Big Island, Small

by Maureen St. Clair

  I ask Margaret if she thinks she should go to the hospital. She says she’ll be fine, that she just needs to rest for a while. I leave her and head back to the cabin.

  Judith comes home an hour or so later and I tell her what happened to Margaret. Her face turns red to pale yellow. “What are you talking about?” she says.

  “Margaret was hit by a car up on the highway just after you left.”

  “She was what?”

  “Hit by a car. But she’s fine. She’s home now. Looks like it was the rearview mirror that knocked her down.”

  But Judith isn’t listening. She is halfway across the yard before I get to the end of the sentence. I yell after her. “Judith relax she’s okay.” But when I get to the house, there is Judith telling Margaret she is calling an ambulance.

  And Margaret saying, “An ambulance? Good God Judith it was just a fall.”

  “A car hit you Margaret.”

  “Yes I got a little hit on the shoulder.”

  “Sola go get Mr. Merle.”

  “Judith, Margaret said she was fine.”

  “Just go and get him, Sola. You hear me? Go fucking get him.”

  “Jesus Judith.”

  “Judith,” Margaret says. “Stop that right now. I am fine. I am not going to the hospital. And that is the end of that.”

  Judith won’t let go of Margaret’s good arm. She is trying to pull her up and out of the chair. Margaret lets out a loud “No.”

  Judith’s eyes slam shut. She spins around and walks back to the cabin. She looks like a cadet, straight back, arms swinging tight, mechanical. She marches through the grass and onto the veranda.

  Margaret says, “Never mind. Judith has a lot going on. I’m afraid I piled a lot on her over the past couple nights. She’s probably trying to sort it all out. Car accidents are a part of her story, she says.” Then Margaret laughs. “Did you hear the way I yelled ‘NO’ when poor Judith kept insisting I go to the hospital. I must have frightened her.” Margaret starts to laugh again. “Sorry,” she says, “but that ‘no’ felt so good.” Margaret then recalls the women’s support groups she used to work with a long time ago. “We used to walk in circles practicing our ‘NO’s.’” She used to facilitate women’s groups with women who’d been abused. “Women,” she says, “who needed help finding their instinctual guttural voices.” She says at the centre they used to get the women to walk in large circles practicing their “no’s.”

  “At first everybody was so soft and gentle but by the end of the sessions their ‘no’s’ were as loud as cracks of thunder. And their ‘yes’s’ steady, fluid and less frequent.” Margaret tells me most of the women in the sessions had been sexually abused. “Oh the stories Sola. Such complicated stories.”

  “How?” came darting out my mouth.

  There were women who’d been abused by their daddies, their granddaddies, their uncles, their brothers, friends of their daddies, granddaddies, brothers and uncles. She tells me about one of the women who’d been raped by her husband. “Don’t look so surprised,” she says. “It happens more than we know.”

  The most difficult part, Margaret says, was the guilt many of the women felt because they did not put up a fight. They felt they just let it happen, they should have at least cried out. Screamed. Shouted. Their “NO’s” lost under all that fear, guilt and shame. “I remember hearing some women feel such terrible disgust and anger over their own bodies because they felt their bodies betrayed them.”

  I want her to say more. But she just shakes her head and closes her eyes then asks me to get her a couple more aspirin.

  I place the cotton quilt where she can reach, make her another cup of tea and sit for a little longer. We both look out the window to see Judith hanging clothes. I want to say something. I want to tell Margaret about Judith and Jared. I want to say something about Mr. Robbie. I want her to know how my body betrayed me too. How I kept going back. How I never said a definite “no.” But I just sit there feeling the tears bunch up behind my eyes and a silence that occupies my body like cement.

  Margaret tells me not to worry, that she’ll be fine, but she keeps pulling at her shoulder and wincing. “You should head over and see how Judith is making out.” Then she closes her eyes and her head starts to nod.

