The Girl Who Fell from the Sky Read online

  Praise for The Girl Who Fell from the Sky

  “The Girl Who Fell from the Sky can actually fly … Its energy comes from its vividly realized characters, from how they perceive one another. Durrow has a terrific ear for dialogue, an ability to summon a wealth of hopes and fears in a single line.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “An auspicious debut … [Durrow] has crafted a modern story about identity and survival.”

  —The Washington Post Book World

  “A complex, serious novel of interracial life in America … Both gripping and instructive reading.”

  — Minneapolis Star Tribune

  “Rachel’s voice resonated in my reading mind in much the same way as did that of the young protagonist of The House on Mango Street. There’s an achingly honest quality to it; both wise and naive, it makes you want to step between the pages to lend comfort.”

  —NPR’s Morning Edition

  “A breathless telling of a tale we’ve never heard before. Haunting and lovely, pitch-perfect, this book could not be more timely.”

  —Barbara Kingsolver

  “Hauntingly beautiful prose … Exquisitely told … Rachel’s tale has the potential of becoming seared in your memory.”

  — The Dallas Morning News

  “[An] affecting, exquisite debut novel … Durrow’s powerful novel is poised to find a place among classic stories of the American experience.”

  — The Miami Herald

  “The Girl Who Fell from the Sky is that rare thing: a post-postmodern novel with heart that weaves a circle of stories about race and self-discovery into a tense and sometimes terrifying whole.”

  — Ms.

  “Durrow has written a story that is quite literally breathtaking. There were times when I found myself gasping out loud, and at all times I was haunted by the events that shape Rachel’s existence.”

  — Elle

  “Stunning … What makes Durrow’s novel soar is her masterful sense of voice, her assured, nuanced handling of complex racial issues — and her heart.”

  — The Christian Science Monitor

  “Simply put, Durrow has written a beautiful novel. There is pain in it, but there is a great deal of love as well … The result is a story that moves along, packing an emotional wallop that lasts well after the reading stops.”

  — The Oregonian

  “In reading Heidi Durrow’s captivating and moving novel, it is hard not to recall the writer Nella Larsen’s own work, touching on some of the same complexities of race and gender. But it would be a mistake to think of The Girl Who Fell from the Sky as an ‘issue’ novel when it engages the heart as much as it does the mind … Unforgettable.”

  —Whitney Otto, author of A Collection of Beauties

  at the Height of Their Popularity

  “Durrow manages that remarkable achievement of telling a subtle, complex story that speaks in equal volumes to children and adults. Like Catcher in the Rye or To Kill a Mockingbird, Durrow’s debut features voices that will ring in the ears long after the book is closed … It’s a captivating and original tale that shouldn’t be missed.”

  — The Denver Post

  “[A] heartbreaking debut … Keeps the reader in thrall.”

  — The Boston Globe

  “One of those rare novels that reflect urban life in multicultural America, the way we live now … Heidi Durrow is a wonderfully gifted writer who can summon a voice, a memorable character, with bold, swift strokes. The Girl Who Fell from the Sky is a gem, and it shimmers in a way that good readers will notice and appreciate.”

  —Jay Parini, author of Promised Land

  “A beautiful, soaring tale … A fresh approach that brings together the magic (and the tragedy) of a Scandinavian fairy tale with the difficult realities of race in America today.”

  — Chattanooga Times Free Press

  “Haunting, memorable, frighteningly frank and yet still uplifting. It is likely one of the best books to be published this year.”

  — The Roanoke Times

  “Durrow’s Rachel is a young mixed race woman who is anything but tragic. Despite her complex journey through alienation and despair she emerges as a woman with her own voice, open to a world of possibilities … Rise above. Take flight. Move on. This is the message delivered so elegantly to the reader.”

  — The Huffington Post

  “Moving … Durrow skillfully parses the challenges of growing up mixed-race in America.”

  — The Charlotte Observer

  “A moving meditation on loss and coming of age as a biracial woman in America … [Durrow] packs volumes of meaning into compact, bombshell sentences that explode on the reader one right after the other.”

  — The Providence Journal-Bulletin

  “Well worth the read. When one considers that Durrow has achieved with her first novel something reminiscent of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, or even her masterpiece Beloved, then The Girl Who Fell from the Sky soars to the height of a novel not to be missed.”

  — Bookslut.com

  “A moving portrait of race and class.”

  — Virginia Living

  “[Durrow] is an exceptionally skilled storyteller with a gift for inhabiting her characters’ voices and bringing them to life from the inside out.”

  — The Charleston Post and Courier

  “A striking cast of characters … [An] insightful family saga of the toxicity of racism and the forging of the self … Durrow brings piercing authenticity to this provocative tale.”

  — Booklist, starred review

  “Taut prose, a controversial conclusion and the thoughtful reflection on racism and racial identity resonate without treading into political or even overtly specific agenda waters, as the story succeeds as both a modern coming-of-age and relevant social commentary.”

  — Publishers Weekly

  “Artfully constructed and beautifully written … Durrow writes with smarts and sensitivity about those who claim more than one identity and who point us toward a future in which all of us, of any race, will claim to be American.”

