I realize she don’t know me. She don’t know shit. All the talk she give me for leaving school acting like she have me figured out. Like I so easy to figure out. She telling me I give up easy. How she know that? That I need to focus more. How she know I not focused? She know shit and this just prove it ’cause how she could be asking me if I still seeing Jared? The cold and Sola have me want to turn back to the cabin, get out of the cold, get out from under she judgmental shit.
Just as we reach inside the cabin a knock at the door. In walk the woman from the photo, the one I find in the back of my desk. The one of Aunt Rachel, Mom and she. Margaret. She say she name right away. She say she live not far and she wondering if we need extra wood ’cause she say she have plenty. I say thank you but we only there for the day so we ok. She say she use to be friends with Aunt Rachel and Mom and then she say bye quick like she leave something on the stove back home and walk out. Sola look at me and say, “That was strange.” And it was. It was real strange. I want to bundle back up and follow Margaret but instead I put another chunk of wood in the fire, sit back and close my eyes. I thinking of Mom in the photo. She young. Margaret much older than Mom and a little older than Aunt Rachel. I wonder what their story is.
Then Sola cut into my thoughts and say she didn’t mean to upset me about Jared. And there she is talking about Jared again. She not saying sorry for not believing me, she saying sorry for upsetting me because she mention the man’s name. I take a deep breath and say nothing. When the silence uncomfortable I say Drey coming. And all she say is, “Why?” and “You want the man to have a holiday or a heart attack?””
I laugh ’cause the way she screw up she face like she sucking tamarind. But she not laughing. Now all I want to do is go back to the city, crawl into bed, be alone. So we leave.
That’s when the damn car start to spin out and we spinning across the highway and by the time we stop something go off inside and I can’t stop crying. A flood of tears running down my cheeks, my mouth, chin, neck. And Sola telling me we okay, I okay, you okay. Stop crying. We alive not dead. But she don’t know shit and all I want is to be as far away from she as possible.
When I finally do reach home I am grateful to have the house to myself. Aunt Rachel at work. She spend a lot of time there. Aunt Rachel and I living like roommates. Even though she trying to be motherly. I think I remind she too much of Pauline and I feel she have a lot of shame tied up with that. I grateful I home and in my room and free to let go. But I don’t let go. I don’t cry anymore. Maybe Sola’s right. Maybe she interpretations of me right.
Losing control of the car have me still shaky. I lie in bed thinking. Thinking about the car accident Fabian and I go through. Fabian head falling down on he chin then bouncing back up like rubber hit pavement. I stop singing. That’s all I remember, he head, too heavy for he shoulders, falling. Fabian say he can’t believe sleep take him in the middle of the afternoon. He say I pitch from the backseat and land in the drain. A piece of the van door pin half my face to the wet ground. My body expose up just beneath my nose. I crying. And Fabian can’t see my eyes, my nose. He can’t get the piece of door off me. He say he try and try. He say he think I dead ’cause I stop cry. He say he fraid the door stifle me. But then I start cry again. And he try again. He say he take his time, inch by inch he peel back the steel and carefully back-and-forth, back-and-forth my head out. A vehicle stop and drive us to the hospital.
Mom say when she reach they sew my face up already. They take two big pieces of glass out first. Mom crying and she have blood on she shirt. I say, “You okay?” Like she the one in accident. She say I born with empathy.
The neighbours come the same evening ’cause they see the mashed-up van pull into our yard. They say they hear I in the van too. A line of neighbours coming up the driveway. Mom say they want to know who’s dead ’cause van so mashed up there’s no way death escape that. Mom get so mad at Sally Anne ’cause she keep saying to me, “What gyal you almost dead, gyal.”
