Dew Angels

by Melanie Schwapp

  Nola’s expression was constantly changing from distress, to amusement, to shock. She was relieved when Dahlia shouted, “Time for the blessin’s!” The women stopped speaking to cheer loudly.

  Biscuit and Darlene cleared the cloth, taking the food containers into the kitchen while Merlene giggled delightedly and went to sit in the middle.

  “Since Delroy and Nola never do this before, lemme explain,” Dahlia said. “Every time it’s somebody birthday, we all give that person a blessin’. One that will last for the whole year. That way, all the bad things other people might wish to happen to that person get cancel out, and only good things will happen! So, since today is Mama’s birthday, we all get to wish her a blessin’!”

  Nola swallowed. She suddenly wanted to get up and run through the hedge. No one told her that she would have to speak in front of these story-rich, vociferous strangers. How could she tell them the truth, that her only wish at that moment was for herself? That her only birthday wish for Merlene was that she was her mother and not Dahlia’s?

  Biscuit began. She placed her red talons on Merlene’s cheeks and wished her health and happiness for the rest of her days, to be always surrounded by love, and continued success in her business so she could continue paying her employees well (Honks of laughter). Dahlia went next, wishing her mother a very, very long life, with good friends close by her side, and announced that because of her mama’s smile every morning, it didn’t matter what lay ahead each day, for each day became as bright as that smile. Darlene wished her beauty long into her old age. Birdie wished her romance and a companion to grow old with, upon which Dahlia expounded that her mother already had all the companionship she needed (more raucous honks).

  Nola blinked in shock when Delroy stood and cleared his throat. He wished Merlene would always be in possession of a stove, so she would never stop cooking delicious meals. Everyone agreed loudly.

  Then, all eyes turned to Nola. She took a deep breath and looked at Dahlia’s encouraging nod and Merlene’s eager eyes. She stood slowly, focusing her gaze on the little wrinkle above Merlene’s raised brows.

  “I … I wish that you … that you will continue to show people that life … life is not such a bad thing. That sometimes when you feel you don’t want to live anymore, you can always find something that’s worth living for.”

  For a pulse of a second, there was silence. Then Biscuit slapped her thigh, gave a loud cackle and announced, “Life good! Life good for true!” and everyone agreed that life was definitely worth living.

  Then Merlene stood up, and with her hands pressed against her heart, told everyone “thank you” for the wonderful blessings, and said that she was already blessed to have her wonderful daughter and such good friends in her life.

  That evening, as Nola went to retrieve her school bag from the verandah, she turned in time to see Dahlia fling her humongous arms around Merlene’s neck. She had seen them hug before. They hugged constantly—when Dahlia came in from school, when she got something correct in her homework, when she especially loved the meal that Merlene had cooked that afternoon. But there was something about this hug that stopped Nola in her tracks. It was the way they clung to each other, the way they squeezed as if they were attempting to mesh into one. There was a desperation to their grip that Nola had never seen before. She watched them silently till Dahlia gave a loud snort and they burst into laughter and broke apart.

  “Thank you for that nice wish, Puddin,” Merlene told her when she went to say goodbye. “It touch me right here.” She pointed to the light dusting of powder on her chest, the spot on which Dahlia had just pressed her head. Then she took Nola by the shoulders and hugged her. Not a desperate hug like the one she’d given Dahlia, but a sweet one just the same.

  Nola closed her eyes and breathed in the jasmine powder, and for that small moment, everything was perfect. Then Delroy was behind them, telling Nola that it was time to go, and Merlene pulled him into the hug with her other arm. Delroy’s forehead bucked lightly against Nola’s, the sweaty slick of their foreheads sticking slightly before he abruptly pulled away. Merlene grabbed him tightly continued to press them together, as if attempting to set back the pieces of a broken figurine. Her whisper, still tinged with the spicy scent of her birthday meal, breezed over them, “Now is my turn to thank the two of you, for being such good friends to my Pumkin.”

  Delroy pulled away again, mumbling something about the time, and bolted through the hedge. Everyone else chuckled at his hasty retreat and Birdie shouted, “How you expec’ to find a woman if you so ‘fraid of one little hug?”

