The Heart Does Not Bend

by Makeda Silvera

  Glory and Mama got along well at the beginning because Mama was determined to make up for all the years they had spent apart, not just when Glory lived here in Canada but also before that, when Glory lived in Port Maria. She was also grateful that Sid had made Glory a respectable married woman. But despite her gratitude, Mama was quick to give Glory advice that was not in Sid’s interest. One Saturday morning when Sid was at work and I was cleaning the bathtub, I overheard them talking.

  “Mama, Sid serious, yuh know, about wanting a baby. Ah don’t know what to do.”

  “Mi dear, as much as mi like Sid, ah don’t think yuh should have any pickney now, is not a smart thing fi do. Yuh need education, yuh need fi uplift yuhself, and baby cyaan do dat fi yuh.”

  “Den what mi going to tell him?”

  “Tell him? Nuh tell him anything. When him ask again, tell him yuh trying. Him don’t have to know nutten.”

  “Ah don’t know Mama, it not as simple as dat,” my mother worried.

  “How complicated it can be, den?”

  “Ah don’t want to lie to Sid. We don’t have dat kind of relationship.”

  Mama sucked her teeth. “Girl, you a idiot? A nuh today mi know man, and dere is no such thing as a honest relationship, nuh care what dem tell yuh. So yuh try yuh best and protect yuhself. A three pickney yuh lef here a morning time fi look after, where yuh going to get time fi baby? And furthermore, yuh don’t even turn mother fi Molly yet.”

  Glory didn’t answer right away. After a while she said simply, “Is true, Mama. Is true.”

  My grandmother gave her lots of other advice about work, about how to handle Sid’s occasional late nights out with friends and his wandering eye, and about how to take care of money.

  “Mek sure yuh knot up something separate. Yes a yuh husband, but dat don’ mean all things equal. So put away some savings fi a rainy day. Things can turn, and when dem turn, dem usually turn bad. Give mi de money, mi will knot it up and save it fi yuh right here,” she advised.

  Glory was also determined to make up for the years she and Mama had spent apart, and she insisted that Mama not get a job.

  Every Sunday we had a full-course Jamaican dinner complete with rice and peas, fried chicken or curried goat, coleslaw salad and freshly made carrot juice. Uncle Peppie, Aunt Val, Uncle Freddie and whatever woman he was seeing at the time would join us for dinner. Occasionally a friend of Sid’s named Justin came to eat with us, too. Those Sundays reminded me of our monthly parties on the dead-end street in Kingston, but they were not nearly as exciting. Nice, yes, in an ordinary sort of way, but there was no glamour. The only one who vaguely brought any of that was Uncle Freddie, who came dressed to the nines and always had a beautiful woman on his arm. Still, the dinners brought us together, to laugh and to remember what we chose.

  During our first spring in Canada, we visited Niagara Falls. Mama was awed by the natural wonder and amazed that the United States was just across the water. We took photographs, ate ourselves drowsy with a picnic of fried chicken, fried dumplings, sweet potatoes, rice and peas, corned-beef sandwiches, hard-dough bread, escoveitched fish and bottles of juice. Uncle Freddie’s new girlfriend, Joanne, came with us to the Falls. She was a Canadian girl whose parents were Jamaican and had settled in Alberta long before Freddie or Peppie or Glory arrived in Toronto.

  Joanne was a lovely woman, years younger than my uncle. She had a boyish grin that suited her athletic build. She was quiet, rather shy and a great card player. Her one weakness was a tendency, sometimes, to drink a bit too much. Freddie seemed happy and started bringing her with him whenever he visited us.

  From time to time, Mama would talk to Freddie about little Freddie, telling him that he should help Monica raise the child. His answer was always the same: “Yes, ah intend to, Mama.” He never did. I know because my grandmother and Monica corresponded, and in each letter Monica asked after Freddie. Sometimes Mama would rail about him to me. “Dat boy so wutliss. Ah never know him would treat him own flesh and blood dat way, especially him first bwoy chile.”

  I wasn’t the only one whose ear she held. She complained to Glory and Uncle Peppie, too. In the beginning Glory listened, but eventually it became clear that Mama’s complaints had worn thin. It was the same with Uncle Peppie, except he never let on to Mama.

