The Other Side of Paradise: A Memoir

by Chin, Staceyann

  “Staceyann, I hope you two are not getting too caught up in this church business!”

  “No, Mummy! Delano have a lot of friends at church, but I don’t like church at all. Sometimes I wish I could stay home and read, but Aunt June make us go every Sunday!”

  “Staceyann Chin! I am ashamed of you. No one can make you do anything. You are your own person. You have to decide what is right for your own life. And June is not in charge of you, I am. And when I am not here, your grandmother is. Don’t forget that!”

  “Yes, Mummy.”

  “Now stay here while I go and say a few things to June. She believes she can do as she wishes with my children. Well, I am here to tell her she can’t!”

  The rest of the day is quiet. We all sit in the living room. Delano snaps pictures of Shane. I comb the yellow hair of the giant dolly.

  At about five o’clock the white van comes back. My mother calls me to her and whispers that she has one more special gift for me. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a little box with a gold bow on the top. She opens it and empties out the finest gold chain with the tiniest cross pendant into her palm. I turn around while she places it around my neck.

  “Now, Ma Chérie, this chain is a symbol of my love. As long as you have it, you will know that you are my daughter, and that I love you.”

  The fine gold chain makes me feel like I am the most beautiful thing in the world. The little cross rests cold on my collarbone. Mummy climbs gracefully into the passenger seat of the van and yawns. “My darlings, my darlings, this has been a wonderful day! It was so lovely to see both your beautiful faces.”

  She pulls us to her bosom one last time. And then, in a hot wave of blown kisses and perfume, my mother rides away.

  Both of us stand watching the van disappear.

  “Delano, I did think she was going to stay with us.”

  “That is what I was telling you. You can’t think anything. People do what them do and you can’t do nothing about it.”

  “You think she going to come back tomorrow?”

  “How I must know that? You think me know everything? Just relax yourself and wait till things happen how them supposed to happen! Now come make us go and take up our things off the living room floor before Aunt June get vex ’bout it.”

  Shane and Samantha are sitting with the few gifts Mummy had given them. There is something odd about having more than them. But it still feels good. I quiet the small worry and finger the cross at my throat and remind myself that I am the luckiest girl in the world.

  I wear the gold chain and the brand-new flannel pajamas to bed. The sharp edges of the cross make tiny nicks in my throat. By morning I am hot and sweaty and the red dye from the pajamas has bled into the white sheets on the bed. I go to the kitchen to look for Grandma.

  She is not in the kitchen, but Aunt June is there, complaining to Uncle Harold over the porridge. “Whatever she do, Harold, she will have to take the two of them out of here today.” Uncle Harold is silent as she continues, “You hear her yesterday? They are so thin! Where she was when them was eatin? I don’t want them in here another night. Them have a mother now, and I going to send them go to her!”

  I tiptoe back to the bedroom. “Delano, Aunt June say we have to leave today! That means we going to live with Mummy now!”

  “Stacey, why you can’t stop telling lies? You can’t just wait to see anything happen before you make it up, eh?”

  “All right, Mr. Know-It-All, you will have to just wait and see.”

  By late morning Grandma has packed all of our things. She packs all the new clothes. Only a few of the clothes we had before Mummy came can fit in the bags. The big doll cannot fit, so Grandma says I will have to carry it in my arms.

  “Delano, you know exactly where Miss Miles’s house is, right? Is right up the road from your father place. That is where you mother staying. Stacey, me don’t know if you remember Miss Miles. Me would go with oonu, but Miss Miles’s new house is very small. Me don’t want all of we to turn up on the poor woman without no warning. Oonu will have to go on the bus by oonuself.”

  I ask Grandma why our mother can’t come for us. I am worried that we will get lost if we are by ourselves. But she says there is no need to worry because Delano is big enough to know where to walk. “Delano, make sure you hold her hand all the time. And look fi car before oonu cross the road. God not going to make anything happen to oonu. Him take oonu this far, him wouldn’t let oonu down now.”