  That evening, as Nola stood beside Mama and sliced mangoes, she couldn’t help staring at her chest. There was no dusting of powder there, just the shine of sweat, and shoulder bones that jutted from her dress as if she’d forgotten to remove the hanger. Her hands expertly flipped scotch bonnet peppers beneath her knife, slicing the flesh so that just the skeleton of seeds was left behind to be discarded. Her breath was sweet. Even at the end of the day, when Mama’s eyes were dazed with fatigue, her breath was always sweet, like ginger-spiced cake.

  Nola reached over and gripped the briskly moving hands, causing Mama to frown slightly. She should have known to stop then, but at that moment, there was nothing else that mattered but the feel of that sweaty chest against her cheek. She wanted to hear that thud beneath, to find the proof that there was life beneath that chopping statue. But just as Nola leaned forward, Mama’s startled hands flew upwards, and her fingers went straight into Nola’s eyes.

  Nola screamed. The acid burn crept immediately over her face. She tried to feel for the kitchen pipe, but miscalculated its direction and knocked over the bowl of mango pulp. She heard Mama gasp, and immediately, panic, ten times worse than the pain, rose into her chest.

  Papa! He must have come into the kitchen to see what the commotion was about and walked straight into the mess! She whimpered as she heard Mama’s footsteps hurry away. Her hands flew over her face to protect herself from the blows. She tried to back up against the sink, but crashed into the table instead, showering heavy sugar crystals over her feet. She heard Mama’s footsteps hurry back into the kichen, and a knife grazed against the chopping board. Then, suddenly – the cool, slimy pulp of aloe vera against her eyes.

  She heard Louisa’s breathless voice, “What happen? What happen? I hear a scream. What happen to Nola, Mama?”

  But Mama didn’t answer, just continued to swab Nola’s eyes till soon Nola could open them. Everything was blurred, but she tried to focus beyond Mama’s shoulder, past Louisa’s confused face. Empty! With relief she saw that the kitchen was empty except for the three of them. Her legs buckled, first with relief, then with returning anxiety as she spotted the mess of mango pulp and sugar on the floor. She pushed Mama’s hands away and stooped to hurriedly scrape the sugar from the floor, but Mama stooped beside her, and it was her turn to hold Nola’s hands still.

  “Him have a meetin’ tonight, Nola,” she whispered. “Him not comin’ till late.”

  Then she took the dishcloth from her shoulder and wiped the tears from Nola’s face.

  That night, Nola learned another difference between her home and Dahlia’s. In Dahlia’s home, hugs were safe, happy. But in the Chambers’ house, hugs, like everything else, brought pain.

  CHAPTER

  16

  The day before Nola’s birthday, Papa got himself a gift – Mr. Spence’s red Corolla. It was in perfect condition, with the plastic still on the seats and the light grey upholstery as pristine as the first day Mr. Spence had driven it into Redding from Kingston. A huge contrast to Papa’s old one, whose rear windscreen had been at the mercy of the grey electrical tape tacked around the edges.

  When Nola walked through the gate and saw the car on the lawn, she thought the Spences had come to pick up an extra large order, but, as she neared the vehicle, she realized that it wasn’t the Spences inside, but Papa, Louisa and Toneisha. The girls sat together in the passenger’s seat, t
heir legs dangling easily out the door, while Papa sat on the driver’s side, fidgeting with the radio buttons in the linseed-polished dashboard.

  “Nola, look at Papa new car. It have a radio!” Louisa beamed through the doorway, clicking her fingers to the strains of Jimmy Cliff’s “The Harder They Come”.

  Nola stopped hesitantly, not sure if Papa would be in a good mood for having got the car, or in a bad mood for having spent the money to get it.

  He was in a good mood, for even after spotting Nola he continued to rock his shoulders to the song. So Nola returned Louisa’s smile and peered inside to see if Mama was in the back.

  It was empty. Nola frowned. Where on earth was Mama on such a significant occasion? They’d finally gotten the reliable vehicle they’d wished for, which meant that now Mama could distribute her products to a much wider market.