  — Hettie Jones, author of How I Became Hettie Jones

  “A stunning debut … The Girl Who Fell from the Sky will be read and reread as one of the most convincing, original, and moving novels in the distinguished canon of American interracial literature.”

  — George Hutchinson, author of In Search

  of Nella Larsen: A Biography of the Color Line

  “A remarkable novel. It unfolds its secrets with the perfect placement of a mystery. I had trouble putting it down — its core story about a mother’s desperate act recalls the insights of a writer no less than Toni Morrison. Durrow writes fearlessly about race, memory, and family — she is a writer to watch.”

  — Joan Silber

  “Heidi Durrow’s first novel stunned me and partially broke my heart … Ms. Durrow has created a resonant world all her own.”

  — Susan Straight

  The Girl Who Fell

  from the

  Sky

  The Girl Who Fell

  from the

  Sky

  a novel by

  Heidi W. Durrow

  Published by

  ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL

  Post Office Box 2225

  Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225

  a division of

  WORKMAN PUBLISHING

  225 Varick Street

  New York, New York 10014

  © 2010 by Heidi W. Durrow.

  All rights reserved.

  First paperback edition, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, January

  2011. Originally published by Algonquin Books of Chapel
Hill in 2010.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Published simultaneously in Canada by Thomas Allen & Son Limited.

  Design by Anne Winslow.

  This is a work of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions

  and insights are based on experience, all names, characters, places, and

  incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used

  fictitiously.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION

  DATA

  Durrow, Heidi W., [date]

  The girl who fell from the sky : a novel / by Heidi W. Durrow.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-1-56512-680-0 (HC)

  1. Racially mixed children — Fiction. 2. Identity

  (Psychology) — Fiction. 3. Intergenerational relations —

  Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3604.U757G57 2010

  813’.6—dc22 2009027572

  ISBN 978-1-61620-015-2 (PB)

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  First Paperback Edition

  Dedicated to

  my mother, Birgit,

  with all my love

  If a man calls me a nigger

  it’s his fault the first time, but

  mine if he has the

  opportunity to do it again.

  —NELLA LARSEN, Passing

  The Girl Who Fell

  from the

  Sky

  PART I

  Rachel

  “You my lucky piece,” Grandma says.

  Grandma has walked me the half block from the hospital lobby to the bus stop. Her hand is wrapped around mine like a leash.

  It is fall 1982 in Portland and it is raining. Puddle water has splashed up on my new shoes. My girl-in-a-new-dress feeling has faded. My new-girl feeling has disappeared.

  My hand is in Grandma’s until she reaches into a black patent leather clutch for change.

  “Well, aren’t those the prettiest blue eyes on the prettiest little girl,” the bus driver says as we climb aboard. The new-girl feeling comes back and I smile.

  “This my grandbaby. Come to live with me.” Grandma can’t lose Texas.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” I say. I mind my manners around strangers. Grandma is still a stranger to me.

  I know only a few things about Grandma. She’s a gardener. She has soft hands, and she smells like lavender.

  For Christmas, Grandma always sent Robbie and me a card with a new ten-dollar bill wrapped in aluminum foil. On the back of the envelope where she pressed extra hard there’d be a small smudge. The card smelled like the lavender lotion she uses to keep her hands soft.

  Grandma doesn’t have a single wrinkle on her anywhere. She has eggplant brown skin as smooth as a plate all because of the lotion she sends for special from the South. “They got better roots down there — better dirt for making a root strong.” Her body is a bullet. She is thick and short. Her dark hair is pulled back and is covered by a plastic bonnet.

  “Well, aren’t you lucky to have a special grandma,” the bus driver says. “Pretty and lucky.”

  This is the picture I want to remember: Grandma looks something like pride. Like a whistle about to blow.

  Grandma puts the change in for my fare. She wipes the rain off my face. “We almost home.”

  When we find our seats, she says something more, but I cannot hear it. She is leaning across me like a seat belt and speaks into my bad ear — it is the only lasting injury from the accident. Her hands are on me the whole ride, across my shoulder, on my hand, stroking my hair to smooth it flat again. Grandma seems to be holding me down, as if I might fly away or fall.

  The bus ride is seven stops and three lights. Then we are home. Grandma’s home, the new girl’s home in a new dress.

  Grandma was the first colored woman to buy a house in this part of Portland. That’s what Grandma says. When she moved in, the German dairy store closed, and the Lutheran church became African Methodist. Amen. That part’s Grandma too. All of Grandma’s neighbors are black now. And most came from the South around the same time Grandma did.

  This is the same house Pop and Aunt Loretta grew up in. On the dining room mantel are photographs of me and Pop. Of me and Grandma. Of me and Robbie. Of me, but none of Mor, that’s mom in Danish.

  “There, see that smile? That was the time I came to visit you over Christmas. Remember? Playing bingo. Oh! And I have a little present for you.”

  When she comes back, she holds a large wrapped box. I open the box. Make my first deals with myself. I will not be sad. I will be okay. Those promises become my layers. The middle that no one will touch.

  “Thank you,” I say and pull out two black Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy dolls.

