A Simple Distance (18 page)

Come. I want you to see this
—talking with her hands, even as she carried a cutlass; I gave her a wide berth.

What’s that?
I did not reprimand her for jumping the gun, working the land before we smoothed things out with Uncle Martin and Uncle Charles. I gave up easily, played her game.

She held up a plant the length of her arm.

What is it?
I asked.

It’s a sego palm. The oldest in the world,
she explained.

Neat. Where’d you get it?

Fatima brought it up from Sommerset. From Pastor Christian’s garden. God bless his soul. He lived there forty years and then the church moved him to Bato. He was getting so old. They couldn’t risk him living in the country. But mark my words, that man will die without his garden.

My mom put the palm back down, began to dig a hole on the cliff side of the graves, just in back of the headstones at Grampy and Uncle George’s feet. Hard to tell if she kept moving out of purpose or worry.

I’ve decided the sego is going to be my signature plant.

The way my mom deals with the possibility of losing everything is to put everything she has into it. I, on the other hand, am the cautious one. I never rely on anything that could possibly be taken away, turn left and right around holes, like the ones still left in me from her.

She continued,
When they grow, the trees will act as a windbreak to protect the graves and slow the erosion of the cliff.

That day, I did it her way.

We finished with the palms hot and sweaty, went inside for a drink of whatever juice Fatima had cold—lime. At the dining room table, we talked between ourselves about private things, like land and greed, as if Fatima wasn’t just in the next room or walking here and there between sentences.

Outside the open shutter, a hummingbird, iridescent green, at the flamboyant’s bright orange flowers, high up in the tree. Inside with us, a small black bird with a red breast.

If I’d been worried for my mother since she’d showed up at the Oakland airport, bloodred eyes and too many bags, I wasn’t anymore. Not so much. As long as she could keep that house—her whole self, the bodies of her father, her brother, soon maybe her mother, and now my own blood from the pineapple plant, in its earth, where she could always reach down, sink her fingers in its dirt, and grab hold for balance.

She only ever falls apart, completely, now and then. Remains in pieces sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. Like me, to a degree.

This is how things come around. Maybe it was no accident I’d become my mother’s daughter and a lawyer like my uncles. Those days I saw them in me everywhere I turned; the way I avoided, attacked, avoided, attacked.

Whether I settled matters or not, I could get on a plane and go back home to a life as anonymous as I chose. But my mom was stuck there. She needed her family intact, which meant I did, too.

CHAPTER 25

Each step ripe with the possibility of both, it’d gotten hard to tell forward from back, right from wrong.

But I stepped anyway.

Granny used to say she didn’t want to be buried at Godwyn. But Granny was dead. Like Grampy and Uncle George. And her voice could no longer be heard by the people around her. She could say all she wanted, but the only one who’d hear her would be my mom, maybe, late at night in the house, as just another angry shutter banging in the wind.

Mom, we’re giving them access
. I said the words to her as they came into my head, clearly, as if the answer had been staring me in the face the whole time.

Her face curled to object above the lime juice, yet I didn’t care. I put my foot down, cut her off before she could complain.

Look,
I said, cold like a lawyer,
I can make this happen, and you can’t. They need to be able to use the burial plot, Mom. Not even you can stop them. Your land surrounds it on all sides. Any judge would give them a road.

She complained anyway
. But Charles is talking about taking the whole house. It’s my house, Jean. Look what I’ve made of it. That’s the only reason he wants it. It’s pure greed.

Mom. Stop. Uncle Charles doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s a doctor. He fixes people, not problems … Call Uncle Martin at Tours and tell them to drive up here this afternoon.

But—

Just do it!
I left; refused to let her see me weak inside. The problem was, I couldn’t do it alone. I knew that island, and my voice wasn’t strong enough to be heard by my uncles without baritone behind it.

So I fumbled through my backpack for Mr. Petion’s business card and left a message with his secretary for him and Mr. Hill to
please, come
to Godwyn.

CHAPTER 26

And they did come: Hill and Petion. As asked.