Mom tell Sally Anne to shut she mouth. I remember. Or maybe it’s part of other people’s stories about that day. I can’t imagine Mom saying shut your mouth to anyone. Then I think I hear Sally Anne saying, “Ms. Pauline why you vex so? Judith not dead she alive.” Some of the memories mine, some of them Mom’s, some of them Fabian’s. Some of them a combination of all three mix up. Fabian asking Mom if she mad after he almost kill me, after he also save me. I imagine Mom red mad. I don’t have to imagine ’cause I hear them one night fighting.
She tell Fabian if he blame obeah one more time she’ll leave him. I know she just saying that, I know she won’t leave. Them two close, close like those bright-green parrots always in pairs flapping wings faster than themselves moving. Mom telling Fabian she don’t want to hear no more about obeah. She don’t believe she say. She want Fabian to take responsibility. He works too much, she say, running around picking up this, dropping that; taking the elders to the medical station so they can test their pressure; picking up mothers at the hospital who just give birth; taking people down to the cocoa station to sell cocoa. And Mom say he still stay up late and wake early and do it all over again the next day.
Fabian so sick with nightmares and daydreams of me dead underneath the van he don’t sleep for days and don’t eat either. He break down. I hear him. I never hear he cry before. But he cry now. He sob telling Pauline he feel someone trying to kill him and they almost get Judith instead. Pauline listening. She not saying anything. I know she must be just as surprised as me at Fabian crying. She soften. I hear she voice get softer. And then I can’t hear nothing.
Mom’s father almost dead in a car accident too. Mom thirteen when she father get mashed up bad. No one warn Mom she father’s face mash up. She say he face swollen purple, he eyes lost behind mauve balloons of flesh. Just like mine she say. Grandpa so bad she run to the bathroom and vomit. She feel terrible for being sick to she stomach when she poor father struggling to know who in the room with him. I think of Mom vomiting at the sight of Grandpa. I think of Mom wiping my blood with she shirt crying and me asking if she okay. I think of Mom just before she die. A car crash different from mine, Fabian’s and Grandpa’s. An instant removal. Gone. And then it’s our turn to blame, cry, vomit; hurt like we never hurt before.
I want to tell Sola straight, “My Mom dead.”
Maybe I’d tell her the story of Grandpa too and the story of my scar. “You see this here, the scar you never ask about. Well I almost dead too.”
I thinking the cabin a special place to offer more of me to Sola but I wrong.
JUDITH
DREY COME ON A Sunday. He arrive in Fabian’s navy-blue sweater and a jean jacket I never see before. He on the escalator, he documents scattered in one hand and the other holding the railing. He dreads tied back with a red, green and yellow band. He stare down and when he look up he see me. He gaze lift into a smile and he raise he fist in the air like he saluting or cheering. He laughing. He wrap me up in Fabian’s sweater. I inhale island spices, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove mixed with the sweat of a long journey.
I organize us to stay in the cabin the first couple nights. Aunt Rachel lend me she car. She never know I almost kill Sola and me the last time we drive. I dream about Drey and I’s first night together. We under a mountain of blankets, making love then talking about home. The next day walking into the woods then onto frozen coastline.
We arrive after driving through a night full of stars when Drey say, “Where you taking me Judith? Where all this land rolling to? Where we going? You taking me farther and farther from civilization. You planning a murder? I swear I don’t look at no other woman while you gone.” And then he laugh his Drey laugh like he whole body get the joke in one swift lean-forward-and-slap-knee Drey kinda way. He say he want to see more city lights. He say he want to see the lights his sister Arlene tell him about, the same lights he see landing in the big city before flying here, “like millions of fireflies t
aking over the world,” he say.
“This airport outside the city,” I say. “Stars shine free out here, no artificial lights thiefing their bling.”
“I want to experience bling bling city sky too you know.”
“You will. Relax nah and enjoy something different. You ever experience winter highway drive before?”
