Thomas

She stood against the railing of the pier, leaning against it, but not for support. He had gone, just as he said he would, and the smoke from the ship was an ink blot on the distant sweep of the clean, blue horizon, the ship itself nearly invisible. A stiff wind tugged at the ends of her four careful plaits and swirled her canary yellow dress around her knees.

Up the walk a bit sat two old fishermen in khaki cut-offs, mending nets, their chest hair glistening in the sun. Laneera imagined the fish tearing themselves in the frenzy of trying to escape their fates. The men were watching her surreptitiously. She turned and walked away, looking straight ahead as she passed them; the slap-slap of her sandals raising little puffs of commingled dust and sand.

The men watched her as she stopped again and, leaning over the railing, let fall a double handful of paper torn like confetti. Seagulls dipped then screeched in frustration at the inedibility of the brightly coloured fragments. The men watched her silently until she got to the end of the walk and disappeared into DaMarie Street.

Sweat ran down her temples as she climbed the hill to her home. The seaward-leaning trees seemed to be rushing towards her. Her house was one of four houses on the hill; she could see it halfway up. Michael had painted it bright turquoise before he left - just as he said he would. When she approached Shaleen's two-room shack, the children ran out to meet her.

Shaleen was shelling gungo peas. "So, him finally gone now," she said. It wasn't a question.

Laneera nodded and walked on, her children tagging behind her. She opened the wooden gate, pushing away a wayward shoot of burgeoning hibiscus. The solid presence of her thick mahogany front door made her feel safe- just as he had said it would.

She hadn't wanted him to leave. True, things were hard here, but they had the plot of land down in LaPointe. They were never hungry, and they had clothes, though few, and shelter. Michael had red-hot blood beneath his skin, wanderlust. He had justified leaving his woman and children for picking peas and peaches in a far-off land. She had listened dry-eyed and unstirred as he spun sugar candy dreams for the children, not for her; he already knew what she thought.

To April and May she said, "You bathe and eat?" When they nodded she sent them to play in the yard. She remembered his face in pieces as she tore up the photo he had taken in town last week. She remembered the confetti swirling away and down to the blue, blue sea. She wouldn't wait - just as she had said she wouldn't.

It was months before she heard from Michael again. In the meantime, they still had to eat, and dress; it was June when he had left and both children had to return to school in September. The day after the ship sailed from DaMarie Street, Laneera wandered around their bedroom; touching, smelling and folding Michael's clothes. When they had first met he used to listen to her, to ask her advice. After a while, though, it seemed to have become more practical for him to listen to her only in good humour. When they had a serious conversation, each time she talked, two deep vertical lines bracketed his mouth and she could almost see the cogs turning behind his forehead as he thought up what next to say to refute her arguments. She used to wonder if this was a sign that he didn't love her anymore. She didn't have to worry about that now, though; she threw a tattered blue shirt into a box of his belongings and angrily wiped tears of self-pity from her face. She was convinced that no man who loved his woman and children would go away and leave them in order to satisfy his own desires. Michael didn't leave because times were hard; times were hard for every one, had always been. Her own father had gotten several chances to leave and work in construction and farming opportunities in Britain, the States and Canada, and he'd never gone. She had thought that no man could ever love a woman with the ferocity of affection her father laid at the feet of her mother, but she had hoped that Michael would at least try. Now he was gone.

"Mami, why yuh packing up pa's clothes?"

May's chocolate-brown eyes were peering around the door. Laneera made sure to school her own face into more amiable lines; she pressed a pair of khaki pants redolent with Michael's essence against her face to ensure an absence of telltale tears. "Baby, pa not going to be back for a while. I just putting away his things until he returns."

"How long a while, mami?" May came around to search Laneera's face for signs of deception.

Laneera took a steadying breath between teeth clenched behind her smile. "Well, yuh know he'll write soon. So I ain' really know yet but we'll soon find out. Ah sure just as him finish getting settled, like how the place new an' ting, 'im will post a letter."

May looked at her mother's bent head for a while, with all the wisdom 10 years on Earth had imbued her with, preventing her from saying that her mother had lie or was at least hiding something emanating from her in waves. May was the more intuitive of the two daughters and wished her mother would confide in her the way her friend Aneeta's mother did. When Aneeta spoke to her mother, or her mother spoke with her, it was as if two 11-year-olds were giggling together or two 30-somethings were gossiping and trading advice. Instead she said: "Yuh want mi to help, mami?"

