let me braid your hair.” My mama would beckon Heidi to sit between her legs while she sat on the couch; she would stammer on the subject of how white women never did right by their mulatto children’s hair. My thin, light-skinned mama would oil Heidi’s dry scalp, and put the same little tight braids in her hair that she sat me down three times a week to put in my hair. I was always so delighted watching my mama comb Heidi’s hair—Heidi had become my sister instantly—one of my mama’s daughters sitting down to get a hair combing, as mama called it. When Heidi slept over, she would teach me her rendition of what kissing was: it was essential that we close our eyes and smack our lips together—if the smack of our lips was not loud enough Heidi would insist that it did not count, and we would have to do it again.

My big brother was a brilliant visual artist. He used to write raps and free-style them for me. Sometimes he would let me free-style. My big brother, one of those “troubled youth” who went around shooting out windows with BB guns, and beating up the white boys who tried to go around with me—beating up the white boys who called me a “black bitch” if I refused to kiss them during recess. My big brother and I have this connection. He always knows when I’m upset. He knows me. He thinks he knows me.

When we were little, he was lanky and awkward—just starting to grow his adult teeth; I was short, bony and shy. He was always the businessman when we sold origami cranes to the neighbors. I always had to keep quiet because I asked too many questions. He was the treasurer—he never shared the money, but I didn’t care—I just wanted to be with him.

Every time we went to visit Auntie Shirley and our cousins, I would always be stunned by how much my cousin Teresa had grown—especially when she began to develop. I was jealous of Teresa and ashamed of my body—I didn’t understand why my body was so uncompromising. I was only nine years old—I didn’t understand that everything would come all in good time.

Teresa was fast. She was always switching her skinny eleven-year-old hips around the older boys. I knew otherwise. I was too shy, too small for my age and too interested in books for my popular cousin Teresa to ever take a serious liking to me. I admired her. She would beat me up every time she searched through my shiny purple backpack and found that I had gotten a big star and a 100 percent on a spelling test, because I wasn’t supposed to hide things from her. We were cousins and she was older. I was not supposed to have better grades in school than her. Her words would stab at me: “Just because you smart and go to that white school don’t mean you better than me. I’m your cousin—I’m your kin, not those dirty little white kids that smell like salami.” Nothing hurt me more than knowing Teresa believed that I thought I was better than her.

Sarah and I were in band together in junior high. We both played volleyball and basketball. She was odd; I was in my complaint rock stage. Sophomore year of high school she became my closest and only real friend. Everyone knew my name. No one knew me. One day, I took Sarah to my brother’s house to pick up my jacket. Later, I returned to visit with him and I met his hostile accusations. My brother had decided that Sarah was my girlfriend and he could not believe that I would be with another girl. I screamed back—not understanding why, nor how he had come to this conclusion. He had seen a rainbow button on my bag—for him, the button and Sarah together explained it all. He seemed upset, as if I had scammed him in a card game. His eyes told me that he felt that I had cheated him. His words shot through me and they did not make sense: “You are too damn smart and too damn pretty to do this—you could have any boy you want.” I told him that Sarah was my best friend and not my girlfriend. Relief flashed across his dark brown face. It made sense to him, and my big brother quickly believed me. He believed me—or did he.

He thought he knew me. He thought he had figured me out. He did not know—he wasn’t even close. He always was so irrational—always irrational. He still thinks he knows me. He is right, he does…