Chapter 1

I was sitting in my den one day when my son called and told me he had found the one woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. I was impressed because Joey was a great son and if he thought it was true love then I had to trust him.

He told me that he had been dating this woman for three years and knew that it was time for him to marry her. I told him I trusted his judgement and if he felt this was the one, then I was nothing but overjoyed at his decision. Then he told me that she had a fourteen year old daughter from a previous relationship but that the father of the little girl had never been involved.

I felt sorry for the child and asked if he was happy with her and was she happy with him? He told me that they had come to have a lot of feeling for each other, and that he felt real love for the girl, but wasn’t sure yet if she felt the same way. He then told me she was happy about the marriage and was even helping her mom with the wedding arrangements.

“Joey, if she is getting involved she likes you. Love will come with time, and love, from you.” He was glad to hear that and wanted to come home and show off his soon to be wife. I told him any time he could we would love to have him and his new family visit. Then as we talked I could tell he was trying to butter me up for something. “Joey, there is something you want. I can hear it in your voice. What is it?”

“Dad, I need you to know something and I hope it won’t cause a problem.”. “Spit it out already.” I said to him. “Dad you should know that her name is Caprica, and she is black.” I let him stew for a second. “Dad are you still there?” I tried not to laugh. “So what is the big news? What is it that you’re waiting for me to blow up over?”

I could hear him chuckle over the phone. “I guess I should know you better than that huh dad.” Then I let my own laugh escape a little. “I should hope so son. If she is good enough for you to love so much, what the hell does it matter what her skin color is? If she is a good woman than that is all that matters.”

We talked a little more and then asked if they could come visit for a few days. Since he lived three hundred miles away I told him that it would be great and that we would get the guest room ready. “Thanks dad, for everything.”

I knew I was fine with his choice in women, but his mother was a different thing. Now she didn’t have a bigoted bone in her body, but she had a fear of blacks. She was always afraid that she would say something that would offend them, or that she would treat them in a bigoted manner so she steered clear of any kind of contact. This should be fun.

After talking to Joey I went to find my wife Melinda. “Hey, Mel? You’ll never guess what Joey and I talked about.” I said and then I dropped the bomb that her son was coming home with his future wife and her daughter. She was excited as could be until I informed her that they were black. Then she turned even whiter than she already was.

“Oh no. I’m going to ruin this I just know it. I’m going to say or do something just horrible and Joey will never talk to me again.” I calmed her down and told her that she was going to do just fine. To take her mind off her worries I got her focused on getting things ready here at home.

A week later there was a knock at the door and when I opened it up there was my son Joey smiling at me. I gave him a big hug and a few pats on the back. The he turned and introduced one of the most stunning women I had seen in quite a while. “Dad this is Caprica, and her daughter Felisha.” I looked past the lovely woman and had my breath taken from me. Felisha was a younger version of her mother with only slightly lighter skin.

Caprica held out her hand to me. “Hello Mr. Wilson, It’s nice to meet the man who made such a fine man.” I looked at her hand and then back at her. She looked a little nervous and her smile wavered. “First off you can call me Dad or Tray. As of now you are family and I don’t shake hands with family.” I opened my arms and I swear the woman almost cried as she wrapped her arms around me.

I then turned to Felisha and smiled at her. “And you sweet young girl can call me grandpa if you like or just Tray.” She jumped at me and gave me a very long hug. I looked over at Joey and saw Caprica was holding Joey and actually did have tears in her eyes. I rubbed her back as we hugged.

“Caprica, Felisha, I do need to talk to you real quick. Please don’t take my wife to heart just yet. She might seem cold but she will get better the more she gets to know you.” Joey looked like he felt like an idiot. Caprica looked at me and then her daughter. “Because we are black?” I nodded. “Yeah, but not the way you might think. You see she is terrified she will offend you.”

Caprica and her daughter looked at each other and then back at me. “I don’t think we understand.” I took a deep breath. “My wife Melinda went to some club meeting years ago. There was a black woman there and to this day my wife doesn’t know what she said wrong but this woman went off on her and made a huge scene. It got so bad that she left the meeting and a few days later she was asked not to return, they said they didn’t feel her views were welcome. Since then she has been terrified of saying the wrong thing.”

I was a little shocked at Caprica’s reaction. There was a coldness in her eyes and I was worried I had now said something wrong. “I’m sorry, maybe now wasn’t the right time to bring this up.” I said and that snapped her out of wherever she was. “Oh no, Tray. It’s not you that said or did anything wrong.” She said as she clasped my hand in her warm hands.