"Go find April an' the two o' unnu play." Then, perhaps noticing she had been a little harsh, Laneera added: "Ah will call unnu fi help mi wid di dinner."

May gave her mother one last searching look before going out the door. Laneera exhaled and almost bent double with the sheer will it took to keep her emotions in check. She wondered how she would manage in the days ahead, keeping two little girls, working to maintain them and the house. And now, on top of all that, she saw she would not be in complete control at all times. May was a child but she wasn't stupid. Suddenly, she remembered the saving box she had been keeping to buy things for the new school year. She pulled away the bureau a little and pulled the flat cigar box from behind a post. She counted the bills slowly; yes, it was still all there. If she had to borrow against it for the future, it could last for no more than four months. Things were getting dear, yes.

As soon as school was out, every day saw Laneera and the children trekking through the dewy dawn stillness on the path to LaPointe. Together, they cleared away brush from plots selected for new planting. They weeded around plants already growing. They put new seeds in the ground together. The children never saw how worried she was, nor how much she missed Michael, but more than once she would look up and her eyes would meet May's and she knew that one of her children was not fooled by the show. If she had been one of the women waiting patiently for their husbands to write and send money, it would have been different. But every day that passed and he did not write strengthened her resolution not to take him back into her life. She chatted carefully with the children, knowing that despite their youth they were gauging the wattage of her smiles and weighing them against the words that selectively issued from her mouth. Especially May. May who now thought it was her job to protect her mother. She pretended she did not see when May pinched or nudged April, whichever was less noticeable, just when April was in mid-whine for something Laneera couldn't afford. "Mamiiii, why ah can't get jus one soda when we passing shop? Ah can share it wid May. Please mami, nuh?"

On their way back every evening they bought a loaf of day-old bread, which they took with them to the fields the next day along with some sugar for making lemonade. Sometimes they had some saltfish or ripe plantains to go with the bread, but most of the time they ate it with no complement. Laneera made sure her children knew they were poor, but that as long as they were resolved to work for what they wanted they would never go to bed hungry. And they never did.

The months passed, day after day, in a hot blue splendor. The sky overhead never showed even a wisp of a cloud on that spit of land in the sea, where it never rained for more than four weeks in the year. Laneera grew worried as the little stream on her land dwindled almost to nothingness. She feared the days ahead when, like the other women and men who eked what they could from the reluctant ground, she would have to carry water in old salt mackerel buckets to water the withered leaves of cassava, peas and other produce. She was luckier than some, though: her rosie mango tree was bearing, and if she and the children could get at least eight dozen perfect ones over all they could box them and take them to the harbour with other lucky owners of such trees. That would ensure that April and May would have new shoes and probably new blouses for school in September.

"Laneera! Laneera, oi!" Shaleen was mounting the hill burdened by a black plastic bag.

"Come up nuh, girl, an' stop bawling mi name."

Shaleen sat down hard on the steps in front of the house, "How yuh keeping, girl? Ah hardly see you since you been working all day on that farm."

"We have to eat, Shaleen, an tings hard fi all; even if the heart willing the food cyaan stretch."

"True, but mi bring yuh some tings, cause as yuh say we know tings hard fi all."

"Shaleen!" Laneera squealed delightedly as she checked the contents of the bag, which was filled with tinned food, cooking oil, flour and other imperishables, "Whe you get all this?"

"Nuh di lady ah work for near the harbour? Yuh know is summer now an di people having holiday. But that ain' all ah bring." She took out a blue airmail envelope from her pocket and watched with disbelief as Laneera's face crumpled with an indescribable emotion. "Girl, is mus Michael writing, yuh should be glad!"

Laneera's mouth twisted as if she had just swallowed some bitter liquid, "Why ah mus glad? Is t'ree months now dat man lef, an anyways, why 'im writin'? Ah doan want to know anyting 'bout 'im." Despite herself she was opening the envelope. His address and the date were at the top. Then:

Sugar,

You don't know how ah miss yuh in this place, especially yuh cooking. Ah know yuh can't glad that ah not been writing but these first months ah din't even have money to buy stamp. Everything pay rent and buy food. Even now ah have nothing to send, but ah trying to save so ah can help with the girls' school money. (How them doing!) Ah know yuh is a hard-working woman and will mek it up. Kiss the girls for me and tell them daddy love dem. And Laneera, sugar, you know ah love yuh more than anything else. Ah will send the money in two weeks, by the time school must to open.

Your loving husband, Michael Kinkead."

In a fit of exasperation Laneera crumpled the letter and pushed it under the pot and on top of the live coals.

