by Karen Lord
“I am a grandmother, too, Maggie.”
“Yes. You should think about that. What grandmother encourages her granddaughter to become a monster?”
Christabel shook her head. “A monster, Maggie? Look . . .”
Bella was slowly making her way from the side door of the house with a tray almost too heavy for her to carry. It had on it a glass jug of lemonade and two glasses. Painstakingly, she stepped towards their table.
“I made it, Grandma, I made it from the lemons in the garden. I made it all by myself.”
“Bella, darling,” cooed Christabel, “how sweet of you.”
“Does it matter, Bella,” said Maggie, “which glass is which?”
* * *
Maggie painfully tottered towards the double windows. Grandmama Catherine called them French, she thought. So sad, because I’m sure she never went to France in her life. She gazed out of them, taking in the so familiar rows of sago palms, the one behind which she had hidden all those years ago, and the long line of steps, broken at the edges. Then she turned back from the windows, limped into her chamber, her ankles and hips crippled with arthritis, and thought about the little Green Parlour.
So you are coming, Bella, thought Maggie, as she hobbled to the front entrance of the house. You are forty-six, of course, you are coming. And you will ask, won’t you, what I knew you would eventually ask the moment you were born. You will ask what your grandmother asked, though it didn’t do her much good. She died when you were just ten years old. I wonder if you ever thought about that, Bella?
Maggie watched Bella ascend the steps. Bella’s skirt was not long. It hugged her excellent knees, showed off her shapely, toned legs. But her smiling expression? It’s the same, thought Maggie, it’s the same as Mama’s was when I was there behind the sago palm. It’s exactly the same. As a mother, I have failed you as much as Grandmama failed Mama. Monsters, both of you. I couldn’t change you. What would Thomas think of you now, Bella, obsessed as you are with your right to the property?
Maggie shut her eyes, summoning Thomas’s image before her. His hair was wild and tawny, his eyes alive and adventurous. Land had never mattered to him, just as it had not to his ancestors, although like many Bermudians of the time, they had acquired it through trading at sea. Long ago on sloops and schooners, they had roamed the ocean when it was untamed by the rigged edifices that stretched across the Atlantic and Pacific. A few centuries later they took to space instead and Thomas followed their spaceway path. That was one reason Maggie had been so attracted to him, even though she was as earthbound as he was tied to the firmaments. A patch of subtropical jungle in the middle of an urban wilderness could never have tamed him; she had always understood that. Besides, he was egalitarian in a way her family had never been.
His voice came echoing back over the thirty-nine year divide since he had disappeared in his space cruiser with Frederick on one of those damn fool trips he would take when he was bored.
“It’s because of your mother, Maggs, it’s because of Christabel, you don’t have enough confidence in your looks.”
“Well, Mama’s beautiful!”
“Maybe. Everyone says so. But she acts like she’s entitled and I don’t find that attractive somehow. Your whole family acts like it’s entitled. You’re the only one that doesn’t.”
Dear Thomas. Yet he’d never seen through Bella. If I’d told him about the ceremony, Maggie thought, it might have been different. But how could I have done?
She made her eyes focus on the steps. There was Bella, climbing, climbing.
“Good morning, Bella,” Maggie said. And prayed her voice did not sound frightened.
“Good morning, Mama,” said Bella as she stood at the entrance.
Maggie heard the crunch of gravel and the alarm announcing a vehicle. Nathaniel is arriving, she thought. She watched him approach the steps. God, he’s so old, so old. Such a pompous bore, she heard Christabel saying. There he was, in the morning dress she remembered, top-hatted and chest in hand.
And there coming up the steps as fast as her little legs could carry her was Lyla. The love of my life, thought Maggie. The one who will change everything, I’ll make sure of that.
“Can I come in, Ga Ma?”
“Of course, you can, dearest.”
“It’s not suitable,” Bella said sharply. “Go home, Lyla. Now.”
Maggie held Lyla firmly in her arms.
“Good morning,” said Nathaniel, arriving at the top of the steps. “Shall we begin?”
Once they were in the Green Parlour, he removed his hat, took out the two decanters and glasses from the chest and placed them upon the silver tray.
“It is, as I have explained to you, customary for the will of Henry Waring to be read in its entirety.”
“Is that really necessary, Nathaniel?” Bella asked sweetly. “It’s in Latin! Besides, you explained the terms of the will to me when I was twenty-one. And Mama knows them very well, don’t you, Mama?”
Maggie nodded.
“Nevertheless,” said Nathaniel in his deadly monotone, “It is important to follow the requirements to the letter, do you not agree, Maggie.”
“I do.”
He looked at Lyla, her little hand tucked into Maggie’s. “I don’t think it suitable for your granddaughter to remain, Maggie. It will be upsetting for her.”