  Not wishing to push her luck with Papa’s mood, Nola waved to the girls and went inside. Mama was there, stirring a large dutchpot of pineapple skins. Lime-Pine Jam, one of her best sellers at Miss June’s. But there was something wrong. Mama’s shoulders were stooped even lower than usual and her hands shook on the spoon.

  With a bolt of awareness, Nola realized why Mama was not outside. It was not Papa’s money, not his awaited raise that had bought the Spence’s car. It was the money for Mama’s kitchen.

  Nola stood silently as Mama placed the cover on the dutchpot and turned to rub a kernel of nutmeg up and down a grater. Over the years, Mama’s fingers had grown to resemble little hardened tools rather than flesh and bone. And for what? A new red car? She didn’t even know how to drive.

  The cover of the dutchpot clanked loudly as Mama added the gratered spice to the thickening syrup inside. She returned to the sink to cut up the pineapple flesh. The pulp that would give the jam its body.

  It was a couple minutes well before Nola realized that she wasn’t watching Mama’s hands anymore, but the knife in them. It fascinated her how the blade melted through the flesh, splitting the fruit so easily. “I tek the kitchen knife and stick it right here,” Dahlia had said. Had it sliced through her papa’s flesh as easily as it did through the pine, or had it bucked and sputtered against bone?

  The knife stopped moving. Mama was staring at her. Nola stared back at the face warped from its own harsh rub over life’s grater. She’d once been beautiful. Grampy had told Nola that Mama had once been even more beautiful than Louisa, with lips that blazed like fire from her face. Nola had seen it for herself in the wedding picture tucked between the pages of the Bible on Mama’s bedside table—skin that glowed from a promise, a smile that had managed to reach her eyes.

  Mama’s voice cracked the silent air. “Nola, I don’t have that much to do this evenin’, and Louisa not goin’ do much anyway, with all this excitement.” Her hand lifted slightly towards the door. “So you can just tend to Ellie and go to bed early tonight.”

  Nola didn’t move.

  “Go to the cow, Nola.” Her voice was firmer now.

  “And what ‘bout you, Mama? You just goin’ stay in here and chop? Chop up onion and mango and pine for the rest of your life?” The words surged like bile from Nola’s gut.

  The knife rattled into the sink, and Mama’s eyes blazed. She’d pulled up her shoulders, her collapsed breasts heaving beneath the light gingham of her dress.

  “Listen to me, chile!” The breasts shimmied beneath the strain of her voice. “That man out there work hard to look after this house, you hear me? Work hard to put food on this table and buy all the things that we need. Don’t you just waltz in here and talk bad ‘bout him! That man work in sun-hot at that orchard all day, so that you can go to school and make someting of your life. What he do with the money is none of your concern!”

  Nola blinked. She had said nothing about Papa, or money. Yet, here was Mama addressing every thought that had crossed her mind.

  A sound at the door ripped their eyes apart. Papa stood there, his shoulder resting on the jamb as he flipped through the pages of a tiny booklet with the word TOYOTA on the cover.

  He barely looked up as he mumbled, “Sadie—ice water.”

  Hard to imagine that this beautiful man was actually her papa, half the contributor to her existence. His grater had been kinder than Mama’s. Mama handed him the large cup filled with water from the jug in the fridge, the one that Nola knew was for Papa alone—and sometimes for Louisa. He took it, still without looking up, and took a long drink, his neck bulging with each gulp. Then suddenly, the cup went sailing. Over the bonnet of the red car and across the grass till it came to a stop on a pad of fresh dung by the coolie plum tree.

  “Jesus, Sadie! Why everyting in the house must stink of onion?! It’s like I just drink a cup of onion juice! Wash your damn hands before you go in the fridge, nuh woman!”

  Mama immediately went to the sink and began scrubbing her hands. She continued to scrub them as Papa sucked his teeth and walked back to the car. Eventually she picked up the knife and began cutting the pine once again.

  “Go to the cow,” she said to Nola without looking up.

  CHAPTER

  17

  That night, Nola dreamt that the red car was chasing her through the pot-holed streets of Redding. She kept falling into the deep holes as the tyres screeched over her head. She woke with the screeching still in her ears, and it was not until she sat up and rubbed her eyes that she realized the sound was really there, in her room.

