Mark shrugged. “Not really.”
“Don’t be so modest, dear,” Ruth said. “The things Mark studies are so complicated only a handful of people really
understand it all.” She patted Mark on the hand, then turned to me. “And Barry, I understand you’ll be going to
Harvard. Just like Obama. You must have gotten some of his brains. Hopefully not the rest of him, though. You know
Obama was quite crazy, don’t you? The drinking made it worse. Did you ever meet him? Obama, I mean?”
“Only once. When I was ten.”
“Well, you were lucky then. It probably explains why you’re doing so well.”
That’s how the next hour passed, with Ruth alternating between stories of my father’s failure and stories of Mark’s
accomplishments. Any questions were directed exclusively to me, leaving Auma to fiddle silently with Ruth’s lasagna.
I wanted to leave as soon as the meal was over, but Ruth suggested that Mark show us the family album while she
brought out the dessert.
“I’m sure they’re not interested, Mother,” Mark said.
“Of course they’re interested,” Ruth said. Then, her voice oddly distant: “There are pictures of Obama. From when he
was young....”
We followed Mark to the bookcase, and he pulled down a large photo album. Together we sat on the couch, slowly
thumbing through laminate pages. Auma and Roy, dark and skinny and tall, all legs and big eyes, holding the two
smaller children protectively in their arms. The Old Man and Ruth mugging it up at a beach somewhere. The entire
family dressed up for a night out on the town. They were happy scenes, all of them, and all strangely familiar, as if I
were glimpsing some alternative universe that had played itself out behind my back. They were reflections, I realized,
of my own long-held fantasies, fantasies that I’d kept secret even from myself. The fantasy of the Old Man’s having
taken my mother and me back with him to Kenya. The wish that my mother and father, sisters and brothers, were all
under one roof. Here it was, I thought, what might have been. And the recognition of how wrong it had all turned out,
the harsh evidence of life as it had really been lived, made me so sad that after only a few minutes I had to look away.
On the drive back, I apologized to Auma for having put her through the ordeal. She waved it off.
“It could have been worse,” she said. “I feel sorry for Mark, though. He seems so alone. You know, it’s not easy being
a mixed child in Kenya.”
I looked out the window, thinking about my mother, Toot, and Gramps, and how grateful I was to them-for who they
were, and for the stories they’d told. I turned back to Auma, and said, “She still hasn’t gotten over him, has she?”
“Who?”
“Ruth. She hasn’t gotten over the Old Man.”
Auma thought for a moment. “No, Barack. I guess she hasn’t. Just like the rest of us.”
The following week, I called Mark and suggested that we go out to lunch. He seemed a bit hesitant, but eventually
agreed to meet me at an Indian restaurant downtown. He was more relaxed than he had been during our first meeting,
making a few self-deprecatory jokes, offering his observations about California and academic infighting. As the meal
wore on, I asked him how it felt being back for the summer.