“At that point in the ceremony, she may leave,” Maggie said, sitting down in one of the green velvet chairs and pulling Lyla onto her lap.
“As you wish, Maggie.” He gestured to Bella who gracefully sat down in the other chair opposite.
He began to chant out the ten-page will and testament, his words dropping into the steamy air like incantations from a Latin mass.
Maggie saw Bella smiling, gazing steadily at the decanters on the silver tray, her green eyes as focused and as deadly as a cat’s. Unable to bear the vision of her daughter, Maggie let her thoughts wander back to the day Bella was born, to Thomas’s delight and her own despair.
I couldn’t tell you, Thomas, I just couldn’t tell you. You never understood about the land, did you? You would never have seen that sacrifice is necessary. You would never have forgiven me. And now, I couldn’t blame you for it. When Frederick was born I was so happy, so very happy. But the pressure for a daughter was too great. I was trapped, Thomas, you have to understand that. I thought there was no way out. And then I remembered what Grandmama had said to me the day of the ceremony I never told you about. I’m going to teach you a little Latin, dearest. When you are desperate, it could be the saving of you!
Nathaniel’s reading came to a stop. He turned to the decanters, poured the green liquid from one into Bella’s glass. Then he poured the clear fluid from the other into the glass that Maggie knew would be hers.
So I did learn Latin, Thomas, enough to understand everything in the will. The estate has to go down the female line; every other generation the daughter must be named Christabel. I told you that. But there are two other conditions, Thomas . . .
Nathaniel handed the green glass to Bella who tenderly cupped her long, tapered fingers around it.
It’s a kind of spell, Thomas, a curse. Every Christabel Waring has the right to require her mother to give twenty years of her youth to her. If the mother refuses, after her death the land is sold to the Government, unless, unless . . .
Nathaniel solemnly gave the clear glass to Maggie.
“Can I have some, Ga Ma?” Lyla whispered.
“No, sweetheart,” Maggie whispered back. “It’s a nasty medicine you really don’t need.”
Nathaniel stood gravely by the table, then started to speak. “Margaret Maria Waring, as it is set down by Henry Waring, your great grandfather, in his last will and testament, for the sake of your estate’s longevity and safekeeping do you promise to bestow twenty years of your life to your daughter, Christabel Maria Waring?”
Unless, Thomas, the child is the issue of a male Waring, in which case . . .
“Mama?” Bella’s v
oice prodded her. “We’re waiting.”
“Oh,” said Maggie, dryly, “I’d do anything for the estate, you all know that.”
So, Thomas, when you were off on one of your space cruises, I went to Cousin Samuel, got him drunk, which wasn’t hard to do . . . All the Waring men are drunkards–no wonder Henry Waring made that will. We had sex–Samuel was so smashed, he didn’t remember a thing about it the morning after. But I got pregnant with Bella. Thank God, you never suspected a thing. Nobody did, because I was so in love with you.
“Maggie,” said Nathaniel, “A simple ‘I do’ will suffice.”
I figured, Thomas, that the only way it would matter would be if Bella asked me for her twenty years. A loving daughter would never ask for such a sacrifice, would she?
“Mama?” said Bella. “We’re waiting.”
“I do,” said Maggie. “Now we are waiting for you, Bella. Aren’t you going to drink?”
Bella drank the green liquid from her glass in one long swallow.
“My turn,” said Maggie cheerfully and she drained her glass. Already her body felt lighter, her joints less swollen.
You see, Thomas, old Henry Waring despised the male Warings so much, he added a clause to the will. It’s buried in the Latin verbiage but it’s there. If a Christabel Waring is the issue of a male Waring and if she participates in the inheritance ceremony–then the spell is reversed.
Setting Lyla down, Maggie sprang lightly from her chair. “Come Lyla, it’s time for you to play in the garden.” She nodded slightly to Nathaniel, whose normally impassive face was so shocked she could have laughed. “Thank you, Nathaniel.”
Maggie opened the front door and stood for a moment gazing down at the lawns and the gardens, at the strip of shoreline in the distance. In her mind she saw children running freely as she had run but they would not be generations of Warings–they would be of all colours, of all backgrounds. The park would belong to everyone. She smiled to herself as she imagined what Nathaniel would have to say about that.
Holding Lyla firmly by the hand, and skipping lightly down the steps, Maggie Waring left her daughter to her fate.
Damion Wilson
Daddy
Bermuda
It was the day I buried my sister that I discovered my father could teleport.
Bobbi, the second daughter, the precious child who could do no wrong, had died an addict’s death, gasping her final breaths into her squat’s dusty carpet. Her stoned companions failed to rouse in time to help her, if they even tried at all.
At the time, I recalled astonishment that she’d outlived Mom, who’d squandered what life remained in her chemo-ravaged body zealously shielding Bobbi from any attempts at intervention.