  Uncle Peppie came to see her every Friday after work and stayed for a few hours to talk or watch television with her. Mama would be sure to have his favourite meal cooked: stewed red peas with pigtails and salt beef, white rice on the side. She’d sit and watch him eat and look content. She took great pleasure in cooking and baking, and always sent Uncle Peppie home with pastries fresh from the oven. She also made sure that Freddie picked up his cornmeal pudding every Saturday.

  “Ah glad ah able fi do all of dis for dem pickney. It use to bother mi sometimes back home when ah consider dem over here in de cold wid no mother fi cook something fi dem.”

  Mama also crocheted centrepieces for the tables, armrests for the couches, tablecloths, bedspreads, cushion covers, teapot covers, pot holders, sweaters and vests, and each of her children received these items.

  Uncle Freddie was the one who protested the most. “Mama, ah don’t need all dis, mi is a bachelor, yuh know,” he’d say seriously.

  “Nuh talk nonsense, den yuh don’ think one day yuh going to marry. Put dem up, yuh wife will know what to do wid dem,” Mama said with finality. Soon everybody protested that they had too many centrepieces, too many teapot covers and no place to put them, but that didn’t stop Mama. “Mi soon find other people who will appreciate dem,” she’d say to me, putting them in cardboard boxes and storing them away.

  Despite her activity I began to see that she was growing bored. She was never the type to stay at home or to sit for long. Each week, Uncle Peppie gave her money for cigarettes and other small items, but she longed to earn her own money, as she had on the island. I knew she wanted to walk down the street and have people recognize her, say, “Good morning, Miss Galloway,” talk with her about the weather, or the government, or the rising cost of food.

  She had her daily routine here down to a science. She tidied the house in the mornings after we all left, then she’d decide what to cook, watch her soaps on television, have a shower and wait for me to get home from school. Then we’d sit and talk until Sid and Glory came home. She especially looked forward to Friday evenings when Uncle Peppie came to visit, and on Sundays she cooked a big supper for the whole family.

  My mother and I got along very much like sisters, and not close ones at that. I had never called her Mother and still called her Glory, and she never introduced me as her daughter to her friends—I was always Molly. Mama was our mother. I hardly went anywhere with Glory except to Kensington Market and the laundromat. On rare occasions Mama and I were treated to a drive in Sid’s car, but mostly we stayed home and watched the world on television. I had to be home right after school or I’d have a lot of explaining to do, especially to Glory, who figured my breasts were going to get me into trouble. I preferred Sid to Glory; he was much more easygoing and he talked to me like an equal. He didn’t order me around, or treat me like I was a walking time bomb because of the size of my breasts.

  I remember buying a halter top with some money Uncle Freddie had given me when summer arrived. It was a red-and-black polka-dot halter top that I had looked at longingly in the Zellers store window for weeks. The weekend I finally bought it, we were having a few more people over for Sunday dinner. Sid’s friend Justin; a friend of my mother’s, Eileen, and Aunt Val’s nephew Jeffrey. I had bathed and combed my hair carefully and put on the halter top, feeling quite pleased with myself. Suddenly I saw Glory’s face reflected in the bedroom mirror.

  “Tek it off, tek it off, Jesus God Almighty, where yuh think yuh going in dat?” she screamed at me. She had never talked to me like that, and I was quite taken aback, as were Sid and Mama. Luckily the others hadn’t arrived yet.

  “Glory, is what happen?” Mama asked,
coming out from the kitchen. Sid was in the living room drinking a Guinness.

  “Nuh dis gal, look pon what she have on fi sit down round de table,” she said, pointing at me.

  Mama looked at me.

  “What is de problem, Glory?” she asked again, this time looking at her daughter as if she had gone insane.

  “Yuh don’t see de top dis girl have on, Mama?”

  My grandmother focused on my halter top, but there was no alarm in her eyes.

  “Glory, ah don’t see anything wrong wid de blouse,” she said.

  “Mama, you call dis a blouse, dis little piece a cloth dat barely cover up her tittie dem?”

  I stood there, half-frozen with embarrassment.

  “Glory, what yuh getting so upset ’bout? Yuh expect de girl fi dress up like old woman? Yuh nuh know seh she is fourteen? De top look fine to me. Yuh acting like Molly is some gal dat run up and down and catch man. Nuh bother tek no liberty wid her for me raise her proper.”

