Devon Yetman, Contributor 
Devon Yetman
IT WAS the day of her husband's funeral. If you were to have asked Mrs. Powell how she felt, she would have said: 'Life hard, but I am cheerful.'
She had gotten up early and gone into the kitchen. Relatives had come from England, Canada, the United States. A dubious great-aunt from one side of the family had even come all the way from New Zealand. That was something Mrs. Powell knew she would have to look into when all this was over. There were people from the country too, some claiming kinship with her dead husband, others just saying 'Morning, Miss' as they moved from the living room to the back section of the house where the cooking was going on. From her own side of the family there was a sister from Hanover, and an uncle from St. James. But most of the relatives were his - that was how his side of the family had grown up. One died, and the rest would appear like ants around fallen crumbs. Her children had been sleeping on the floor in the small living/dining room for the last several days, but she believed in treating visitors, especially family, with respect, so she had suggested that they give up their beds. She herself had been sleeping in a metal chair on the front veranda since last week.
She noticed that whenever any mention of funeral arrangements came up, the visitors tilted the conversation to tales of hard times in their respective countries.
'Ever since Daddy Bush go war, Ms. Esmie, things get so bad over there. You wouldn't imagine them put a whole three cents per gallon on the gasoline. I had was to take out a second mortgage on my other house in Ontario.'
Another said: 'Miss P, heddication up there is so expansive. Mah sekend son ah don't think you know that one he jes get into Yale yu know, like the lock on the front door? The fees so dear. I couldn't even get to sen' a barrel. By the way, this is such a nice house - yu nat doin too bad yuhself!'
Each of the two sympathising ladies occupied one of the three bedrooms in the house. They commandeered one of the two bathrooms, which the other house guests used when they could get a chance. The third bedroom and the other bathroom was being used exclusively by her husband's elderly and ailing father, a retired pastor from somewhere in the country, and a young lady who had travelled up with him to nurse him. Mrs. Powell noticed that every morning she had to put a new bar of Lux in their bathroom, but attributed this to her father-in-law's condition.
To accommodate most of the others, she had moved everything but the dining table from the living/dining room and put them on the back veranda. She had borrowed money from her credit union to buy several small mattresses and some expensive fitted sheets, which she laid out every evening and stacked neatly every morning so there would be walking space. There was a kitchen that had enough space for a small fridge and a two-burner Serv-Wel stove. The gas cylinder for the stove had to be connected outside.
For five days now the house had been full. Every morning, after serving breakfast, she would clean away Red Stripe bottles and cigarette ash from the living room floor. She thought it was unfair to ask her children to help; the youngest ones had their studies and the visiting ones had come out of respect for her, and not her husband, who had not done much for them. Around mid-morning, every day, she would go out to buy things for the house to eat that evening. Everybody seemed to have a special diet. One of her husband's brothers was a Rasta and ate only 'ital' food; a few of the older ones were diabetic or had high blood pressure. Both illnesses ran in the family.
Most of the visitors would be leaving this evening after the funeral. The overseas ones, on the whole, had to get back to work, and the local ones had come in clusters and their transportation was leaving at designated times. The ladies using the two bedrooms had offered to stay with her for another week to help her to 'bear up'. Her father-in-law and his nurse were leaving right after the funeral. He would have stayed the week but his nurse had said the bed was too lumpy for his sick condition. They would have to charter a car to take them back, instead of waiting for the driver they had initially arranged, they said. Mrs. Powell decided to borrow money out of the next month's rent for the chartered car. At least her son Alex, who was starting exams next week, would be able to get some proper rest.
She was frying two dozen eggs in the kitchen, and wrestling again over what she was going to write in her husband's eulogy. Days had gone by and she had not been able to come up with even one sentence, beyond his birth date and birth place. Alfred had kept other women, and had sired several outside children. He had come back home to live less than two months before he died, as if he had discerned his death. He had looked strange and emaciated when she opened the door to his knock.
'Esmie, mi sorry. Mi sorry. Sorry, Esmie.'
'I never run you, yu know, Alfred. God bear mi witness. The children never do you anything. God bear them witness. But ah keeping my vow till death do us part. God bear mi witness.' And it had been more than difficult since then, steeling her mind against hatred and contempt for a husband who had brought her mockery and sympathy at a stage in her life when she was counselling young women in the church and could have been looked up to in her community.
The stroke had come two weeks later, as he was trying to fix a leaking pipe in the backyard, his way of trying to make amends. She had heard what sounded like a feeble yelp of her pet name, Esmie, and had found him lying on his back, pitiful and wet. That stroke had paralysed his left side. It was followed by a decisive one two weeks later, to the day.
She had spent the first part of this morning looking at pictures of the two of them in their young days and shaking her head over their wedding photos. Now somebody came to the kitchen door. Looking up from her frying, she saw that it was Mrs. O'Meally, the gossip from across the road. Behind Mrs. O'Meally were several relatives and some other people she did not know. Mrs. O'Meally was also one of the most prosperous persons in the community, being the owner of a house shop. In fact, the very eggs Mrs. Powell was frying had been taken from her, on credit, the day before.
'Ms. Powell, yu neva tell them 'bout him?'
'Good morning, Mrs. O'Meally.' She continued breaking eggs and pouring them into a bowl.
'You don't tell them 'bout him and Peaches?'
'Him who, Mrs. O'Meally?'
'Yu mean you don't tell them how Mr. Powell come over there when a' wasn't there and try rape off mi granddaughter?'
There were looks of amazement on a few faces, but mostly expressions of deep interest. The ladies occupying the two bedrooms went and got chairs from the dining table and drew them near.
'You talking the same Mr. Powell that ah marry on the 28th day of June 1965, Mrs. O'Meally? You talking my husband?'
She put down the spatula and stepped towards the kitchen door.
'We are friends here, you know, Ms. Esmie. We are women and big people. We are here to share in each other's affliction.' Mrs. O'Meally waved her hand towards the group behind her, backing towards them with a conciliatory smile on her face.
'Which affliction, Mrs. O'Meally? You know anything about affliction? Tanya, come and finish this breakfast.'
And she wiped her hand on a kitchen cloth and cut a path through them, back to the metal chair where she slept and where she had left the barren paper and pen she had been struggling with for the last few days.
With tears forming in her eyes, she wrote: 'Alfred Powell was a fine upstanding man ...'
