Page 7 of Love Me in the Light

There went that scrunched face again. “Melamem.” I slowly repeated the word again for her to mimic. “Melanin.”

“Good job. Melanin is what gives people the color in their skin, eyes, and hair.”

Skylar looked down at my arm, then at hers. “I got melamem. I mean . . . melanin,” she corrected herself.

“Yes, you do. You have beautiful melanin like your mommy.” I touched her beads again when she smiled brightly at her mother.

When her eyes fell back on me, her smile fell a little. “What happened to your melanin? You didn’t make any?”

With a smile, I answered her questions. I shook my head a little. “My body didn’t make a lot of it.”

“So you still Black even though you don’t have a lot, and your skin is white?” Skylar innocently asked.

I nodded. “Yes, my skin is very light because of my albinism. Guess what though . . . It doesn’t take away who my mama, daddy, and family are. I just look a little different than they do.”

She reached out and poked my arm. “Does it hurt?” After I told her that it didn’t hurt, she followed up her question with another. “Do you have to go to the doctor for it?”

“Sometimes I do to take extra care of my eyes and skin.” Her head tilt asked the why question that didn’t come from her mouth. “My skin and eyes are more sensitive to light than other people. I have to do certain things to help with that.”

Skylar looked up into the sky. “You don’t sparkle, so you not a vampire. Your skin just don’t like the sun.”

Sasha burst with laughter. “Chile, that is a new one. A vampire. Good one, Skylar.”

“No, baby, I don’t sparkle. If I didn’t wear my sunscreen, though, I just might,” I joked.

Her eyes bulged before her head snapped to her mother. “Mama, that’s why you make me wear sunscreen? You don’t want me to sparkle?”

Her mother tittered. “Yes, baby. I want to protect you from the sun’s sparkling rays.”

She stared at me decisively as if it just clicked. “So you a Black lady with no melanin because of albinism?”

I smiled wide. “Exactly! Good job on saying both of those words correctly, Skylar.”

“Ladies!” my sister Milan Renee’s voice broke into our conversation. She gazed at all of us for a moment. Confusion sat on her face. I was sure it was because of Skylar’s closeness to me as her mother hovered over her. “What y’all got going on?”

Skylar looked up at my sister. “You have melanin, but she don’t. She’s still Black though because her family Black.”

We had come to a clean understanding of what I was for Skylar’s young understanding. My sister giggled before she lowered her body to get eye level with her. “Well, yes, my sister is very much Black.”

Skylar’s head bounced back and forth between me and my sister. “Oh, you her sister? I have a Black sister too.”

“Skylar, that’s enough. Let’s let these ladies get back to their meal. It’s time for us to go,” her mother said to cut the conversation.

We said our goodbyes to Skylar, her mother, and her friend. Once they were gone, Milan Renee sat down at the empty seat at the table. She grabbed a piece of bacon from my plate.

“What brings you here to crash our brunch? How did you even know we were here?” I asked.

The top of her nose scrunched. “Um, is that a serious question? I’m surprised y’all don’t have a plaque on the wall for most loyal customers.” She snatched another piece of bacon from my plate like I had an entire platter.

“She has a point,” Sasha commented as she shrugged her shoulders. “We do have a permanent discount, best friend.”

That, we did, but that was beside the point. Milan Renee rarely brunched with us because she knew that we didn’t do all the content shit that she liked to do. I didn’t want to wait to eat my food until she got the perfect food shot. I damn sure didn’t want a camera in my face almost the whole time.

Over the years, she had gotten better with not including me in her influencer life. In hindsight, I appreciated that she posted the photo of us. At the time, I felt like it destroyed my life. It took me a moment to recover from that situation.

After Nathan realized that Veronica was serious about their breakup, he tried to spin the block with me. I never played a fool twice, so I sent him on his way. I hadn’t heard anything about him since I moved from New York. As far as Veronica, she met her now-husband six months after she broke up with Nathan, and they were married less than a year later. She now had twin daughters with her husband.

“And you do,” Milan Renee said. “I stopped by because I have a referral for you that I needed to tell you about now. I told the owner that you would come with me to see his place this week.”