She looked at her daughter and then back at me. “It’s just that what happened to your wife was probably not her fault. One of the things Felisha and I have seen before is the abuse of the race card. Lately some people seem to think that because of what has happened to us in the past justifies abusing others in some kind of weird revenge.”

She smiled at me and I melted inside. “If Melanie is as sweet and understanding as Joey says she is then I have no doubt that was the case.” She smiled at Joey and it had the same effect on him that it did on me. “Knowing this man as I do, I can’t believe the woman that raised him could be anything other than a sweet and loving person.”

We walked through the house and went into the kitchen. Mel was standing there wiping her hands on a towel when she saw us. I could see the tension creep through her and hoped Caprica could do to her, what she had done to me. Joey rushed over and lifted his mother in his arms and spun around, making Mel laugh.

“Put me down you oaf. Don’t you have any respect for your poor old mother?” They both laughed at that and Joey set her down. “I love you mom. I’m sorry I haven’t kept you up on everything. But I think you’re going to love my soon to be wife.” Mel turned with a smile on her face but I saw some cracks at the edges.

“Mom, I want you to meet Caprica and Felisha.” Caprica walked over and held out her hand. I could actually see Mel’s hand shake as she took her soon to be daughter in laws hand. “Mrs. Wilson, I am so thankful to you for raising such a wonderful man. I feel blessed with him in my life and I know I have you to thank for it.”

Yep, this woman was great. She must have some Irish in her somewhere to be that smooth. Mel actually blushed and gave her a shy but honest smile. “Don’t thank me, Joey has always been a blessing in my life as well.” Caprica turned slightly and the spotlight fell on Felisha. “This is my daughter Felisha. She has been the greatest blessing in my life.”

Felisha went over to my wife and held out her hand. “I’m glad to meet you Mrs. Wilson.” Mel seemed so come to her senses at that moment. She took the child’s hand and looked at her. “My, you are such a beautiful young woman.”

Felisha smiled back and a blush was in her cheeks. Then Mel remembered that she had lunch ready for everyone and we all sat down to eat. I could see Mel was still a little tense but Caprica worked around it every time and continued to relax her till she was acting like normal.

Joey and Caprica told us how they met, and how they had hit off right from the start. While they talked, I kept half an eye on Felisha and noticed she did the same with me. I could tell she really liked Joey and that there may be a chance for her to become a real father to her. But there was also something else there, something I just couldn’t get a hold of.

After lunch we broke off in two groups. Joey and his mother made a shopping run and I was left with his two beautiful women. The three of us began talking about their lives and after a little while something passed between the mother and daughter and Felisha pulled out a tablet and went to the guest room to use it.

Once the girl was gone I saw Caprica wait a bit and then she seemed to get nervous. “Caprica, you seem kind of stressed. Is there something wrong?” I said in the gentlest voice I could. She smiled at me and nodded. “Tray, if we are going to be family we need to be honest with each other. I mean you and your wife are so accepting of us that I would hate for you to feel negatively about us later, after Joey and I are married.”

“Sweetie, you’re past or private lives are your business, not mine or my wife’s. Joey loves the two of you more than I have ever seen him show to anyone other than his mother. That’s all that really matters to me. If you love him half as much as he loves the two of you, then don’t worry about what I may think later.”

Caprica smiled at me and I felt myself get all soft and gooey inside. Her eyes watered as she smiled at me and her lip trembled a little. “Now I know where Joey gets his loving nature from. I have never known a man with such love in his heart before in my life.” She looked off for a second and I could see pain in them but only for a moment.

“Before I met Joey I never thought I could love a white man.” She looked at her hands and I could see how tightly she was gripping her own fingers. “To tell you the truth, before I met him and got to know him I might have been just as bad or worse than that woman who gave your wife a hard time.” Her eyes flicked up and then away.

“Like most poor blacks, racism is in the air we breathe, and the milk from our mothers. Not so much hate, but just resentment. From the white people who look down on us while we fill out welfare papers to the white teachers who let us pass from grade to grade without really trying to teach us.” I could see that resentment just below the surface.

“I remember when I was in grade school I overheard two white teachers talking to one another when they didn’t know I was there. They were talking about how poor black children had no future because of their poverty. They were talking like they had already closed the door on us because we were poor and had no chance of being better than we were.”

