The Trinity Game

granddaddy was mulatto. His features favored his daddy, who was white Irish, but never quite enough so’s he could pass. He married a white woman, and they had one quadroon child. Me. When I was born, I came out lookin’ white as any baby. So they had a decision to make.” Tim’s dad looked like he might cry, but he took another swallow of his drink and it passed. “They kept my daddy’s name off the birth certificate, put down UNKNOWN for the father. They figured it would be better for me to be thought a bastard, better for my mother to be thought loose.Better for my father to be thought a cuckold. See, they were trying to give me the best start they could, and a white boy can do things and go places that ain’t possible for a black boy. Folks thought my daddy was a living saint for staying with the white woman who strayed and raisin’ up a white bastard as his own flesh and blood. When I was a little older, he let me know the truth but made me swear never to tell.” He cleared his throat. “And when I was grown I moved clear ’cross town, where folks didn’t know my family. See, nobody can look at your face and tell if you’re a bastard. You can always leave your personal history behind. But you can’t run away from your race, once you been branded.”
    Young Tim Granger had no idea how to feel. His parents had always taught him that all God’s children were equal, that race was of no significance, but the rest of the world had sent him a very different message. Until a moment ago he was a white boy. Now he was an octoroon. He didn’t feel shame, exactly, but he felt a deep unease, his sense of self suddenly untethered, in flux.
    As if reading his mind, Tim’s dad said, “Hear me well, son: I’ve passed all my life, and you look even fairer than I do. No one will ever suspect you got Negro blood in your veins. When you’re a man, you make the decision to tell or not to tell, but you’re not old enough to make that decision right yet, so keep it under your hat for the time being. Life is gonna be harder on you if you tell. But maybe you should. I can’t say what’s best.”
    “Yes, sir,” said young Tim Granger. He stood to leave the room.
    “One more thing I need you to know.”
    “Yes, sir?”
    His dad sat looking at the photo a long time before speaking. Then he said, “I don’t hide it because I am ashamed. I am ashamed because I hide it.”
    Trinity never did tell, although he felt no shame about it, once he got used to the idea. If asked, he would not deny it, but it just never came up. The world thought he was white, and he was…seven-eighths anyway. He considered telling his twin sister, Iris, who shared his blood and who also looked white, but decided it might be a burden for her, so he kept it to himself.
    He never thought of his father without recalling that conversation. And he always thought his father’s shame had been misplaced. Shame for hiding his race or shame for the race itself, either way, it was meaningless to Trinity.
    What mattered was the poverty. That was shameful.

    She came to him in his sleep, in a peaceful dream. Came to him like an ebony Yoruba goddess, in the shade of the big magnolia, where he lay on a bed of oystershell gravel.
    “Does it hurt?” she said.
    “Not at all.”
    “It will.”
    He wanted to believe her. Wanted to square up his account, pay the full price of his sins, and be washed clean.
    But he was afraid to die.
    “Everybody dies, Tim,” she said.
    So she can read my thoughts…
    “It goes both ways,” she said, and he realized that her mouth had not moved.
    Holy crap. Telepathy.
Then it hit him all at once.
I got it! I got it! You’re God…
    Her smile was full of pity. “Yes, but so are you. I’m God, you’re God, Danny’s God, and the man who audits your taxes for the IRS is God. Everyone is God. I hope you will earn that knowledge before you’re done.”
    You almost had me, until you included the tax guy…
    “You need to take this seriously. Something bad is going to happen tomorrow. Look at me, Tim.”
    So he sat up and looked…and liked what he saw. A black woman—at least as black as he was white—her features spinning tales of North Africa. High forehead, almond eyes, prominent cheekbones, full lips, sharp chin. Skin dark and smooth. Emerald-green eyes. Thin frame, delicate shoulders, voluptuous swelling at the breasts and hips. She wore a fire-red head wrap and a light summer dress of the same color. Around her