Shaleen shook her head but said nothing. "Ah going now, girl. If ah can help yuh with anything, yuh know mi yard."

The next week saw even more disappointment. Laneera and the girls went to harvest the rosie mangoes and found that the tree had been stripped of fruit during the night. Laneera was robbed of even the power to cry. They did not work in the fields that day; there was nothing to reap and nothing to plant.

The next, day Laneera visited Shaleen and asked if she knew of anyone who needed a day worker down by the harbour. Shaleen disclosed that a lady two houses down from where she worked needed a lady to cook and iron. She told Laneera that she could even take the girls, as the lady had a big backyard and wouldn't mind.

Laneera went to work for the lady the very next day.

Michael did not write in two weeks. Instead, he showed up on one of Laneera's ironing days when she was home early. She was taking a small break, holding the small of her back with both hands, when she heard the children shouting outside. She didn't give them a second thought as they invariably shouted "Pa!" in play, whether there was a pa or not. She wiped the sweat trickling down her face and went to the drum to get some water, and she had just taken the first swallow when someone lifted her bodily from behind. The water going down met the scream coming up and she sputtered indignantly, kicking in a vain effort to get the person to let her go. Her feet touched the floor and she spun around, and found herself face to face with her husband.

"Michael, yuh fool!" She spat out on a gasp, and he, like a fool indeed, was killing himself laughing.

"Ah know ah could frighten yuh!"

"Wha' yuh doing here, man? Ah told yuh this is no longer a house big enough fi di two o' we."

Michael's face sobered. "Laneera, sugar, yuh know yuh doan mean dat. Ah is yuh only husband, yuh cyan just gi' mi a chance? For the children an all, yuh know?"

Laneera remained stonily silent. Michael took her and held her around the waist.

"Wha' yuh say, sugar, yuh giving me a chance? Ah bring the children school tings."

Laneera said nothing still, which was tantamount to 'yes' for Michael, and was soon much more obviously so. Long before Michael's two-week stay was over, they were husband and wife again.

"Laneera, oi!"

Shaleen's little round body came bubbling over the hill. Laneera let her in and gave her a glass of water, which she drank, fanning herself with a Holy Cross calendar the while.

"Ah doan know why you cyaan come up and knock like everybody else. And yuh know yuh cyaan bawl out and fight di hill same time."

Shaleen waved her words away. "Girl, ah got big news; they taking women for foreign work! Fi nanny an housekeeper, cook, hotel worker, and dem ting deh."

"Dat's all right fi you, Shaleen, yuh doan got children. Is which sensible woman goin' leave dem two littlegirl alone? Girl, yuh mus mad!"

"Yuh tek mi fi fool, yes? Di process goin tek a few months at least; meantime yuh applying for visa an do medical an everyting else. So, by di time Michael come back yuh ready to leave."

"So, me mus leave my baby dem wid Michael an go work a' foreign?'

"Den nuh dem faada? Yuh nuh wan' see place too? Is him alone fi enjoy himself?"

Laneera reflected on this. "But Shaleen, yuh cyaan cut off yuh nose to spite yuh face. Little girls musn' be without dem modda."

Over the days, though, the idea gained increasing appeal in her mind. So, Michel thought he was the only one who could go away? She would show him! She wouldn't stay long; three months would be enough.

And so it was that the following months were taken up with Shaleen and Laneera, on their days off, making dozens of preparations; preparations which took them all over the island. Finally they had only their medicals to complete; these would be mailed to them. Laneera had not told Michael of her applications for either the work programme or a visa; let him find out when he got home.

"Laneeeera!"

"Shaleen, di day yuh drop down dead in the middle of the hill is the next day."

"Girl, wi medical come!"

"It not goin run way! Anybody would tink yuh workin' for the post office, wha' yuh do? Wait fo' the plane?" When the laughter subsided she took the envelope from Shaleen. She gave the contents a perfunctory glance, then a once-over. Oh, Gawd. Sweat poured down her face.

"Laneera, is wha' do yuh?" Shaleen took the sheet of paper from Laneera's trembling fingers. She pored rapidly over it once, twice. Then she sat down on a chair.

Laneera, meanwhile, had gone over to the window, her arms wrapped around her waist. What would happen to the girls, who would care for them? Oh, Gawd. Ah could just dead.

The word 'Positive' marched around her head, beating its own drum. She knew she shouldn't have taken him back - just as she'd said she wouldn't.

-Kimmisha Thomas