She looked at me and I had to say I didn’t like what I saw in her eyes. “I worked hard to make those women eat their words. I made it to college and did it with high grades. Then while I was in college I roomed with a girl who was becoming a teacher. It was then I learned why these people looked down on us.”

She sat up straight and looked kind of snotty. “Due to their socio-economic situation it is doubtful that children below the poverty level can ever attain the necessary skills to become high level learners.” She looked at me, and the anger was palatable. “That was from my friend’s text book. It was a book on “multi-cultural awareness”. All I saw was a book on how to look down on people that aren’t white and how to pity them on a full time basis. All it was saying to me was “feel sorry for the poor black kids, they don’t know any better.” And that really pissed me off.”

“I spent years internally sneering at any whites after reading that. It was a sneaky form of segregation, and racism. Instead of hanging us from trees they were just hanging us out to dry, and I hated them for it just as much as my grandmother did for being treated as a colored.”

Then that anger seemed to drain away. “That attitude led me to make a lot of bad mistakes. I began to run with a very anti-white group and I am not proud of the things we said and did now. I was stupid and emotional until the day I found out I was pregnant. Then, as they say, shit got real for me.” She looked at the floor and I could see her shoulders droop.

“When I told my boyfriend that I was pregnant he smiled and hugged me. A week later I came home to find he had moved out and no one knew where he had gone. I realized then that the people I had thought were my friends were protecting him from me. I didn’t know what to do or where to go. I only knew that I would mop floors and clean toilets before I would ever raise my daughter on welfare.”

She looked at me and there was pride in her eyes. “All through the pregnancy I stayed in school. After Felisha was born I worked in a program that let me go to school while she was in daycare. On the days I didn’t have classes I worked in the daycare taking care of other students children. It let me finish my education and be with my daughter at the same time.”

I thought about it for a second and then began to do a little math. There was no way this woman could be the same age as my son. She had to be at least a few years older than he was to have a fourteen year old daughter while she was already in college. That didn’t really matter to me because she didn’t look her age and like I said it was none of my business.

“After school I was able to find a good job and I worked hard. Advancement was slow and hard but I kept going because I was doing it for Felisha.” Then a joy began to enter her eyes. “That’s when I began to work with Joey. We worked on our first project together and he was junior to me. The thing was that he was much better at the work than I was.”

“Some of those old hatreds came up, but when they did he would always have a way to disarm them. After that we seemed to be thrown together more often. We did great work together and the higher ups saw it. Then one day Joey was offered a promotion that would have put him in a higher position than me. When he asked why, he was told because of the work he had been doing. He asked what I was getting and they told him that they could only afford to advance one of us. He bucked the promotion and handed it over to me.”

She gave a deep sigh. “I can tell you I was pissed at everyone. I was pissed because they were going to give him the promotion over me, and because he had passed it up for me. Like I couldn’t do it on my own. I confronted him and asked him why he was giving the promotion to me. He only smiled and shrugged. “You earned it just as much as I did. You have more seniority, put in just as much work, and to tell you the truth I don’t have the knowledge you do. I would probably just screw things up if I had your job.” He told me. No one had ever said anything like that to me before.”

“He didn’t do it because I was black, or because I was a woman. He didn’t even know I had a daughter and needed the money. He just did it because it was the right thing to do.” She smiled at me and I was proud of my son. “From that day on I looked at Joey as a man. Not a white man, or anything else. Just a man, and probably the only real man I had ever met in my life.”

“From then on we grew closer and closer. Then one day he asked me out on a date. I have to say that at my age, and situation, I didn’t like my chances of ever having a good relationship. Older single moms aren’t something most men look to start a life with. When he asked me I was shocked, and flattered, but I knew I had to be honest with him. I told him about Felisha and he just smiled. He said that he was sure that if she was anything like me she must be beautiful and sweet.”

Then a tear fell from her eye. “That was the moment I began to fall in love with him. Since then I have been exposed to other people like him and I have learned how wrong I have been in my life. There are many people that really are color blind in most ways. They don’t think they are better than blacks, or different. They just see us as people. People capable of doing great things or bad things.”

“In the last two years both Felisha and I have grown to love Joey. When he asked me to marry him I told him it wasn’t necessary, that we could be together without marriage.” She laughed a little. “He told me that he was going to put a ring on my finger before he lost me to someone better. I told him that it wasn’t possible, because there wasn’t anyone better for me than him.”