  We take our bags to the veranda. Aunt June stands by the front door. I can’t tell if she is angry or sad. Delano tries to say good-bye, but she turns away and tells us to just go. As we exit the gate she waves her arms and yells, “Make sure oonu don’t come back here, no matter what that madwoman tell oonu! Even if she put you back on the bus, do not set foot back on my property!”

  None of us say anything. Grandma walks with us to the bus stop. She holds my hand while I struggle along with the doll. When we get to the bus stop she gives Delano money for the fare. Delano sits by the window with his face turned to the side. I slide in beside him and stick the doll between us. Grandma carefully pushes our bags under our seat. She sniffles and takes out her white handkerchief. I am suddenly tired of her. I wish she would just stop with the crying so we can go.

  “Delano and Stacey, oonu must put oonu trust in God. And be careful, Montego Bay is like Sodom and Gomorrah. Watch where oonu walk! And make sure oonu tell oonu mother fi send word as soon as she can. Jesus in heaven protect the two of oonu!”

  She presses the handkerchief into my hand and wipes her nose with her sleeve. Then she licks her fingers and smoothes my hair. I shrug her off. “All right, all right, Grandma. You have to get off the bus now. The driver waiting on you. Good-bye!”

  She removes her tie-head and uses it to blow her nose. She stands outside looking very, very sad. I push my head through the window, “Don’t worry ’bout us, Grandma. We going to be all right. Delano know the way and our mother will take care of us when we get there.”

  As the bus drives away, she waves and waves and waves at us. Delano waves and waves back at her. I can’t wait to see Montego Bay.

  By the time we get to downtown Montego Bay I am so hungry that nothing in the busy city is of interest; the giant clock, the labeled streets, the hundreds of people milling about are too much. We walk from the bus stop to another taxi stand. The taxi smells like sweat and perfume. I lay the doll across my legs. A young man with a gold tooth and a large older woman with very big breasts sit in the back with us. The woman calls the man Sparky.

  “Sparky, go over some more in the seat! Why you must sit down with you legs them wide open, I don’t know.”

  Sparky grunts, closes his legs, and looks out the window. The woman puts on lipstick and smiles at us. Her perfume crawls right up into my nose when she leans in to me and pats my cheek. “My word! What a pretty little girl! And is this you brother? Is where oonu going without oonu mother?”

  I sit straight up and tell her, “Miss, we are not without our mother! We are going up there to her now. And then we are going to live with her in Canada.”

  The lady pats my cheek again and nods. “All right, little miss, oonu is very lucky to be going away to foreign.” She turns back to Sparky. “Sparky, you hear dat? Them going away to America!”

  She turns to us again and asks, “Is that where you father is, America?”

  “I never said America! Canada is better because they talk French like France! In America they only speak one language—”

  Delano pulls me closer to him. “Stacey, stop bothering the woman. We don’t even know if we going anywhere yet!”

  “Well, children, this is our stop. Oonu take good care of oonuselves when oonu reach Canada. Open the door, Sparky!”

  We drive for another few minutes. At the final stop Delano pays the driver. When the taxi drives away he grabs my arm and shakes me. The doll falls to the ground.

  “Stacey, why you have to tell that woman th
at we going to Canada? You have to stop telling people things that you don’t know.”

  “Delano, just leave me alone and stop telling me what to do. You is not my mother!”

  “All right, then. Do what you want, but one day something really bad going to happen because of your big fat mouth!”

  I am hot and hungry and annoyed with his pessimism. “Delano, is your mouth big and fat and ugly! Just wait till we reach! I going to tell Mummy on you!”

  He grabs the two bags and tells me to pick up the doll and hold on to one of the bags. “And make sure you don’t let it go. Grandma say that Montego Bay drivers drive like madmen. Just hold on to the bag and follow me.”

  We pass a big church called the Mount Salem Open Bible Church. People are singing and clapping inside. Mount Salem Hill is steep and the sun is very hot. At the top of the hill there are rows and rows of houses surrounded by walls and fences. We pass gardens with bright-colored flowers and neatly cut hedges. The street is wide and empty when we turn the corner.

