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When I first met my real mother, I had hoped we would become close. I had looked forward to having a mother-daughter relationship. However, she was still quite a stranger to me and the chance of that ever changing seemed unlikely.

"I'm taking a short nap," Grandmother said rather than continue the discussion.

I fetched a blanket and put it over her legs and she closed her eyes. I hated seeing her so weak and fatigued. In a strange turn of circumstances, she had become my only real family. Six months ago, she wouldn't have even noticed me on the street nor I her, How fate toyed with us, I thought as I left

Grandmother Hudson's room.

When I walked through the house, I heard the whispers grow louder in the corners. Perhaps they came from the ghosts of Grandmother Hudson's ancestors, wondering what their world had become to have someone with my background living here. Maybe the warnings I imagined came from that. Here a girl with black blood, a girl who had an AfricanAmerican for a father, was living like a true

grandchild, given the best of everything and was even included in this old, distinguished white family's legacy. The ghosts of this family's past might think we were tempting fate with such behavior.

I left the house and went down to the lake. Two rather large crows were perched on a rock. They stared at me with cautious interest. I wondered if any other species but man made a thing of color. Did other birds look down at the crows because they were black? They were quite beautiful, more glossy ebony than black, and their eyes looked bejeweled in the twilight sun. Roy had beautiful dark eyes like that, I thought, remembering.

I wondered how he was doing in the army. He had already been transferred to Germany and we had talked about his coming to see me in England. Surely, I thought, Roy must feel like an orphan too, for he was never close to his father and now, with his father in prison and his mother gone, he had only the army. At least I had Grandmother Hudson.

The sound of a car's horn sent the crows skyward. They passed over me, their wings flapping simultaneously making them seem almost like one bird. With their beaks slightly open, they looked like they were laughing as they sailed over the lake toward the safety of the pockets of darkness in the woods.

"Good-bye," I whispered and turned to wave to Jake, my grandmother's chauffeur. He had picked up my airline ticket and was holding it up like the winning lottery ticket. I hurried up the path.

"You're all set," he said, handing me the packet. "You're leaving the day after tomorrow. England. Wow!, I bet you're excited, huh?"

"Nervous, more than excited, Jake."

He smiled and nodded. Jake was tall, lean and balding, yet he had bushy eyebrows. I loved his happy-go-lucky personality. Nothing seemed to get to him. Just before the end of the school year, he had taken me to see his horse, a newly born colt. He had named it after me.

Grandmother Hudson was lucky she had someone like Jake, I thought. He had been with her a long time and they had known each other even before he'd become an employee. In fact, his father had once owned this property. In some ways he felt more like family to me.

"You'll do just fine, Rain," he said. "Just send me some English toffee from time to time. Speaking of the English, how's our own queen?' he asked eyeing the house.

"Mrs. Hudson is still threatening to come along, if that's what you mean."

"Don't be surprised if she's on the plane," he warned, nodding.

"If she is, jump out. I told her so."

He laughed and headed for his car.

"I'll be here bright and early."

"Don't expect me to be bright," I called. He waved, got in and drove off.

It seemed to get dark quickly. The great house loomed behind me, the lights burning in Grandmother Hudson's bedroom window. I had been here only a short time, but at least I had begun to understand what it meant to have a home again. Now I was to go off on an uncertain adventure. I had been a success in the school play and people who supposedly knew about these things thought I might have what it takes to become an actress.

Why shouldn't I have what it takes to pretend? I thought. Most of my life I had to do that: I had to pretend we had a safe home life, a father who cared about us, a future for myself and my family. Now, I was pretending to be an orphan when I knew I had a real mother who still denied me. Illusions were as much a part of me as anything.

How simple it should be to step off one stage and onto another, I thought.

If I have to live like this and be like this, isn't it better to have an audience applauding and to take curtain calls?

The moon looked like a spotlight being fired up. The world around me was a great theater.

A wave of whispering rose from my imaginary audience and reached me in the darkness behind the curtain. "Don't be afraid," Mama was saying.

"Take your position, Rain," the director ordered. "Everyone ready?"

"Mama...1 can't help it. I'm frightened," I cried toward the dark wings.

"It's too late, baby," she whispered. "Look. The curtain's opening."