  Sid got up from the couch and looked in our direction. He shook his head in disgust. The look was not wasted on my mother; she ran into her bedroom and slammed the door on us. Sid sucked his teeth and went back to his Guinness and baseball game.

  “Leave yuh blouse on, girl,” Mama said as she turned back into the kitchen.

  I went to our room and sat on the bed. My mood had turned sour. Freddie and Joanne arrived, and Glory came out of her room to greet them as if nothing had happened. I hated that about her, the way she could so easily move from one mood to another.

  “What happening, brother, how yuh doing? How yuh doing, Joanne?” she greeted them cheerfully.

  I sat in the bedroom stewing. Another knock at the front door and I heard Justin’s voice, then Eileen’s.

  “Molly!” Mama called out. “Come help mi.”

  “A so we look nice. Yuh really growing into a looker,” Uncle Freddie greeted me. Everyone turned in my direction and smiled—Glory just barely—as I went to the kitchen to help Mama.

  Uncle Peppie and Aunt Val were the last to arrive, and it was clear that they’d been quarrelling. Uncle Peppie was even more low-key than usual, and Aunt Val wore a guarded look all through dinner, but that didn’t take away from the food or the enjoyment for everyone else. Mama seemed oblivious and kept a running conversation going with her sons and the rest of the men, all the while encouraging them to eat more. Uncle Peppie and Aunt Val left a short while after dinner, she saying she had some work to finish.

  Eileen was the next to leave.

  The men were in the living room drinking rum and watching boxing. The women, me included, were in the kitchen washing and putting away the dishes. The weather was the topic of conversation. Mama kept saying that she could not believe that a place with so much snow and cold and ice in winter could get so hot and humid come summer.

  Joanne lowered her voice and said, “I have something to tell you and I need your advice.” Everyone looked in her direction. “I’m pregnant.”

  “Congratulations, girl,” Glory cheered.

  “Shh,” Joanne said with a finger over her mouth. “Freddie is not too happy.”

  Glory looked at me with those eyes that said adult talk, so I busied myself and took the garbage to the side door where I could still hear but not be seen.

  “What yuh mean?” Glory asked.

  “Well, he wants me to have …to have …”

  “Him want yuh throw it away?” Mama finished.

  “Yes,” she whispered, “but I really want this baby.”

  “Well, maybe yuh should wait a little,” Glory cautioned.

  “So yuh suggest dat she dash it away too?” Mama sounded angry.

  “No, Mama, but is two of them in it together …”

  “Him will never be ready. Look pon little Freddie in Jamaica.”

  “Shh …shh …” said Joanne. I felt sorry for her, because I knew there was no stopping my grandmother when she felt strongly about something.

  “Girl, if yuh want to have yuh pickney, have it, but don’t look pon mi son fi any help, because it won’t be there. Yuh have to stand up on yuh own foot.”

  “Mama, ah don’t think yuh have any right to—”

  Mama cut her off. “Glory, yuh don’t own mi mouth and mi have a right to speak when mi want to.”

  I went back into the kitchen, determined not to catch my mother’s eye.

  “Please, don’t fight. I don’t want him to hear,” Joanne pleaded.

  “Hear what?” Freddie asked matter-of-factly as he strolled into the kitchen to get another beer.

  “Nothing, just woman talk,” Glory said.

  Mama confronted him. “Why yuh want de girl dash away her pickney?” she demanded.

  My uncle’s eyes looked mean. Joanne’s looked scared. Tears dripped onto her white cotton dress.

  “Yuh talking behind mi back? Didn’t we agree dat dis was between us?” he shouted.

  I clutched my hands and waited for the next move.

  “How unnu like cow down woman so?” Mama asked. “Is a pity she tek up wid yuh and mi sorry mi never warn her, but mi think yuh change. Ah shoulda know better, for zebra cyaan change dem stripe. Look on de lovely pickney yuh have in Jamaica and not even a penny yuh would send fi buy food fi him.”

  My uncle’s eyes flashed to Glory.

  “Mama,” my mother warned. But my grandmother sucked her teeth. I went to the bathroom and came out with some tissues for Joanne. The poor girl had begun to tremble. I made myself small in a corner of the kitchen and prayed that Mama would quiet, for she was only making the situation worse.

  “That’s enough, Mama, stop interfering in mi life,” Uncle Freddie said abruptly, his eyes fire hot.

  “Yuh think yuh can shut mi up?”

