Free The Truth About Butterflies: A Memoir by Nancy Stephan Page B

had become
obsessed with all things Japanese ever since I’d come across a book of
photographs at Mrs. Peters’ house.  Whenever my mother and I visited, I would
go straight to the book of pictures.  Like a yearbook, every page was filled
with black and white photos of Japanese children.  Sitting poised for the
camera like little porcelain dolls, they had wonderful names, like Junichiro,
that rolled off the tongue and floated in the air like bits of rice paper. 
Looking at the photos, I made the youthful decision that I myself would become
Japanese.  I’d have pin-straight hair black as pitch and resemble everyone else
around me. 
    Years later
in casual conversation with one of my college professors, I mentioned the
book.  He said, snapping his fingers, “Oh yes, that was probably one of those
adoption catalogs of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki orphans.  Many Americans
adopted those children, you know.”  I found it sadly ironic that I had wanted
to be one of them. 
    It was
obvious from their interaction that the lady and the caseworker knew each
other.  They talked a bit amongst themselves, and then the caseworker
introduced us, “You’re gonna live with Mrs. Daniels now, and she has other kids
just like you.”  The two women gathered my things from the car and carried them
into the house. “Her aunt will bring her bedroom furniture later,” the caseworker
told Mrs. Daniels.  Then, without much else, she returned to her car and drove
away.
    Mrs. Daniels
sat down on the sofa and ordered me to stand up straight and tall so she could
get a good look at me.  “Where are your kids?”  I asked.
    “At school,
but they’ll be home directly.”
    “Do you have
any girls?”
    “Just boys,
now.  I had Vanessa, but she went back to her mother.  Matter of fact, today’s
Vanessa’s 10 th birthday.”
    “Why did you
have someone else’s girl?”
    “That’s what
I do, baby.  I takes care of chilluns that don’t have nowhere to go.” 
    “But you
said she had a mother, so why didn’t her mother keep her in the first place?”
    Mrs.
Daniel’s smooth countenance quickly changed into one of displeasure.  Aunt
Betty, in her letter to my mother, had concluded by admonishing: “Nancy is so
smart and quick.  She needs to be treated as your child, though, and not as
your equal.  Lately, she has been acting as though she were 21 rather than
seven.”  Apparently, Mrs. Daniels thought so as well.  When I’d asked why Vanessa’s
mother hadn’t kept her in the first place, Mrs. Daniels scolded, “You’s too
womanish, chile!”  I would come to learn that two things Mrs. Daniels disliked
were a woman who acted childish and a child who acted womanish, and it was the
latter of these two that would keep me in hot water.
     It would
take a while for me to learn that being womanish had little to do with what I said and more to do with how, when, and to whom I said it.  But I had
something even more important to learn, and Mrs. Daniels didn’t waste any time
teaching it.  In her opinion, I was already behind schedule, and the sooner I
learned it, understood it, and made peace with it, the sooner I could get on
with the task of living.

Chapter 9
     
    This second
lesson came immediately on the heels of the first.  It wasn’t a lesson as much
as a fact of life, and I didn’t learn it as much as stumble into it.  After
looking me over, Mrs. Daniels picked up the phone to make a call.  “This is
Erma Lee,” she announced.  “They done brought her to me.  She chubby and
curly-headed, cute little girl, but she done been here b’fo.”   Having been
here before is another phrase to which I would quickly grow accustomed. 
“You know,” she continued, “her family give her up ‘cause she Black.”  Hearing
her say I was Black was like being hit in the face with a snowball.  “I’m not
Black!”  I protested.  I was shocked that she would say such a thing, and she
was shocked that I was