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Latisha Arnold wasn't my real mother? The woman I had called Mama all my life wasn't part of me and I wasn't part of her? Who was my real mother? Was Ken still my real father? More important, who was I? Ken had called me a white girl. How could that be? What did he mean?

Suddenly, in one quick moment, my name, my family, all of my history, my memories, everything, was like soap bubbles. popping all around me. The whole world had been turned upside down, pulled out from under me. I felt like I was dangling in space.

I stopped to look at myself in the window of a shoe store. The image I saw seemed like the image of a stranger. My hair looked wild, my eyes frantic. It made me laugh a mad laugh. I put my hand over my mouth to stop it and then, I started to cry again and walked on, faster, harder. Vaguely, I was aware of people staring at me, including people who knew me.

My tears were hot and zigzagged down my cheeks burning a path over my skin. After another ten minutes or so, I tightened my arms around myself and stopped, finally feeling the ache in my legs and my stomach. For a moment I just stood there on the street corner looking at the park directly ahead of me.

Now I realized I had walked blocks and blocks. I was in a much nicer section of the city, a

neighborhood of small houses, town houses, brownstones occupied by middle class families. Their children were in the park playing around the seesaws and sliding ponds. There were mothers and nannies nearby. The laughter and shouts of small boys and girls was constant, a flow of underlying music as if happiness were a song sung only here.

I checked the traffic and crossed the street to stand by the fence and look in at these contented children. One little girl was crying and her mother had knelt down to comfort her. She wiped back the strands of light brown hair from her forehead and what she was saying, the softness in her voice, the love that flowed from her eyes and her smile, drove away the unhappiness quickly. They hugged and the restored child returned to the merry-go-round, laughing and moving as if nothing sad or horrible had happened or ever would.

Mama had been that way with me, I thought. She could wipe away my tears, fill my heart with hope, sing me to sleep and help me back to candyland dreams. She had never once given me the feeling she wasn't my real mother. How did she do that? Why did she do that?

What Beth always said was true, too. I often felt Mama cared more for me than she did for Beni. How Beni must hate me even more now, I thought, to know I wasn't even Mama's real daughter and still, Mama treated me with more love and care. It was all so confusing and so unfair.

A boy no more than nine or ten chased after a red ball that settled near the fence. He picked it up and looked up at me with curiosity.

"Hi," I said.

He smiled with the most dazzling and joyful cerulean blue eyes I had ever seen.

"Hi," he replied, widening his smile.

He turned and ran off, his legs going so fast and awkward, they looked like they were wound up with rubber bands. He glanced back to beam another smile at me. Was I ever that happy? Would I ever be again?

I walked on. The afternoon sun had fallen behind the buildings, and shadows long and deep oozed across the sidewalks and over the streets like maple syrup over pancakes. Lights were going on in apartments and homes. Families were sitting down to dinner. I thought about the pork chops I had left simmering and for a moment I wondered if everything that had happened had only been a dream. Would I blink and find myself standing in front of the stove.? I would even welcome back our hard life over this, I thought.

Exhausted, I sat on a bench at a bus stop. Two elderly black ladies arrived and sat beside me, waiting. I didn't really listen to their conversation, but I heard bits and pieces about grandchildren and looking forward to the holidays. Without a family, there were no holidays, I thought. There was no Christmas, no presents to get or presents to give, no Thanksgiving to celebrate.

I guess I moaned out loud because the two old ladies turned and gazed at me.

"You all right, baby?" the one closest asked.

I didn't reply. The bus arrived and they got up, gazing back at me curiously when I didn't get up too. They boarded and the bus left. It grew darker and colder. I embraced myself when I felt myself shiver and tremble.

Traffic flowed by, people crossed in front and behind me, but I didn't notice anything. I stared ahead, my thoughts frozen.

Finally, I rose and just walked, not thinking of direction, not thinking about any destination. I had my head down, but I vaguely noticed a car full of boys slow down, pass by, stop and then turn around. They were in a beat-up vehicle with a smashed rear window. It looked like the sort of car Roy called a Lazarus, something raised from the dead. When it went by this time, all the boys looked my way. The driver whistled and that was followed by catcalls. I ignored them and turned down another street.

However, they followed and were cruising very slowly right behind me, hovering like some large cat about to pounce. My heart started to pound when I finally looked around and realized I was in a more depressed, run-down neighborhood. I had made something of a circle and had come back to my own neighborhood. I knew I had put myself into danger and I was very frightened, but instead of thinking about myself, I thought about Mama and how afraid for me she must be back in our apartment.

But I couldn't help being angry too. I should have been told the truth long ago. My whole life was a lie and Mama hated lies. Why did she keep this one alive so long? Would she ever have told me the truth if Ken hadn't blurted it in one of his drunken rages?

"Hey, baby, need a ride?" the driver in the beatup car called out to me.

I walked faster, but I still wasn't getting any closer to home; in my panic I must have taken a wrong turn. In fact, there seemed to be less traffic where I was heading and practically no one in the street. Darkness was falling like a lead curtain and residents hurried to get behind locked doors.

"Don't be shy," one of the boys said.

The car pulled up closer and was now moving alongside me. I glanced at it and saw there were four boys inside. They looked like members of a gang. The car pulled ahead. I thought they were going to leave me be, but it stopped and one of the boys in the rear stepped out, holding the door open.

"Step right in, honey," he said. "Your limousine has arrived."

I stopped.

"Leave me alone!" I cried.