  “To hell wid you,” he blazed at her. And he pulled Joanne roughly from the chair, grabbed their things and stormed out the door. Glory ran after him, mumbling, “Calm down, Freddie, calm down.”

  Sid and Justin continued to watch the boxing match on television, cheering on their favourites as if nothing had happened. My grandmother sat down on a kitchen chair, a cigarette between her lips and a self-righteous look on her face. I kissed her on the side of her neck and went to our bedroom.

  Uncle Freddie never came to Sunday dinner again. Uncle Peppie and Aunt Val came to a few more, then one Sunday Val called to tell us that her sister and her husband were in town and they were entertaining at home. Mama didn’t seem to care, but I had lived with her for so long that I knew better. She was at the stove turning the fried chicken, Glory was at the kitchen counter helping with the coleslaw salad, and I was grating the carrots for juice. Sid sat in front of the television watching sports.

  “We have enough chicken here for tomorrow dinner, and enough to mek a sandwich for yuh and Sid to tek to work, so nothing won’t waste. It will save mi cooking tomorrow and ah can iron Sid shirts and a few of your things dat sitting dere in de wash basket.”

  “Don’t worry yuhself, Mama, relax. I can do them one evening,” Glory said, totally out of character. Mama didn’t miss a beat.

  “Since when yuh like fi iron?”

  “Is not dat, Mama, ah just think yuh should be outside enjoying de summer weather. There is a nice park round de corner.”

  “Okay, me and Molly will go,” Mama answered. She waited as if she knew the conversation wasn’t finished. Glory said nothing more.

  At the dinner table that evening, Glory announced that we were invited to dinner at Aunt Val’s the first Sunday of the following month.

  “To what do we owe dis honour?” Mama asked, her voice subdued.

  “Nothing, Mama. Val just want to entertain at her place, and yuh cook for us so much Sundays dat she thought it would be a nice change.”

  “I see.”

  Sid and I exchanged quick glances.

  “De rice and peas tasty, Mother Galloway,” he said.

  “Thank yuh, mi son,” she said in a meek voice I didn’t recognize.

  �
��Yes, Mama, and di chicken too,” Glory added hastily.

  “Uh-huh.” Mama nodded.

  We got through the dinner with a bit of small talk. Sid and Glory left shortly after to visit some friends. I washed the dishes and emptied the garbage, then settled with Mama in front of the television.

  “Ah wonder what dat bitch have up her sleeve now?” Mama huffed. “When dem see yuh strong, dem try everything fi bring yuh down.”

  “But, Mama, mi don’t think she mean anything bad,” I said.

  “Yuh don’t know de likes of people, for life nuh half tek wid yuh yet. It long and yuh have ‘nuff fi learn. And mi know dis one is a bitch pon wheels, mark my word,” she countered.

  I said nothing after that, and then Mama got up and switched the channel to a variety show. We sat and watched the program in silence.

  Mama and I spent a lot of time together during the summer, and our talk almost always went back to our old street, the Ritz Theatre, Sophia Loren, our flower beds, Grand-aunt Ruth’s restaurant. We missed our home and our freedom. Perhaps I missed it even more than Mama because I longed for my crowd, for Punsie, Junior, the others on the street and even Petal.

  On Sunday we went to Aunt Val and Uncle Peppie’s for supper. Our first surprise was seeing Uncle Freddie and Joanne there. Since the quarrel at our apartment, they hadn’t come around or even called, but neither Glory nor Sid seemed surprised to see them. Mama carried her anger well, at least in front of Aunt Val and the others. She greeted them politely. Freddie kissed her as if nothing had happened. Joanne couldn’t look Mama in the eye.

  Aunt Val cooked much the same food as Mama: fried chicken, rice and peas, a green salad instead of coleslaw, plus a mixed-vegetable dish, potato salad and a macaroni-and-cheese dish. That was the first time I’d ever eaten macaroni and cheese, and it was delicious. Aunt Val had also made a pineapple upside-down cake for dessert, along with a fruit salad. The food was good and we enjoyed it. Glory praised the variety of dishes. Sid, like me, loved the macaroni and cheese, and under the circumstances Mama had to say something complimentary. But she didn’t fool me; I knew her words didn’t come from the heart. Even I could see that by preparing so many different dishes, Aunt Val was trying to show what a good cook she was.