I make sure stove pack with firewood before I leave for the airport. I close the flue and let it slow burn. The cabin don’t have running water, so we bring our own containers, pails, jugs of water and store by the fire hoping it don’t freeze. I boil water on the small gas stove and fill the bathtub for Drey. He can’t believe he come all the way to the big world to find water scarce so. He can’t believe he come all the way to the big world and have to bathe in fire-heated water and shit in toilet full of woodchips. At least he laughing and not complaining. Drey get a kick out of the woodchips. “Girl you bring me all the way to the big world so I can shit in a bucket.”
I suck my teeth and laugh.
From the shower he shout, “What’s wrong with people at the airport? They watch me like I have my whole family tuck under my arm. Then they just wave me through. No searching. Nothing. What people talking about back home? No hands in the air. No pulling apart my bags. No asking me to step aside. No dogs sniffing. No nothing. But the eyes. The eyes man. People watching. They watching like they know something. Something I don’t even know about myself.”
Drey’s voice mingling with splashing water over back and shoulders. I rub my skin with a new scent, apricot butter. I start under my chin and work myself down to the tops of my feet then I dive under the blankets waiting. Corner-to-corner smile, arms extended, legs stretch wide waiting, anticipating.
I trip on a memory, a sharp ache settle between my legs. The fist right where I left it.
I discover my body at a young age, lying in bed, hands between legs, touching exploring soft coarse hair. Mom describe our bodies as temples. “A divine sanctuary.” I begging she to cover she self when she out in the open. She laughing saying if she can’t be free in she own home then where she free to be free?
I couldn’t understand when some of my school friends pointed below bellies while laughing, telling one another their “salt fish stink.” One day an older girl tell me to “close my legs” ’cause she “smell me.” Terrel ask me if I know where my salt fish is. I look at she blank.
“There between your legs where the pee come out,” Terrel say.
“Oh my vagina?”
“Your what?”
“My vagina?”
“Who say your salt fish call vagina?” She laugh and laugh.
“My mother,” I say.
“I never hear a word so. You don’t find between your legs smell like fish?”
“Maybe.”
“So you never smell down there?”
That night I put my fingers between my legs and smell the musty sweetness. I can’t get enough. I leave my fingers longer between my legs thinking the smell will last longer on my fingers. Whenever we drive past the cocoa station or visit friends who lay their cocoa in the sun I think of the intoxicating smell between my legs. This is how I discover the sweet feelings. I touch myself at night, feel the tiny sparks of pleasure, a trembling like a wave rippling on shore.
Now I steal into Drey’s skin like I sneaking into space just small enough for both of us. We slip under blankets like seals slip into sea. Drey move to the ache I press over and over to see if bruise still hurt. He move down my body like he know what to heal.
“Where you going?” I say.
“I going where the sweetness is.”
Tongue over parts waiting for redemption. The roar of an angry wave softening. Sorry, sorry, sorry, I whisper. Sorry, sorry, sorry sounding like shshshsh. Kissing Drey’s forehead, nose, cheeks. Small brushstrokes.
We spend the rest of the night sharing stories of home. Drey telling me who pregnant, who in jail, who win the lotto, who get chop, who marry, who win soca monarch, who travel, who get roadwork and who drop out from politics.
Drey up early the next morning. He on the couch wrapped in a wool blanket, feet propped up. He looking out at sea on one side and fields on the next. “Judith,” he call. “Wake up girl. Come see. What kinda animal make tracks like that?” I meet him at the window; he looking out at the field. I fall onto the couch beside him pulling the quilt around my shoulders. I fix my eyes on snowshoe prints marching across the field to the highway. “That’s me.”
“How your feet big so?”
I point to the snowshoes hanging close to the door still damp from yesterday. “There is another. We can go out later.”
“Me? Nah man I staying right here today.”
“So wait… You going to spend the whole day inside?”
“I not going out there to be eaten by bears and coyotes and whatever other wild animals you keep telling me about!”
“The only wildness you might see are whales. Way out there. But it’s still too early for that. Everything else sleeping.”
“For real you can see whales out here?”
“In the summer and fall you can.”