  “Delano, how much farther we have to walk?”

  “Stacey, stop complaining. Is right here. Just hurry up and open the gate!”

  I reach inside to unlatch the metal gate. He puts one bag on the doorstep and knocks on the front door. The door swings open and Mummy steps outside, wearing a shiny red robe held together with a wide black sash loosely tied around her waist. Her red nails reach up to scratch her face. She looks up and down the street and demands, “What the hell are you two doing here?”

  She pulls the sash tighter. Her face looks very different today. There are little pimples and black marks all over her face.

  “Aunt June tell us to come, Mummy.” I don’t understand why Delano’s tone is apologetic.

  “‘Aunt June tell us to come, Mummy’? Is that the best you can do? Is that all the explanation you have as to why you have both appeared unannounced on my doorstep?”

  My mother is waving her arms and screaming. The veins in her neck are little snakes crawling under her skin. When she shouts like that I can see that her teeth look funny. They are not really white and they don’t all line up in a straight row. I wonder why her teeth are like that. In America, they have shiny wires that hold your teeth in a straight line. The wires are called braces. The braces I see on TV make it look like the person has diamonds on every tooth. Maybe Canada does not have braces. I watch her mouth moving and moving and moving and wonder what she would look like with diamonds on those crazy teeth.

  “After all the things I brought for June and her children, this is how she repays me! That bitch! See if I bring another stitch of clothes for her and her little tar babies next time!” She pulls the black sash again and looks down at the two of us. Then she turns and walks inside.

  “What are you children waiting for? Come on in! And leave the door open. I need the fresh air. Delano, please put those bags inside and take her to sit in that corner.”

  She is talking to us like we have done something bad to her. I feel like I should say I am sorry, but she walks toward the back room and slams the door behind her.

  I lay the doll on the couch and asked Delano, “What’s wrong with her?”

  “Shut your mouth, and don’t say anything when she come back,” he tells me.

  I start crying. Delano pinches my arm and orders me to stop. I cry even louder. He lets go of the flesh on my arm and hugs me. “Stop, nuh, Stacey, man. If she come out and see you crying, she going be more upset. Just quiet, man, stop crying and everything go be all right.”

  He pulls a lollipop from his pocket and gives it to me. Half an hour later, Mummy comes back into the room and sees me sucking away. She almost jumps over the coffee table to get at me. Her long red nail grazes my cheek and hooks onto the gold chain as she slaps the half-eaten lollipop from my mouth. The chain breaks and the gold cross falls down my chest.

  “Now look what you made me do! Find the cross and give it to me. You obviously don’t know how to care for anything of value. Find it and give it back to me!”

  I reach down into the front of my dress and fish out the tiny cross. She reaches over and grabs it.

  “Who told you you could eat candy in this house? Who do you think has money to fix your teeth when they go rotten? There will be no candy in this house. Do you hear me, young lady? And sit up straight. Your spine is curved like an African monkey. No grace in these children. No wonder I never came back for you!”

  Provoke Not Your Children

  Mummy tells us that this wonderful house belongs to her dear old friend Miss Miles. I ask if it is not the same Miss Miles that is Grandma’s friend.

  “Please don’t interrupt me, Staceyann. It’s very rude to interrupt!”

  I put my hand over my mouth to keep from blurting out that I did not interrupt her, that she was finished with her sentence before I said anything.

  “In these last few years, Miss Miles was really getting too old to live under the harsh conditions of the country life in Lottery, so her husband built her this lovely mansion here in Mount Salem.” The house does not look like a mansion to me. The living room is very, very small, but I know better than to say anything. “I wouldn’t say it is as big as my house in Montreal, but it is a marvelous little place. Did you children see the gardens? The flowers are to die for! Gardens are so romantic…

  “When I was a little girl, I used to be buddies with Miss Miles’s son, Harvey. He was so in love with me. We didn’t do anything that could be called fresh, but in the evenings while we did our homework, we held hands—nothing fresh. It was such a lovely time in our lives. I know he still thinks of those lovely evenings. He must! It was just so perfect! Absolutely, perfectly perfect!”