Uncle Charles and Uncle Martin waited until it was almost dark; pulled up the drive fast, as though they were in charge, had more important matters to attend to. The Pascals and their posturing; it’s so obnoxious.

I rolled my eyes at Mr. Hill and Mr. Petion, looked at my watch. But we rose immediately, all four of us, from our seats on the front porch—my mom under strict orders not to say a word because she’d just set them off, squander what little sunlight we had left.

Uncle Martin, the wise guy, mentioned to his brother as they exited the Four-Runner,
Charles, I neglected to tell you. Jean has hired herself a pair of bodyguards.

Good afternoon, gentlemen.
Uncle Charles was not as amused as Uncle Martin. He would rather have bullied my mother out of Godwyn in private. Family matters.

But he had a mother to bury, earth to move to do so.

Mr. Hill and Mr. Petion nodded their hellos to my uncles; they already knew the plan: map out a path to the burial plot from Grampy’s old access road, draw it up on the survey, and file it with the recorder’s office in Bato before I left the island. Lock my uncles into a contract.

My mom will grant the family a right-of-way up the hill from the access road to the graves. All this fighting is unnecessary
. I attempted a tone as patronizing as the one I was sure to hear back.

But I missed my mark. Uncle Charles was far more practiced.
Jean. You have this all wrong. We are not the enemy. Godwyn has been a family house since long before you were born. And it will remain that way … Perhaps it is we who have been at fault, in failing to instill in you the loyalty to this family that we have. Your mummy will never have to worry about a place to live in Baobique. You know that.

He just didn’t get it and he was wasting our time. I looked to Uncle Martin, incredulous to find myself turning to him as the voice of reason.

Uncle Martin. My mom has title now. That is not in dispute.

Mr. Hill backed me up:
She’s right, Martin.

Uncle Martin listened to the man he’d called the day before in panic, to find Susan for Granny, when he’d thought she still had a chance. He could concede to Hill, not to me.
Let’s hear them out, Charles.

Uncle Martin, Hill, and Petion all dressed for town, we piled into the Four-Runner, two too many, and backtracked down the drive to the access road.

My mom managed to maintain an uncomfortable silence until Uncle Martin passed too close to her plum tree. But that did it.
Martin! Watch the damn tree. You did that just to spite me. You’d level my whole house just to beat me down, if Jean weren’t here.

He did do it on purpose. That’s just his nature, to push and push and push until he gets at the nerve, gets his reaction.

Oh, Sophie, be quiet! You’re getting your little house. Be happy and shut your mouth.

Stop it! Both of you!
Now I was screaming, too. The car much too small to contain us like this, Uncle Martin parked it in the middle of the access road and we all spilled out into deep red mud.

The light was going.

Mr. Hill pointed a long arm up the slope in the direction of the graves.
Here, cut in from the plum tree toward the pomerack.

We’d walked the route already, before Uncle Martin and Uncle Charles arrived. The slope could support a narrow road, skirting the western border, roughly parallel to the existing access road.

No! Leave the plum tree!
My mom, in high gear, not helping us at all on this grade.

We’re leaving the plum tree!
I screamed at her, hoping to drown her out.

Uncle Charles was obstinate, having lost one battle already.
That way is too steep. It will never hold.

Yes, it will. We’ll angle along this way,
I pointed,
hug the existing road.

But he wasn’t listening to me, my voice useless in all that wind. A storm was kicking up again, out at sea.

I looked to Mr. Hill; he continued, led us up the slope and through the trees we marked earlier—the grapefruits, the coconuts—along the croton hedge to the crest, then straight to the plot. We pulled ourselves through in dwindling light, collected scratches and pricks from hidden thorns in thick, thick bush. By the time we reached the graves, it was completely dark.

This is going to work,
I demanded toward my uncles, both with arms folded tight to their chests. As if demanding made it so.

The road will hold, Martin,
Mr. Hill assured him.

I am against this. This would never be happening if George were still here.
Uncle Charles, a child losing control.

