Patsy Page 4

  Without the drama of casting out sin, Patsy suspects that her mother wouldn’t know what to do with herself. She is wholly animated by her contempt for the secular world. Here she is wearing her usual housedress, a bright orange tent that covers her full-fleshed legs, the languorous calves that used to make men stop and say, “Howdie,” before she uttered a single word, the liquid roundness of a body Patsy caught glimpses of as a girl under sheer nightgowns. It used to seem so sure of itself, that body, when it moved to wave for a bus, jump over a puddle, or reach for food inside the cupboard. Now it’s covered, closed to the rituals and passion of love. The frail hope died in her eyes long ago, just before she folded up her youth and sealed the grip, a hole closing up beneath her. Without her Bible she’s a broken thing, as empty as the dust-yellow rooms she once cleaned out in a fit, purging to fill with Jesus figurines. Patsy stays back in the dark kitchen and watches her mother pat Tru gently on the head.

  “How was school?” Mama G asks, closing the Bible.

  “Fine,” Tru replies, looking up at her grandmother with those large eyes.

  They seem almost perfect like that—grandmother and grandchild tenderly exchanging stories about their day. Mama G’s laugh is as murmurous as water. A contrast from the shrill yet gravelly condemning cries capable of grating meat from coconut.

  “Jus’ fine? What did you learn?”

  “How to add an’ subtract!”

  “Oh? So yuh can teach me.”

  Tru nods.

  “Yuh know, yuh mother was really good in maths.”

  “Really?”

  “Come first in har class. Teacha neva see a girl so good in maths suh. Dey say she did ’ave nuff potential.”

  “Potential?” Tru asks.

  “Yes. Potential.”

  “What dat mean, Grandma?”

  “Somebody who could be great.”

  Patsy looks down at her own hands in front of her, her fingers clasped in painful motionlessness, unable to hold on to the thing that slipped from their grasp, streaming in the sea of dark that embraces her.

  Tru leans in closer to Mama G and whispers, “Mommy told me a secret.”

  “What kinda secret?”

  “Dat she’ll move us closer to God on di hill.”

  “How so?” Mama G’s voice drops an octave with a hint of laughter.

  “She got a visa!”

  For a moment it appears Mama G doesn’t understand. Her eyebrows hold questions too heavy for Tru to bear as she lifts her gaze above Tru’s head and finds Patsy standing behind the mesh door.

  “Go get yuh homework suh dat ah can help you,” Patsy says quickly.

  Her mother doesn’t drop her gaze. Patsy unfolds her arms, lowering them to her sides as Tru runs into the house for her homework. “Walk!” Patsy calls after her. “I’ll be there in a second.”

  Mama G takes the left leg she favors off the stool. Lately it has been bothering her, but she refuses to get it checked out. Another miracle left for Jesus to work. The glimpse of silver under her mother’s black head-wrap eases the tension in Patsy’s back, but only a little.

  “Mama, ah want to talk to yuh ’bout somet’ing,” Patsy says, though she wonders now if it would’ve been easier to just quit everything without saying a word. She wishes to skip what’s coming and go to bed, to sleep deeper than when she took her first swig of rum from Uncle Curtis at ten; deeper than the pits of mangoes, steadier than a john-crow’s flight, and more tranquil than the fresh bloom of hibiscuses outside. Until it’s time to board that plane.

  The spell, which comes and goes often, passes through like a heavy breeze, shifting things, slamming doors shut in its wake, then standing there in her periphery, watching and listening. It uses air from her lungs to breathe, to expand, to crowd the room; bulging into the hall, the two bedrooms of the house, onto the veranda, into the street, and flaunting its black in the face of the sun. The Devil’s cold is as vicious as it is overbearing, and Patsy would sink under its weight, fade within its shadow, invisible.

  She faces her mother in this moment to disclose the one private thing that has kept her happy and alive for years. “I’m going to live in America,” she says.

  Mama G puts down her Bible, her dark face stern. “Yuh was in labor for a long time delivering dat baby,” Mama G says.

  Patsy narrows her eyes. “What does dat have to do wid anyt’ing?”

  Very slowly Mama G takes off her spectacles and rests them on her Bible.

  “Dis one came out alive. Di Bible seh children are di heritage from di Lord. Di fruit of di womb. Yuh reward! Ah hope yuh not t’inking ’bout leaving di chile God bless yuh wid.”

