The Vanishing Half

Adele Vignes is Desiree and Stella’s mother. She is the direct descendent of Alphonse Decuir, the founder of Mallard. A group of racists murdered her husband, Leon, when Stella and Desiree were little girls, leaving Adele to raise them herself. She works as a housecleaner for rich white families but needs her daughters to help her earn money, so she takes them out of school after their sophomore year of high school and sends them to work as cleaners—prompting them to run away from home and start new lives in New Orleans. When Desiree comes home years later with her daughter, Jude, Adele makes it clear that she disapproves of Desiree for marrying a dark-skinned Black man. She especially resents Jude’s dark skin, often trying to show her granddaughter how to lighten her skin, though none of her tactics work. Despite her internalized racism, Adele welcomes Desiree and Jude into her home and lets them live with her. She never thinks about Stella, not wanting to dwell on the fact that her daughter abandoned her life to become a white woman. In fact, she doesn’t talk about Stella until years later, when she starts suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and can’t keep track of things. Stella returns home during this period, but Adele acts as if it’s not a big deal, apparently unable to register that Stella has been gone for so long. By the time she dies, Adele has learned to overlook her colorist ideas, having accepted Desiree’s dark-skinned partner, Early, as an important person in her life.