  She tells us that Miss Miles is out shopping for the day, but that we have to be ready for her at all times, as this is her house.

  She stands by the doorway looking out and picking the tiny pimples on her face. Suddenly she tightens her sash. “Okay, my lovelies, what do you want to have for dinner? Franks? Mac and cheese? Spanish rice?”

  Those choices don’t sound like dinner to me. I bite my lips and wait for Delano to respond. He hunches his shoulders and looks at his fingernails. “What’s the matter with you children? Aren’t you hungry?”

  “Yes, Mummy.” Delano looks away.

  She looks at me and raises her eyebrows. “Well, Staceyann?”

  “Yes, Mummy.” I want to find the words that will make her happy. “I want some of the mac and cheese and some of the Spanish rice. I think Delano wants some too.” Delano looks at me with murder in his eyes.

  “Okay, my darlings. Let’s get you fed. Delano, we have no cheese, so you will have to go get cheese from your father’s supermarket. It’s just down the road. You can easily walk.”

  Delano does not move.

  “What is the matter, Delano? I expect you to move when I ask you to do something. Now get up from there and go get dressed.”

  “But, Mummy, I never go over there by myself. Grandma always go with me.”

  “Delano, please do not argue with your mother. Just do as I say. Go and get some cheese from Charles.”

  He takes a deep breath and stiffens his back. His hands curl into fists. “No.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Her fingers still against the side of her face, she slowly moves toward the couch.

  Delano makes his body smaller in the corner of the couch. “Mummy, I never go in there by myself. Can’t you just come with me?”

  “What did you just say to me? Are you out of your mind? Did you just refuse to do something I told you to do?”

  He presses the small of his back against the arm of the couch and slides his bottom up and over it. She edges toward him. He circles away from her and darts toward the door. “Mummy, just come with me, please. I will go, but just don’t make me go down there by myself.”

  “Delano, stop being a big baby and try to be a reasonable person. Look at me! I can’t possibly go with you. I am not even dressed!”

  He ba
cks away from her. “I will wait for you to get dressed, Mummy.”

  “Delano Mark Anthony, stop that bellyaching and go right now! Right this minute, I tell you!”

  “No!”

  She reaches for him and just misses his collar as he slips through the door. The hot tar burns his bare feet and he hops from one foot to the next.

  “Stop making fun of me!” Mummy shakes her fist at him from the doorway and grabs her own neck with her hands to show him what she will do to him when he comes inside. Her long nails make her thin hands look like claws.

  “I don’t care what you do to me, I am not going down to the supermarket by myself!”

  Mummy screams, “Delano Mark Anthony! Do not force me to come out there! Get inside this instant!”

  People hear the screaming and look out.

  I stand behind Mummy’s red robe and watch her clench and unclench her fist. I am a little afraid for Delano. Part of me wants him to come inside and end this, but I’m also glad to see him standing up to her.

  The argument goes back and forth. Mummy ties and reties her black sash. A lady from the house next door urges Delano to go in. He tells her to mind her own business. Another woman shakes her head and says it’s a pity when people can’t control their own children. My brother holds his ground for almost an hour.

  Finally Mummy concedes. “Okay, Delano, you have won this round! You do not have to go to the supermarket. Just come inside and put on some shoes. Your feet must be blistering on that hot asphalt.”

  Delano cautiously makes his way inside. He closes the door slowly. As the lock clicks into place, she lunges at him. She hits him in the head, on his legs, his face, his arms—all the time cursing, “Do you think you can take me on? You little half-breed, ill-mannered dog! I will knock your insolent lights out, you little stinker!”

  When he is no longer moving, she tells him to put on his shoes and go to get the cheese from Charles’s supermarket. He is crying so hard I ask if I should go with him. She slaps me. “Speak when you are spoken to!”