  Patsy pauses to compose herself, to quell the rage that flows through her as if a faucet has turned on somewhere inside her brain. She knows she won’t win a battle once Mama G brings up the Bible or God.

  “Mama, I want more,” she says.

  “Look, Patricia, mi nuh come yah fi hear horse dead an’ cow fat. What yuh saying?”

  “I’m saying dat maybe—maybe if I go away, I can . . .” Patsy’s voice trails as she loses courage.

  “So, is me did lay dung an’ spread me legs, don’t?” Mama G asks, tilting her head, her teeth a sturdy cage. “Whose fault was it? Yuh evah hear di saying when coco ripe it mus’ buss? What yuh t’ink woulda happen when yuh lay dung next to a tick, eh?”

  “Mama, don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “I’m tired.”

  “Yuh listening to yuhself?” Mama G says, wincing as she lifts her weight out of the rocking chair. “How many woman yuh hear talk ’bout dem want more an’ lef’ dem pickney? Is we carry di belly fah nine months. Suppose I did leave yuh saying ah want more?”

  Patsy laughs—a genuine one.

  “What suh funny?’

  “If it wasn’t fah Uncle Curtis, ah woulda starve to death.”

  Mama G’s face seems to fall as if all its muscles give. “Don’t you dare bring up dat ole drunk.” After a strained pause, Mama G speaks. “So, yuh jus’ g’wan leave Tru wid me?”

  “I know bettah than to leave har wid you,” Patsy says.

  “Then who you g’wan leave har wid? Dat wutless bwoy who t’ink because him own a gun him is somebody?”

  “He’s her father,” Patsy says.

  “Suh yuh can’t ask him fah money, but yuh can ask him fi raise di chile? But yuh see me dying trial! Patricia, where’s yuh head?”

  Patsy hasn’t mentioned any of this to Roy yet, and now she feels sick. She sits on the edge of the chipped blue wall that surrounds the back porch, the reality of her decision not to consult with him sooner descending like crows to feed on every bit of joy she had earlier. The scent of cooking is strong in the backyard, as if all the neighbors have swung open back doors to air out their kitchens. Patsy rests both hands in her lap. She allows all the other sounds to fill the space between her and her mother in their silence—barking dogs, and the distant cackling of neighbors getting ready to view the World Cup match at Pete’s Bar or on their televisions. No such joy and noise happen at 5 Rose Lane.

  “You jus’ g’wan sit there like yuh jus’ discover Jesus left di tomb?” Mama G asks.

  “Jesus Christ, Mama! Done wid dat foolishness!”

  “Don’t you dare call di Lawd name in vain!”

  “Does everyt’ing ’ave to be about yuh stupid God?” Patsy says, realizing too late that she said this out loud. Mama G’s eyes widen like she has seen Satan’s shadow slant across Patsy’s face. Mama G’s hands fly to her covered head and she begins to pray, mumbling something about forgiveness and the curse of her only child being possessed by the Devil. Something shifts inside the old house. Tru must be waiting impatiently. Mama G stops praying suddenly. “Him send you a angel in dat child,” Mama G whispers. Her face tightens, the black so definite, so unequivocal, it astonishes and awes Patsy. A hard wetness veils her mother’s eyes. “Tell me yuh wouldn’t dare leave dat child,” she says again. “Jus’ like you woul
d neva curse our living God an’ expect Him to bless you.”

  “Mama . . .”

  “In God’s name!”

  “Mama . . .”

  Patsy is unable to discern whose voice she hears saying, Mama: Hers? Or Tru’s? Suddenly the old smell returns. In this house with open Bibles and crucifixes in every room, and the Virgin Mary and Jesus figurines condemning her on the whatnot, old burdens replace the new one. Patsy, too nauseated by the smell of stale blood and rosemary, can no longer take it. She pushes pass her mother and hurries to the bathroom.

  “Mama?” Tru calls after her.

  Patsy slams the door in the girl’s face and bends over the rusted toilet, where she sees her own face in the base of the bowl.

