In the end, your stories are all you have.<\/p>\n
When the body is weak and no one is listening, you sit and think of the days when your back was a little straighter. Walked a little prouder. Sweat sweet with hard work and the satisfied smile that comes with knowing there are people who survive another day because of you.<\/p>\n
You tell those stories to a house of noise: the television, the chatter of children, radio chirping an old Sparrow. The older children are absorbed in their phones and laptops and things you will never learn how to use. You don\u2019t need to.<\/p>\n
The time has come now.<\/p>\n
Resting in my favourite chair, hand under my chin, fingers feeling for the rough of my beard, I remember. No one is listening, but I don\u2019t do it for them. I do it for me.<\/p>\n
When I am gone they will miss my stories, and try their best to recall them when they dust me off and make me look more handsome in hindsight. And when I do, I hope some days are easier to deal with than others. Sometimes the mundanity of a photo, the lilt of a song, a halo of grey hair you pass on the street on the path to everyday will bring you back.<\/p>\n
And it will hurt; when the seemingly insignificant reminds of you of the fact that she never sleeps on the right side, and the room is still heady with camphor concoctions, dabbed ever so lightly on the worn blue and brown plaid of an old handkerchief she uses to calm unwavering tears.<\/p>\n
No one ever tells you the calm never comes. But these stories — my stories — can give you a moment of peace.<\/p>\n
Smile.<\/p>\n
Even when yellowing snowflakes of London in winter chill my bones in a Barbadian summer, and my eyes are heavy, and my breath is a muddy, shallow pool. <\/p>\n
London: that\u2019s where I met her\u2026and thus begins my favourite story of all.<\/p>\n
I saw what my life was going to be, so I ran; as far as I could and as far as I knew I would.<\/p>\n
There was a man — there always was a man at that time — and he was a drunk. Not the productive kind that would work most of the day and then give you a lil something and then drink out the rest. No, he was the lazy kind. No work, no pay, but too much play.<\/p>\n
I saw what was ahead of me: a house-full o\u2019 children, only me to wuk for them and real misery that would drive me to the brink of something I did not want to see.<\/p>\n
So I got on the steamship.<\/p>\n
I had no idea what I would do once I was there, but there were enough people from Barbados that I could find something to do to and somebody to live with. And send back a lil something when the month come and my children would be fed, even if I wasn\u2019t there to put the food in their mouth.<\/p>\n
Thirsty. I was thirsty. A kind of thirst that not even sea water could fix. But it would do for now: I just have to trust and pray and believe.<\/p>\n
I sat alone on that steamship, in a new, yellow cap-sleeved dress. I couldn\u2019t make, so I asked Priscilla to make it for me. I save a month to afford the material, and when I finally buy it I was talking \u2018bout the dress so much Cilla decided to do it for free. She didn\u2019t want me to leave. We had been friends since forever — since heaping with bush out of gullies and feeding them to cows we had to help kill a few weeks later. We both had dreams, and believed that with the right kind of help, we could all make it work. She found somebody: she hated him, but he was supportive. Delbert hit Cilla even in front of company, but it was less than she was used to. Every day, she put a little too much salt in his food.<\/p>\n
Every day she waited; and I was right there with her.<\/p>\n
But now, I had to look after my own dreams and look for my own things, \u2018cause the man I had was no good \u2013 just in another way.<\/p>\n
I found out I was pregnant sitting at my desk at work.<\/p>\n
There was a tug in my stomach \u2013 one that told me I was screwed. Again.<\/p>\n
Again, I said yes to a certified lying, cheating, cheap-ass bastard.<\/p>\n
The last time I had said yes to him was five years ago, and things were good and he had promised promises of a good government job. Civil service was something I tried to get into once, but I wasn\u2019t good enough. I failed the test twice before I added up that that life was never going to be for me. I was always good at numbers. I could add real quick in my head. So I ended up working as a petty cash clerk at an American company that had just start up assembling computers.<\/p>\n
I liked it, but it wasn\u2019t enough. I was barely making it. My stepfather kicked me out of the house when he found out I was pregnant with the first one. Mickey said he would help me make out, and that we could be a family. I don\u2019t know who else he promised it to, but I used to see him less often than a blue moon; and that was in a good year. My mother helps me out. I don\u2019t know how she manages with that man, and she doesn\u2019t know how I manage with mine. Truth be told, I don\u2019t think I do.<\/p>\n
Seven weeks ago, he came by smelling like more than a good time: grimy from a day of work as an island constable and tongue soaked in spiced rum.<\/p>\n
Seven weeks later, my vagina smells like sun-caked soil, drenched by a summer downpour.<\/p>\n
There is no smell of rain in Ottawa.<\/p>\n
Showers do not evoke; nothing rises from its slumber, thirsting for the hope of new beginnings.<\/p>\n
The sound of a downpour is dampened in the highrise I temporarily call home. It is Spring. In three days, I will return to Barbados. I slide open the small window to my bedroom, straining to hear the pitter-patter of raindrops hitting window panes and drains.<\/p>\n
It is not enough.
\n<\/p>\n
The warmness of sea salt tingles as I exit Air Canada on a Saturday afternoon. But the scent that was usually enough seemed strange \u2013 although not totally unfamiliar. Bounding down the steep, narrow metal steps, I smiled at the thought of home: beaches and fishcakes and beer and Crop-Over. And sex and fun and genuine laughter.<\/p>\n
The squeals of Antoine and Antonique greeted me from what seemed like miles away. The broad smiles of my nephew and niece poked through the window of my sister\u2019s dirty white Toyota.<\/p>\n
Cheers of \u201chello auntie, we missed you!\u201d were followed quickly by queries of presents and chocolate. Later that night, my closest friends and I caught up on our sketchy love lives over grilled fish in one of my favourite spots on the south coast, not too far from my grandparents\u2019 home.<\/p>\n
It was good to be back \u2013 although the circumstances were less than favourable.<\/p>\n
Frantic message sent by worried family members revealed that our grandfather was preparing for the worst. Stage three liver cancer was the latest diagnosis. At 77, he was less than willing to fight.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou should come home soon,\u201d they advised, \u201cnever know when you will get this chance again.\u201d<\/p>\n
I discarded summer plans of Toronto Pride and Caribana and instead bought a one-way ticket home. Home was what I thought I needed: men who would fuck me without fetishisation, temperatures that would allow me to shed layers upon layers of scarves, hats, boots and jackets; and an ease of living that only comes when you are home, even though not entirely on your own.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rain on a Zinc Roof Fence <\/strong> When the body is weak and no one is listening, you sit and think of the days when your back was a little straighter. Walked a little prouder. Sweat sweet with hard work and the satisfied smile that comes with knowing there are people who survive another day because of you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2277,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2167,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322\/revisions\/2167"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n In the end, your stories are all you have.<\/p>\n