“Imagine I live my whole life on a small island surrounded by ocean and I never see a whale yet. I don’t even know anyone who see a whale on Small Island.”
I push myself off the couch and go to start the fire. I am reminded of Drey’s old mannish ways sometimes. How he never seem satisfied with what is.
“How the hell did you get Fabian’s sweater anyway?” I ask, remembering the moment when we first see each other at the airport.
“We friends now. Fabian call me on weekends to go with he to the garden. He call me to lend he a hand with the vehicle. He call me when too many grapefruit on the tree.”
“Imagine that.”
Before Drey arrive I romanticize our days together on Big Island starting with our first couple days in the cabin, by the sea. But the picture I imagine only last a night and into the next morning. Drey start complaining after lunch. He say he don’t want to be in the bush he want to be in the city. I hope the scent of firewood filling up the house, the sight of eagles in the sky, bare skin under warm blankets, short frequent walks in winter barren land, would fill Drey up those first couple days. But there are no eagles and the fire is out by the time we get up, leaving the cabin cold and damp. Drey don’t want to go out in the cold wind and who can blame him.
We leave for the city later that day. The place too quiet for Drey. He need more noise to distract him. He use to community from sunrise to sundown; use to people calling up to the house no matter what time of day or night; use to dogs barking, roosters calling, people cursing, birds singing, cows and goats bawling. What he not use to is the silence of a winter land, a land sleeping more than waking.
Drey anxious to call his sister. Arlene will be vex with Drey for not phoning as soon as he reach. Yet another reason for Arlene to think I unworthy of she younger brother. Drey pour he self another cup of tea, cut a hunk of bread and fill it with cheese. He sit back down on the couch and read the Small Island newspaper he bring for me. After he eat he fall asleep stretch out with the blanket over he head.
I put the snowshoes on one last time. I move out into the snow and toward the wooded area. I think of going home after saving money. I imagine walking into the yard back home, the dogs erupting into cries of recognition, Fabian at the back of the house cleaning a bucket of nutmeg, looking up. “Eh eh Judith,” he’ll say. “Why you here?” He’ll give me a great big hug before saying, “So what happened to you? You okay? Why you come back so early?”
I inhale old fears like Drey finding out I quit school, bouncing up with Jared in the streets, not getting the extra shifts at Lion’s Den and not hearing back from the other jobs I apply for.
A silver buck jump out of the ravine and into the woods stopping the steady dull thoughts. A
n assembly of blue jays burst from the same opening where the buck disappear. I find myself once again wishing Sola here to witness the buck and the blue jays. I look forward to introducing Drey to Sola, Sola to Drey.
SOLA
JUDITH TEXTS ME THE day she and Drey get back from the cabin. “He’s here!”
I want to be excited for her but I’m not. Although I do really want to meet him; and at the same time I don’t really want to meet him. Two days later Judith calls instead of texts. She says she misses me. She says she just feels to hear my voice. I take a deep breath and the old familiar flutter flutters deep beneath my belly again. I ask how Drey is making out in the cold. She laughs and says not so good. He doesn’t want to leave the house.
Who could blame him. The weather is the coldest it’s been in years. The first time I experienced cold was the kind of cold where you feel your skin peeling back, exposing organs and bones to the elements. Dolma, Shy and I were walking back to the car from the mall. As soon as Shy opened the car door I jumped in with such urgency I slid all the way to the other side and bounced my head on the window. I put my head to my knees and rocked back and forth. Shy and Dolma were arguing about something, puffs of smoke coming out of their mouths with each snide remark. But then when they heard me smack into the window on the other side of the car they both burst out laughing and the argument stopped mid air, replaced by, “What Sola you almost pitch out the other side. That’s one kinda day oui. That’s what we call no-joke cold.” The way Shy spoke those words, I felt affirmed rather than laughed at. Dolma got in the back with me and rubbed my back until I could sit up again.
Big Island, Small Page 13