  SHE WAS FORBIDDEN TO HAVE AN ABORTION, THREATENED BY HER mother to be thrown in jail, since it is illegal in Jamaica and deemed an abomination by the Church. It was unheard-of for a woman to willingly end a pregnancy—even if it was her rapist’s child that swelled her stomach; or even if, like Patsy, she was no more than a mistress unable to tell her lover of his child. More common were the women locked up in a ward in Bellevue Hospital on Winward Road because they went mad and buried newborns in plastic bags or mounds of sand. There were also the young girls, barely fourteen, with protruding guts that embarrassed their families, who ended up sending them off to the country to have babies; and the ones who secretly drank concoctions, convinced that salvation was as easy as a gulp. Those were the ones too whose babies came out with no limbs or overgrown heads, abandoned on the steps of churches, back doors, or group homes. The good ones remain with Miss Foster, who clothes and feeds them until the visitors, mostly men in cars with dark-tinted windows, come to get them. Patsy has seen the cars pull up to Miss Foster’s yellow house plenty of times, then depart as quiet as night before dawn, rolling down the graveled path of Rose Lane, leaving Miss Foster with one less child and a fistful of cash she stuffs inside her brassiere.

  Patsy’s rage had soared unbounded, encompassing not only her powerlessness but the accumulated resentments she had for her mother—the pain of her mother’s loyalty and affection for Jesus. Patsy had to be restrained once by the church sisters, who had come to pray for her. They clamped their hands on her shoulders and belly—hardened hands callused from washing clothes and scrubbing floors, hands used to comfort grief-stricken mothers and catch those who throw themselves about, eyes rolling, swept up in the Holy Spirit. Those were the hands preventing Patsy from harming herself. Her head was so foggy that she had forgotten that those women with their minted breath and church hats and starched dresses worn proudly on Sundays were the same women she was taught to respect and fear, the same elders who scowled at any expressions of youthfulness with stern faces, the same elders who spoke of the end of the world at the mere sight of a young girl wearing too little clothes or a young boy smoking loosies, the same women Mama G feared for their judgments.

  Patsy had forgotten who they were when she wailed at them to go to Hell, her desire to fling herself down the steps outside the porch Uncle Curtis built, before he left for good, swelling more than the child in her belly. But they were too strong, too determined. They wrestled Patsy to the mustard sofa inside the living room, held her down, and prayed. Mama G prayed too, devoid of real emotion, her eyes receded in their sockets, fixed on Jesus. When the baby was born, Patsy didn’t try to kill it. It was too late. There were times when it cried and cried and she didn’t stir, not even a twitch in her fingers or nipples. She sat there inside the stale light of the room, propped against pillows on her bed like a rag doll with thin, rotted thread aged by time, her gaze traveling the room, lingering on each Virgin Mary and Jesus figurine that Mama G had placed on the vanity as if they could help her.

  One day when she was left alone with the baby—no church ladies darting in and out of the house with wet rags and a bucket to wash the sour milk from her breasts and wipe her down—the baby wailed. Patsy wouldn’t, couldn’t, move to stop it. Then, out of the blue, the crying ceased. Patsy remembers the relief she felt. It was like a waft of fresh air filling her lungs that had been flattened for months by the dark thing that weighed on her. But the relief was short-lived. The quiet became frightening. Panic set in, as if she had screeched toward an edge, unable to stop herself from toppling over. She had a sudden burst of energy that put movement in her legs toward the baby’s crib. There, she caught a glimpse of the small dark face surrounded by a halo of thick black curls. It was not at all like the doll babies Patsy played with as a girl—the ones that Cicely reminded her of with her nice fair skin. Tru was quietly sucking her thumb, staring up at Patsy as Patsy experienced a small burst of regret. It was as though the child somehow knew, even before she had started to live, that she would have to soothe herself.

  3

  ROY SITS BACK IN THE LEATHER SWIVEL CHAIR AT WHAT PATSY believes to be his desk at the police station—the only place where Patsy agrees to meet him to discuss their daughter. He runs his hand over his recently cut hair—a modest, police-force-friendly fade with two equal parts on the left side of his head. A 1998 National Housing Trust calendar hangs on the bare beige wall marred only by the faded marks of nails and tape. Even if this were really Roy’s office, it wouldn’t have been shocking to find it bare. Roy is a man who believes in essentials. He would never spend a penny on frills or anything extra. He only owns three pairs of everything, in brown, navy blue, and black. “Why would a man need more than dat?” Several dates are circled on the calendar, the only personalized thing inside the office—maybe court dates, birthdays, days off duty. Patsy is relieved by the ambiguity of the office, by the fact that there are no pictures of his family pinned up on the walls like the other secretaries tend to have at her workplace, as if they need to be reminded why they work eight hours in a freezing office, subjecting themselves to paper cuts, leg cramps from too-small cubicles, and the condescension of the higher-ups.