  She peeked cautiously through the gauze curtains, blinking at the two figures swirling in the dawn haze before her. The dew angels? Outside her bedroom window? Nola rubbed her eyes. Dahlia and Delroy!—their hands bleeding with the stain of mud as they readied to throw another handful of pebbles against her window. Dahlia and Delroy, faces impatient as they stared back through the mist, dressed in jackets against the chill of the morning.

  “Happy Birthday!” Dahlia shouted.

  Nola rammed a finger against her mouth and frantically signaled for Dahlia to be quiet.

  “We come to take you to the dew angels!” Dahlia whispered.

  They were waiting by the coolie plum tree when she came out. Dahlia was rubbing Ellie’s dung-caked head while Delroy leaned sleepily against the trunk. On seeing Nola, he eased up, but she found that she could not look at him. She’d been unprepared for the wave of shame that washed over her when she saw him in the spot from which he had scraped her off the ground weeks before. She kept her head low, giving nothing but a small wave as she led them through Mama’s scallion and thyme patch into the tall grass beyond. Thankfully, the farther away they walked, the more the shame released its hold, and soon they were racing each other, laughing loudly as they crunched over the dew-soaked leaves. They stopped at a small clearing on the hillside. Dahlia collapsed onto a bundle of grass beneath a young guinep tree while Nola and Delroy bent with their hands on their knees and tried to catch their breaths.

  It was hard to breathe deeply in the crisp mountain air. The cold mist froze the lungs and singed the nostrils. Eventually Nola flung herself beside Dahlia, playfully nudging her aside to make room. Dahlia guffawed loudly, then shoved her hand into her huge jacket and pulled out a round package foil.

  “Mama say, a puddin’ for Puddin’! Happy birthday!” she said, dropping the package onto Nola’s lap.

  It was still hot. Just out the oven!—Merlene had gotten out of bed very early to bake it. They’d planned this for her birthday! Nola blinked hastily, warding off the sudden sting behind her eyes as Dahlia leaned over and tore the foil open. The aroma of sweet potato pudding parted through the cold mist. Nola stared in awe at the thick custard, parting deliciously to allow the dark heads of raisins to poke through.

  Dahlia licked her lips dramatically and poked Nola’s shoulder. “Mama say, a puddin’ for a puddin’, but she never say it was for you alone!” She dug into her jacket again and pulled out three plastic forks, handing one each to Nola and Delroy. “Nuh true, Delroy? Not for Puddin’ alone!”

  Delroy sh
ook his head. “No Sir, not for Puddin’ alone!” And he dug into the foil and stuffed a huge, dripping forkful into his mouth.

  Dahlia followed, slurping so noisily that a lizard on a branch above pumped its bright orange fan in complaint. Nola laughed with delight as Delroy dug out another forkful. She did the same, taking a huge, delicious bite of her very first birthday ‘cake’.

  It was just the three of them, damp from dew, but it was a birthday party that Nola would not have changed even one tiny detail.

  Just when she thought her heart could get no lighter from joy, Dahlia jumped up and clapped her hands. “Time for the blessin’s!”

  Nola tried to hide the involuntary smile that lifted her lips.

  “Nola,” Dahlia said, “I wish that you will always believe in miracles. Miracles like the dew angels, and Santa.” She looked pointedly at Delroy. “But most of all, I wish that you will always believe in the miracle in here.” She patted her chest so hard that the sound echoed through the mist.

  Then Delroy stood up. He pulled a long stalk from one of the bundles and wound it tightly around his index finger. Eventually, when the tip of his finger had swelled into a purple nub, he cleared his throat and pointed it at Nola.

  “Nola,” he said, “I wish that you will always be like this grass. That no matter how the world bend you up, twist you round, try to beat you, you will always bend with it, but you won’t ever break.” Then he released the stalk so that it uncurled from his finger and fell at his feet.

  Nola stared at the twisted blade by his sneakers. Once more, for the morning, she was struck speechless. She knew what Delroy was speaking about. He was speaking about that night, when she’d lain on the lawn, pounded first by her papa’s fist, then by the rain. Heat crawled into her face, even as Dahlia grabbed the curled blade and stuffed it down the front of Grampy’s sweater that she had excitedly hauled over her head.