Uncle Martin spoke to the ground as he addressed his brother.
But he’s not here anymore, Charles. George is gone. And Mama’s gone …

As Granny and Uncle Charles lost their grip on Godwyn, Uncle Martin’s hand grew stronger, steadied. That year had taken first his older brother, then his mother. He had never in his life had to be the Uncle George, until now. He looked my way.
This family needs a bridge. And the road will do … Jean, if you come to my office in Port Commons early enough tomorrow morning, we can draft the right-of-way before my court appearances.

Everyone grew quiet. The winds had shifted along with our alliances. The fight let out of all of us, leaving behind just a sadness, deep as the night was dark.

We could bury Granny in two days’ time.

Only as we walked back toward the house, sticky with aftermath, did I notice the porch light and her Subaru; Susan waiting for us to return.

CHAPTER 27

I can leave in two days
, was all I could think as we approached the house; Uncle Martin and Uncle Charles filing off to retrieve the Four-Runner from the mud in the access road; Messrs. Hill and Petion gone ahead to welcome Susan, like conquering heroes after a hard day’s battle.

My mom and I stayed behind, walked a bit slower than the rest. Personally, I was in no hurry for the night’s second confrontation. I dragged myself toward Susan.

Mom,
I asked, more to look busy than anything else,
who is Marcus Greene? Do you know him?

Isn’t he the man that’s dating Susan?

Dating?

Well, whatever it is you call it these days …

Like my mom, I had spent many years of my life alone. Much of the time I, too, felt as if I was waiting for someone to come along and complete me the way she lay in bed all those years when I was young, waiting for someone like Harold to make her whole, shutting her eyes to me and what the two of us could have had, just by ourselves.

There in the dark, she whispered to me about Susan’s lover.
He’s a freshman in the Assembly. One of the O.O.F.I. representatives trying to link all the islands together with one voice. They tell us that’s the only way to gain international respect. People are saying he’ll be the island’s answer in a few years, just like George was, and Hill, in their time.

Is he a lawyer?

No, I don’t think so … He’s some type of engineer. Came back from London last year for a political career. I hear he and Susan are becoming quite an item.

I took her arm, held her to a stop, not rough, just incredulous.
Mom, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me this earlier. Don’t you know how I feel about her?
I said it soft enough so the others wouldn’t hear, only loud enough for my mom.

Well, that’s none of my business, Jean. Is it?

Not a question; I’d nothing to say, responded silently, with as few tears as possible. But I was glad for the dark, so no one could see me wipe my face dry.

My mom and I never talked about my lovers. In my mind, I always told myself it was because no one important enough had come along yet.

Things were changing so fast, it wasn’t just the darkness making it hard to see.

We reached the porch smiling wide and fake for the others.

Mr. Hill would not hear of letting us cook, proposed taking us all out to that Trinidadian’s restaurant in Tete Queue; the
only
restaurant in Tete Queue. But Mr. Petion had some work to do for an early-morning audit in Bato, would catch a ride with the next passing car or truck along the windy road south. And my mom wanted to start preparing the house for Granny’s funeral. Although it was common for me to see no one but family when I visited Baobique, my social obligations were expanding.

Mr. Hill left his daughter and me no choice. Plan B was take-out curry in Susan’s Port Commons apartment.

Before we left, we made sure the house was locked up tight: shutters closed, padlocks clicked, one dog in, one out.

I would walk over to Uncle Martin’s office in the morning, from Susan’s apartment, to draft the right-of-way.

CHAPTER 28

I was learning how a life marks time in eras, not hours; saw my arms inch along, like a clock, in their revolution. By measure I am slow to learn, hold on to heavy luggage, like my mother and her too many bags at my apartment in Oakland, come to stay for as long as it took to send me packing, back to Baobique to anchor title to Godwyn beneath her feet.

I could do it. I could face Susan. She drove us to Port Commons; Mr. Hill gone ahead to pick up the curry. I looked out the window, felt like a child being driven to school.