  From this angle where she peers at Roy, he seems to her like a boy adjusting the collar of a baggy uniform, his head raised as if to match the height of his ego. He looks the same as the day she met him at her secondary school fete: tall, dark, and good-looking in a boyish way. Patsy knew who he was—Roman Phillips Secondary’s beloved track star. He was seventeen and she was fifteen. He was more put-together than the other boys, with his stone-washed jeans, dress shirt with colorful patches, and gold chain. He wore a fade, the top of his hair tall and squared like a pencil eraser. And when he approached her, he came over smelling like lemons. With age—and a rigorous boot-camp routine, which he still adheres to before the break of dawn every morning since his track-and-field days—his lanky body has transformed. What remains of the boy Patsy once knew is the prominent dimple in his chin, the full lips, and the pinpointedness of his light brown eyes capable of bursting any doubts about him. He gave their daughter those eyes. It’s those eyes that look right through her now as she awaits his response. Roy’s pause is beginning to seem endless, as though he has forgotten that she had said anything or that she’s even there in his office. All night Patsy agonized over telling Roy, aggravating the worn-down spring mattress with her tossing and turning.

  “Yuh not g’wan mek me feel guilty about this,” Patsy says in a hushed voice. “Not again.”

  “Not again? Have I ever?”

  “Yuh wasn’t exactly happy when I told yuh I was pregnant.”

  “Yuh waited months to tell me.”

  “Dat’s because I wasn’t sure yuh could handle it. An’ so far, yuh haven’t proven dat yuh can.”

  She knows that Roy’s coworkers—especially Johnny, who looks like a red rat, and his sleepy-eyed sidekick Raymond, who calls himself a lieutenant—probably have their ears pressed against the door, listening. Hardback clowns, who drive around areas like Pennyfield in their police car to look at women or poke young boys with their rifles to see if they’d wet their pants.

  “Trudy-Ann need har mother,” Roy finally says, clasping his hands on his desk. “An’ if dis is
about finances, no one tell yuh to send har to dat Catholic school.”

  “Dat school is di only way she g’wan learn. Yuh want har to fail?”

  “I didn’t say I want har to fail. What I’m saying is fah you to be more practical an’ send har to Pennyfield Primary like everyone else. It’s cheaper.”

  “Says di man who probably gambled on di Reggae Boyz last night!” Patsy hisses. “Listen, Roy, ah don’t normally ask yuh fah anyt’ing. I’ve been taking care of our dawta since birth. So, I need you to do dis one favor . . .”

  “If you g’wan talk about gambling, then talk di truth, Birdie,” Roy says, dismissing her last statement and calling Patsy by the pet name he gave her. “I don’t get it.” He leans forward, his eyebrows drawn together. “How yuh g’wan even afford to move all di way to America an’ survive, much less provide?”

  “A friend is helping me.”

  “Which friend is dat?”

  “Cicely.”

  “Cicely?”

  “Yes.” She meets his gaze.

  Roy’s face creases into many lines. “Di same Cicely who—”

  “Dis is about Tru,” Patsy says, cutting him off.

  Roy chortles, shaking his head and stroking his chin with his right hand, the long, nasty scar visible on the back of that hand. It glistens in the fluorescent light. Patsy looks away from it, and down at her hands in her lap.

  “Why yuh don’t jus’ change dat to say you, Birdie?” Roy says. “Dis is about you. Not our daughter. Jus’ say dat.”

  “Roy, don’t turn dis into something else.”

  “I have three boys living undah my roof right now. Where is Trudy-Ann going to stay as har mother leave har fi go play house in America? Tell me!”

  “Get outta my face wid dat, Roy. Have you ever tried to raise har?”

  “A girl-pickney need har mother. How else she g’wan learn fi be a woman?”

  “Don’t you come to me wid dat foolishness. She need har father too.”

  “What about Mama G? Why yuh don’t have dis conversation wid her? Why don’t you leave Trudy-Ann wid yuh mother?”