  I walk up the path behind the cabin and surprise myself by calling Dolma. “You think you could come out here this evening and come check on an elder friend of Judith’s who fell earlier and is refusing to go to the hospital?” Dolma was a trained nurse back home but never seemed to have the right qualifications to practise on Big Island. She’ll have a better idea whether Margaret needs medical attention; she’ll know whether Margaret’s shoulder is dislocated. Dolma is thrilled to help. Of course she will come she says. I can hear her call out to Shy. “Come Shy. It’s Sola. Come get the phone so Sola can give you directions.”

  When I go back to the cabin, Judith is on the floor with notebooks spilling from a yellow box. In a faraway tone she says, “Mom had an abortion. It’s all right here. Do you know she used to snowshoe in the middle of February wearing very little. She punishing she self for the abortion.” She says this to no one in particular.

  JUDITH

  SOLA NAH CRY. SHE telling me things, things a neighbour do when she a child. She steady like a train on track. When she through she say Dolma coming later to check on Margaret.

  Just so. Like what she tell me secondary to she mother coming. Then she get up and make she self a cheese sandwich, crack ice into she glass and pour she self a ginger ale. She walk out onto the grass, sit close to the driveway and wait for Dolma to come. I follow, sit down too and put my hand on hers like she did mine coming home from the hospital. I say sorry and she say, “Sorry for what?”

  “For everything.”

  She turn she head and watch me. I can feel she eyes. I look down in front of me ’cause I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what she waiting for, don’t know if she want me to talk, to say something, to encourage she to speak more. I look over for guidance but she looking out onto the road like she counting and sorting gravel. She lean back and onto she elbows. My hand want to move with she from knee to grass but there’s an awkwardness and I’m thinking what if she tired of my hand. I too lie back on my elbows and let my fingers stretch through the grass. We both looking up the road to the highway. I lie down on my back, cover my eyes from the sun. Sola follow but she eyes close. A cloud becomes my shade and I imagine the sky is sea, the sea back home on the kinda day where everything still. The water taut and shimmering. Billowy. I can feel Sola’s eyes opening, looking up. I wonder if she too imagining back home. Our bodies stretched and floating on water not land. Ears submerged. We in our separate solitudes, our big and small worlds. We floating like islands in the imminent blue.

  I swim to shore, wade through weeds and fall onto sand. Sola follow. We both stretch out, letting the sun dry our skin. There’s a woman looking down and she holding a baby in she arms. I recognize Patsy, a friend of Fabian, and she looking down saying, “You back already?” and she watching Sola too trying to figure out who Sola is. I not bothering with she. I letting she figure out what she need to figure. Sola not bothering either. She eyes close and she as calm as sea moss floating close to shore. Patsy say the cold don’t agree with me, how my skin get gally gally over there on Big Island. She say she’ll ask she mother what bush to use to clear up my skin. She say I should drink coconut waters. “How cold can do your skin that?” she say, as if cold my enemy.

  I open my eyes to Sola’s voice. “What do you mean sorry for everything?”

  I back on land, back on Big Island, back on my back, back on sun-warm grass. And Sola asking me again about the words I use, “Sorry for everything,” and I feel embarrass for not being more present, for falling asleep, for dreaming other things, for not paying attention. What the fuck wrong with me she just tell me about a doctor who abuse she
when she a child and I don’t have anything to say, nothing to offer except my hand.

  And then she say, “Are you sorry you kissed me?”

  She lying on she back still, eyes to the sky. I leap up onto my elbows and look down on she. “Me sorry for that? Sola, I not sorry at all, at all, at all,” I say.

  Sola just about to say something when horn blow and there’s Dolma and Shy creeping up the narrow dirt road toward the cabin. We both look up and smile at each other.

  Dolma open she door before Shy fully stop. Shy stop before Dolma jump out of moving vehicle. We hear him say, “What happen to you?”

  But Dolma out the car and she asking, “Where this stubborn ole woman you call us here for?”

  “Judith you go,” Sola say. “Go introduce Dolma to Margaret. Just play it like Dolma and Shy arrived unexpectedly for a visit.”

