to notice she was losing weight – this was when crack cocaine was beginning to appear on the streets. Electra, I swear, I did everything I possibly could to talk to her about drugs, but she just didn’t want to listen.’
‘I understand,’ I said quietly. ‘Look at me, I didn’t want to hear either.’
‘Anyway, she then got brought home by the cops a few times, and was finally charged with petty theft – she’d been shoplifting and selling the stuff on the streets for cash. I paid her bail, and found a lawyer to represent her in court. The threat of jail calmed her down for a while and she stayed home. She drank some, but I think for that time the drugs stopped. The court gave her a caution, with the threat of juvenile hall if she got herself back into trouble again. And then . . .’
I watched Stella as she paused, her hands clasped tightly together, her eyes full of pain as she remembered.
‘She disappeared. A week after the court hearing, she went out one night and just never came back. And that was the last time I ever saw her.’
‘Did you search for her?’
‘Of course I searched for her!’ Stella turned to me, her eyes blazing with anger. ‘I turned Brooklyn and Manhattan upside down looking for her! There wasn’t a precinct I didn’t visit with a photograph, a neighbourhood where I didn’t stick a poster on a lamp post. I went to all the ghettos, the crack dens, all the damned places I could find where the lowlifes of the city hung out. I went up to Boston to search for her there, thinking she may have gone back to one of her exes, but nothing. Absolutely nothing. She literally vanished. Over two years I searched for her, working at the UN by day and walking the streets by night. It sounds impossible that someone can truly vanish off the face of the earth, but that is exactly what your momma did. And I swear, Electra, there was no stone I knew of that I left unturned.’
‘It’s okay, Stella, I believe you. So’ – I knew we were heading for the denouement of the story and braced myself – ‘when did you find out she’d died?’
I watched Stella swallow hard. ‘In truth, only just over a year ago, when your father got in touch with me and asked to meet me in New York. He told me that he’d spent time trying to trace your blood family, because he knew he was dying and he wanted to be able to leave you a letter that would tell you where you’d come from. He’d gone back to Hale House where he’d found you, and spoken to the daughter of Clara Hale, who’d put him in touch with one of the women who’d worked there at the time. Turns out, it was her who took you in that night. She was able to find the register which documented your arrival. As always, there were no details left about your mama, but the woman apparently remembered the man who brought you in. She’d seen him around the neighbourhood and knew he was a junkie. So your father asked for his name, and the woman said she thought he’d been known as Mickey. Your father scoured the area and eventually, he managed to find him through the Abyssinian Baptist church in Harlem. He was apparently a reformed man who had found God and was a lay preacher at the church. You must remember, Electra, that I knew nothing of this at the time,’ Stella clarified. ‘Anyway, Michael, as he’s now called, was able to tell your father what he remembered of your momma.’
‘Was this Michael my father?’ I asked eagerly.
‘No, he just happened to live in the same crack den when your momma was pregnant with you. There were constant police raids so the junkies were always moving on to find different hiding places in abandoned buildings around Manhattan. He was there when she gave birth to you, admittedly out of his mind on crack, but he said that you were starting to scream the place down, which would have alerted the cops. So he scooped you up and took you to Hale House.’
‘And . . .’ – I swallowed – ‘what happened to my momma?’
‘I . . .’ My grandmother reached for my hand and held it fast. ‘Bear with me, Electra, and forgive me for what I