Two people have written this book.

The first person was the child who was still hurting, who hadn’t reconciled the past with the present, who didn’t want to be what she was.

The other is the adult who has faced her demon and laid it to rest for once and for all.

This story moves along like a yo-yo, up and down, forward and back. It is a mishmash of what was begone with all these other voices added which I, the obedient, eager to please, whatever I am… frustrated artist, dutiful daughter, obsessive/compulsive housekeeper, possible lunatic, mother, grandmother, great grandmother, or tired old lady, am slowly working my way through the pages… the painful for me, and probably boring for you, story of my life.

I suppose there will be those who will fault me for writing this book. Blacks will think, “What has she got to cry about? She could have passed if she’d wanted to.” Whites will think whatever I got I deserved for being deceitful, for hiding my ancestry behind a white facade (as if I could help it). I can relate to both points of view.

If this book should be published, some people my age who read it may say, “That’s not the way I remember those times,” or “That wasn’t the way I was taught in my school.” This could very well be. I’ve written about my time and place. These are my memories of the way things were in Coronado, California, from 1924, when I was three years old until I moved away in 1940 when I was nineteen and of things that I experienced after that.

The original draft of this story ended with my suicide.

Cynthia Hudgins