  “Margaret,” I call as we walk up to the house. “I have someone here who come all the way from the city to meet you.”

  Margaret on the couch sleeping. The whine of the screen door wake she. Dolma and Margaret watch each other like they know one another. Dolma say, “What you doing up on the highway Ms. Margaret? You trying to meet your Maker before your time?”

  I cringe to think how Margaret going to take such abruptness. But then Margaret bust out in one big laugh and both she and Dolma laughing like they both have more life in them than life itself. Sola and Shy standing at the door observing the two women getting on like they ready to start fete.

  Shy watching Sola. Sola grinning. And I thinking Shy thinking, “What the hell wrong with these people?”

  “So what happened Ms. Margaret?” Dolma say. “Sola say you have pain.”

  “Oh she did, did she?” She watch Sola.

  “I just thought Dolma could make an assessment without you having to go to the hospital,” Sola say.

  Dolma help Margaret up ’cause Margaret still lying down holding she shoulder and grinding she teeth.

  “Seems like you have a problem with your shoulder,” Dolma say. “It unplug?”

  “Yep. Question is can you plug it back in?”

  “I could try but I not an official nurse here on Big Island. And well I don’t want to put myself in trouble if things worse than it seem.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Margaret say. “Do what you came here to do!”

  And with that Dolma pop Margaret’s shoulder back into place. We all hear the soft pop and we look to see what Margaret face doing before she let out one massive roar deep down in she belly. Shy’s eyes go big like he hear jumbie up on the roof.

  But then Margaret close she eyes and smile.

  “Anywhere else hurt Ms. Margaret?”

  “Nope. I am fine. Thank you.” She look at me and say, “Judith I am fine. No more worrying okay? Anyone want to try my blueberry wine?” She sit back down again.

  SOLA

  JUDITH COMES OUT AND sits beside me. She puts her hand on mine. I am grateful she doesn’t talk too much. I tell her about Mr. Robbie. About what happened back then. I tell her I used to visit him just before they sent me to Big Island. I tell her he touched me once. I tell her how I never told him to stop because I was afraid. I don’t tell her why I was afraid, afraid he’d stop letting me come visit. I don’t tell her how sick I felt afterwards. How I used to use up all the soap in the house, how I kept going back until Mikey found me.

  I wonder about Mado. Did she visit regularly? Did she like the attention? Did he tell her nice things? Did she believe him? Did he hurt her because she threatened to tell? Not like me, who lied. “He don’t do me nothing Mikey.” I hear the Small Island drop hard from my mouth, “he don’t do me nothing” and I think of Judith saying, “How long it take to lose your language?”

  Then I get up quick to shake the feelings scurrying into my hands, my legs. I jump up and make myself a sandwich and tell Judith Dolma is coming to check Margaret. That’s when Judith comes out and places her hand on mine and we sit in silence for a while. Judith says she is sorry for everything. I think about that while we lie on our backs. I think about what “everything” means. “Everything” circles around in my head.

  I wonder if she is sorry she met me. Sorry she kissed me. Sorry. And then I ask her and the way she jumps up, the way she says, “Me sorry for that?” I know she isn’t sorry at all.

  Later on, after Dolma and Shy have left and we are sitting on the veranda she tells me she is pretty sure she isn’t gay. “Maybe bi,” she says, as though in that moment she is trying to figure it out.

  Judith laughs recalling a story her mother told her. When Judith was four or five years old, her mom asked her if she wanted a girlfriend to come play and Judith said indignantly, “Mom I too young for girlfriend.”

  She says she never had the notion to identify. She says she knows she’s lucky this way and that a lot of people suffer for being who they are and that people hurt them for that. She tells me she understands more clearly now her mom’s outward expressions of love, how she loved women just as much as men. “And I not just talking sex. I mean she intimate with everyone, like everyone she family. And I know she lucky too, to be so free.”