  “Aunt Loretta gave you her room. Dressed it all up in pink. Did you know that’s her favorite color?”

  I nod.

  “And look at your hair. All this pretty long hair looking all wild from outside.”

  “We’re gonna wash that tonight,” she continues. “Your Aunt Loretta will help you. Bet she know how to do something better with that mess of hair than what you had done before. You’re gonna go to school Monday and be the prettiest girl there.”

  She doesn’t say better than your mama. She doesn’t say anything about my mother, because we both know that the new girl has no mother. The new girl can’t be new and still remember. I am not the new girl. But I will pretend.

  THE TWO RAG dolls that Grandma gave me sleep at the bottom of the bed. Grandma and Aunt Loretta want to check on the poor baby. That’s me.

  I close my eyes and pretend sleep. I pretend sleep all the time now. “Poor baby, so tired.” Grandma pats my hair.

  It’s the kind of hair that gets nappy. Grandma tried to brush it out before bedtime. I held real still, but it still hurt. She said I was tender-headed. The comb got stuck in the bottom in the back. Grandma said the tangled part is what’s called my kitchen.

  “She’s got good hair. Leave her be.” Aunt Loretta pulled the comb out, untangled each hair. “It’s the same place where my kitchen is,” Aunt Loretta said. “Where I get the naps in my hair too.”

  “Black girls with a lot of hair don’t need to be so tender-headed,” Grandma said. My middle layers collapsed. And I cried. And cried and cried.

  Now my nappy kitchen head is on the pillow. All wild, like Grandma says. And I’m done crying. I don’t want to be a mess or nappy or be so tender. “I’ll wash it tomorrow, Mama,” Aunt Loretta says. Her voice is honey.

  I want to be as beautiful as Aunt Loretta. She smiles all the time even when she looks at the picture of Uncle Nathan. Her teeth are white like paper and straight. She shows her teeth when she smiles. I have a cover-up-my-teeth smile. Maybe I started doing it when Pop called me Snaggletooth.

  Aunt Loretta is nut brown and knows she’s beautiful. She was Rose Festival princess and got to meet President John F. Kennedy. Her skin is even prettier than Grandma’s and she doesn’t use that sent-for lotion.

  Grandma and Aunt Loretta leave the door open enough to let light in. But still I press my back into the bed and open my eyes. No more pretend sleep. Now I will be real awake. Make sure the dreams don’t come. Stay awake. Stay away from dreaming.

  Tomorrow is my first day at a new school. I have a new notebook and pencils and a pencil holder with a zipper. I am going to think about school and practice the best cursive and learn all the big words I can know. I am going to concentrate. Be a good girl.

  IN MY DIARY I write: “This is Day 2.” Second day at Grandma’s house. I wish I could go back home. Home to before the summer in Chicago. Back to base housing in Germany when there was me and Robbie and Mor and Pop. And everything was okay. Even though there wouldn’t be an Ariel, that would be okay too.

  Aunt Loretta makes pancakes special for me even though she has no business in the kitchen. Two pancakes and not enough syrup is what she gives me. Syrup that makes a stain in the pancake middle, gone so fast lik
e the pancake is thirsty. I eat exactly what she gives me.

  Aunt Loretta eats only one pancake. And Grandma none because her teeth don’t set right. There is something dangerous about pancakes because Grandma watches us eat. “How you gonna catch a lizard with your backside loading you down?” Grandma fusses at Aunt Loretta. I am smart and know that when she says “lizard” she means husband. That is called learning the meaning from the context. Because Grandma says it and she touches Aunt Loretta’s face at the same time. That means she’s talking about being pretty and being worth something and making it count.

  Aunt Loretta laughs. And so do I. They are happy that I am laughing. It’s the first time as the new girl.

  “I don’t need a lizard, Mama.”

  When Aunt Loretta says “Mama,” I think of saying “Mor” and how I don’t get to say it anymore. I am caught in before and after time. Last-time things and firsts. Last-time things make me sad like the last time I called for Mor and used Danish sounds. I feel my middle fill up with sounds that no one else understands. Then they reach my throat. What if these sounds get stuck in me?

  I laugh harder, but the real laugh feels trapped inside too.

  SCHOOL IS NOT a first-time thing. I sit in the front, where I always do. I sit quietly, like I am supposed to do. I raise my hand before speaking and write my name in the top right-hand corner of the paper. And the date. Because this is what good students do.

  Mrs. Anderson is homeroom and language arts. She is a black woman. I think about this and don’t know why. It is something I’m supposed to know but not think about. Mrs. Anderson is my first black woman teacher.

  It makes me go back in my mind: Mrs. Marshall, first grade, favorite; Mrs. Price, second grade, not so nice; Mrs. Mamiya, third grade, beautiful; Mrs. Breedlove, fourth grade, smart; Mr. Engels, fifth grade, bald and deep voice. I remember they are all white.

  There are fifteen black people in the class and seven white people. And there’s me. There’s another girl who sits in the back. Her name is Carmen LaGuardia, and she has hair like mine, my same color skin, and she counts as black. I don’t understand how, but she seems to know.