The Other Mother by Rachel M. Harper

Author:Rachel M. Harper [Harper, Rachel M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Catapult
Published: 2022-03-08T00:00:00+00:00

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Jasper awoke to the smell of bleach. The sound of a mournful whistle. He opened his eyes. The room was empty. He blinked. He lifted his head from the arm of the couch. A note from Juliet sat on the coffee table. He blinked a second time. When he heard the whistle again, he realized that Darius was there, and that he had not died in his sleep. These facts were a comfort, and a feeling of relief flooded his chest.

He cleared his throat, tried to speak but thought better of it, drank a sip of his tea instead. The tea was cold and refreshing, and he finished it in one long gulp.

The note she left him, written on the back of an invitation to the opening of a new gallery in the West Village—one he feared he would not be alive to attend—was too long, so he didn’t bother to read it. But he could make out “Juliet,” printed in block letters at the bottom like a street sign, a heart before her name.

He waited for Darius to discover him awake, instead of calling out; it didn’t take long. Darius exited the bathroom with a bucket in one hand and a wet sponge in the other. He was overdressed for the job, as he was for most events, today wearing Armani—dark jeans, a white linen shirt so thin it showed his nipples—and cowboy boots that smacked the concrete floors like a slap. He passed the corner that held Jasper’s bed and stopped at the statue of the woman, running the sponge over her pale body before drying it with a dish towel. It looked to Jasper like a father bathing his child.

On his way to the kitchen, Darius glanced over, finding Jasper awake. He smiled and waved, water droplets running down his arm.

“Hey, sleeping beauty.”

Jasper smiled back. “Black beauty to you.”

“Of course,” Darius said, “the lighter they are, the Blacker they want to be.”

“I don’t have to want to be Black, I am Black.” Jasper leaned back against the couch. “The difference between the two is vast.”

Darius walked into the kitchen. “Just like being gay,” he said.

“Or sick,” Jasper added. “It doesn’t matter what you want, you are what you are.”

Darius wrung out the sponge and placed the bucket underneath the sink. Though Jasper stared at him, Darius wouldn’t make eye contact. He cleaned the kitchen instead, while Jasper watched from his perch on the couch. When Darius was finished, he washed his hands with a bar of soap as square and black as charcoal. Jasper noticed how odd the gray lather looked as it foamed over Darius’s skin, like it was washing off his color; he thought of a joke but decided not to say it. Race was a taboo subject among Black gay men, especially the brown-skinned ones, who would rather talk about money or marriage—or even their fathers—before talking about the color of their skin. Jasper learned that lesson the hard way, stunting several

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