  Judith tells me more about her friend, Melina. How Melina was the one to teach her how to kiss. But that the practice was for Drey. She’s been thinking about my question and she wishes she could have told me why she kissed me but she needed to think about it. Then she says, assertively, “I kiss you ’cause you were Small Island. ’Cause you are Small Island. And I desperate for Small Island to kiss me back.” She longed for Small Island to accept her as she was and not someone people thought she should be. And then she says, “I kissed you ’cause I love you.” And I know the kind of love she means and I am grateful.

  Later, I wonder whether the desperation for Small Island to accept her relates to Judith throwing herself in a tub of hot water. The bruises on the insides of her legs. I remember her saying how she needed to harden herself. How she was tired of being so soft, so sensitive. She hated the way Drey and I watched her sometimes. She was right, I did watch her like she was the princess and I the attendee. I’d heard of people deliberately hurting themselves. Cutting. I never understood why or how and I still don’t. Only on Big Island, I thought, until my fingers started cramping and I remembered the hard raps with stone on my small fingers.

  JUDITH

  I BOUGHT MANGO-FLESH YELLOW for outside the cabin. Popcorn yellow for inside. The morning when we start to paint is the first time I feeling my feet touch ground; first morning I not checking to see if marks on my body still angry. I put long cotton pants and top on and make Sola and me breakfast. I have paint cans lined up with brushes, a bucket and a couple old containers I find in the shed. My back ache from carrying paint while pedaling home the day before. But I ready to start. I want to surprise Aunt Rachel when she come.

  Sola wake up. And she looking at everything and asking what’s happening?

  “Today we going to paint the cabin.”

  She say she fine with the project. She say she like the inside yellow but not the outside yellow. Too bright she say. I say I don’t care ’cause this what we working with. She say thanks for the coffee and porridge.

  Henri show up yawning, rubbing he bellly saying he don’t mind giving us a hand. He come back with a brush and we all painting. Mr. Merle bring car over and put on music. Sound like soca and reggae mix. Music that make our hips move like back home. I meet Mr. Merle and Henri the first time when they come up a couple weekends ago to open the cottage. They come back this week to organize themselves and rebuild the beach stairs. Henri keep calling Mr. Merle he father-in-law and Mr. Merle roll he eyes whenever he say it. I don’t ask. Mr. Merle and he wife build the cottage over forty years ago. Margaret say she went to school with Mr. Merle in the city. She say he real upset when he hear Mom die. That first day I meet them Henri and I talk for a good while. He not afraid to a
sk me about the burns and he nah laugh either when I tell him I didn’t realize the water so hot. I love to hear him talk. He say I easy to be around ’cause I don’t say much. That surprise me ’cause usually I the one who talk most.

  Margaret show up next. She driving ’cause she say she shoulder sore. She still manage to make a pot of split-pea soup. She ask Mr. Merle to grab the pot from the back of the car. Later Mr. Merle come round again but this time with strawberry and lemon tarts. We stop for lunch. Mr. Merle and Henri join us. By the afternoon we inside painting the walls butter. By the time we finish, a quarter moon balancing in a mauve streak sky. Henri and Mr. Merle build a fire and Margaret return with another bottle of wine, this one crabapple.

  Margaret also carry two sleeping bags. She think Sola and I should sleep outside ’cause the house need to air out. Sola say, “Me? Sleep outside? You mad?”

  I hear she speak she language, she other language and I laugh and give she a big hug. She tell Mr. Merle, Margaret and Henri I force she to ride a roller coaster. And now I forcing she to sleep outside with bears. She say she do that already and she not doing it again. But she helping me pull mattress from the cabin and zip two sleeping bags together. Stars circling us like we part of the same show. We lie quiet for some time. Until I thinking maybe she fall asleep.

  I think about what the police do her. I test to see if she sleeping and say, “That’s bullshit about the police. How they could cuff you and take you to the station. For what? For running in the streets?”

  “Judith I was running like the devil chasing me. I don’t blame them,” she say.