The Vanishing Half

Stella now lives in a wealthy housing development in Los Angeles. At an emergency Homeowners Association meeting, her fellow residents are up in arms about the fact that a Black family might move into a house across the street from Stella’s house. As everyone yells about how the entire neighborhood might go to ruin, Stella stands up and vehemently tells the president of the Housing Association that he absolutely must stop the Black family from moving in. She surprises herself by acting so boldly—she’s usually quiet and reserved. Because her outburst is so out of character, it makes an impression on her neighbors, who applaud her for fighting against racial integration.

Blake Sanders, Stella’s husband, is also quite surprised by Stella’s outburst at the Homeowners Association meeting. On the whole, though, he agrees with her sentiment, believing that the Black family who put an offer on the house across the street ought to be stopped. That night, Blake soothes Stella by assuring her that the neighborhood surely won’t let Black people move in—after all, the Homeowners Association has lawyers who will stop that from happening.

Stella and Blake have been married eight years. They met in New Orleans and now have a young daughter who, like Stella, often has nightmares. Stella’s own nightmares revolve around her father’s murder, but she can’t talk about them with Blake because she never mentions her past, for fear of uncovering too much about herself and revealing that she’s passing as white. When she was pregnant with her daughter Kennedy, she thought constantly about whether or not the baby would come out with light or dark skin. If Kennedy had ended up with dark skin, Stella might have lied and told Blake that she had an affair with a Black man. In the end, she didn’t have to lie because Kennedy looked so white.

As a very young child, Kennedy once asked Stella where she was from. Even though she had never told Blake the name of her hometown, she told Kennedy that she was from Mallard, figuring that Kennedy wouldn’t remember. Whenever Kennedy asked about Stella’s parents, Stella just said they were “gone.” As for Blake, she told him that her parents died in a tragic accident.

The morning after the Homeowners Association meeting, Stella floats in her private pool drinking gin. She thinks about the possibility of her neighborhood desegregating and fears that the Black family across the street will sense her secret. She’s glad that Blake convinced her to get a private pool when the local public pools were beginning to desegregate. Slowly but surely, she has acclimated to the wealthy lifestyle Blake has always led. She has a housekeeper now, a fact that sometimes reminds her of her days spent cleaning for the rich white family in Opelousas. She never told anyone, but the husband of that wealthy couple often cornered her in a closet and stuck his hands down her pants. That’s why Stella agreed to leave Mallard in the first place: to get away from that man.

In the coming weeks, Stella and her neighbors learn that the Black family buying the house across the street threatened to sue the Homeowners Association if it didn’t let them purchase the property. It’s clear that the family is extraordinarily wealthy, which intimidates Stella and everyone else in the neighborhood. Stella gossips with the other families in the housing development, many of whom are adamant about making sure there isn’t a trend in which Black people start moving to the neighborhood after the first Black family arrives. Stella agrees with her neighbors about not wanting to live alongside Black people, but she also fears what these powerful white people might do to get their way.