Mom had succumbed to denial. Nothing and no one could convince her to stop abetting Bobbi’s lifestyle, even as destructive as it had become.
Dad had doted on Mom with a saint’s patience, but she would still berate him and dismiss his attempts to appease her. Even as he misplaced his keys and struggled to recall the names of dear friends, his efforts to be close to her, his beloved wife, seemed to be in vain.
It hurt me to lose my father to that tumultuous time.
* * *
We had gathered at Mom’s bedside. The pumps and monitors had been switched off, and the nurses had removed the tubes and wires. They’d even brushed her hair, teasing what little was left of it into a semblance of dignity.
Alec and I had married not long before, our union forged just in time for this horrible trial. I remembered how he had cradled my head while whispering soft reassurances.
When the moment Mom finally left us had come and gone, the tears I had expected to release me never arrived. Instead, leaden numbness filled my limbs.
Dad was a picture of strength, though. His soul no longer burdened by angst and melancholy, he seemed even to have grown taller. I was so proud of him at that moment, his cheeks glistening, his eyes reflecting the kind relief that only a cancer death can deliver.
Bobbi stood stoic next to the hospital bed, holding our mother’s lifeless hand for nearly ten minutes as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, humming something. Then, without comment, she left. I didn’t expect to see her next as a corpse.
“Dad . . .” I began, after Bobbi’s footsteps had echoed away.
He turned to face me and smiled, “Tanya . . .”
My lips began to move, but he placed his finger on my lips.
“Shush,” he said to me, deep brown eyes gazing into mine. “It’s all okay now. It’s all forgiven.”
“Forgiven?” I whispered, clutching Alec’s arm more tightly.
He nodded wisely and, against reason, I willed myself to believe it.
* * *
So it was, years later, at Bobbi’s not so well-attended funeral, that I stood alone, dressed in whatever finery I could dust off. My wedding band told a fiction that only I still entertained.
The pastor droned his eulogy to the echoes of that deserted church hall. Bobbi’s friends couldn’t even pass up one hit just to see her off.
By then, Dad wasn’t in any kind of shape to attend. He’d lost much of his ability to separate past and present, and in those months after Alec had finally left for good, I certainly wasn’t up to repeatedly explaining to him who had died and when. Or why.
So, he wasn’t there to see Bobbi’s casket lowered into the ground, or to smell the earthy dampness filling the empty air. Or to weep for that one lost daughter. I did not linger long enough to see them start heaping the dark soil on top of her.
I drove home to darkened windows and an empty driveway. I turned the key and the heavy door to swing ajar, sending white paint chips drifting to the concrete stoop.
Inside, I collapsed onto the couch and immediately fell asleep, exhausted and still wrapped in the dress I’d worn to see my baby sister buried.
* * *
It was on that starry, clear night that I awoke to find my father, standing outside, his wiry torso propped nonchalantly against my peeling door frame. Crickets chirped their lonely songs into the dark air. I couldn’t tell how late it was.
He was wearing the robe that I’d bought him one Christmas, light-blue flannel pajamas, and ridiculous bunny-eared slippers someone had given him. His skin was yellowed by the bare incandescent bulb dangling from exposed wires.
“What are you doing here, Dad?” I asked drowsily.
“I came to see you, Toots,” he answered, rocking a little unsteadily. I had always detested that nickname, but of course, I reasoned, dementia would leave that memory intact.
I pulled the dress tighter against the chill breeze and scanned the street behind him, but didn’t see the fading taillights of any vehicle that might have left him there.
“How did you get here, Dad?” I asked, shivering a little.
“I just came,” he stated plainly.
“Come in, Dad,” I sighed, propping the door wide open. “C’mon, it’s cold.”
I put my arm around his bony shoulders and guided him inside, closing the door behind us. He shuffled his feet a little more than I remembered.
I persuaded him to lie on my worn sofa and then draped a woollen blanket over him, tucking the end up to his chin as he had done for me so many years before.
“‘Night, Dad,” I murmured as I kissed him goodnight, but he had already fallen asleep. The musty blanket heaved slowly, synchronized with his muted snoring.
I hesitated, staring at his sleeping form before retreating to my bedroom.
“I love you, Daddy,” I whispered into the darkness, glad to have him back again.
* * *
The following morning, I rose before the sun had fully crested the trees and wandered into the kitchen, passing the empty second bedroom. I sometimes thought about the plans Alec and I had made. Wall colours and boys’ names and the right kind of car seat. Two painful losses had doomed our relationship to fights and insults.
“I’m getting breakfast, Dad,” I
yelled. There’d be enough time to feed us both and return him to the nursing home before work.
There was no response.
“Dad?”
The couch was empty. Just as I began panicking, he emerged, from the tiny bathroom. A foul, dank, earthy smell emerged along with him.
“Dad!” I screamed, rushing past him to slam the door shut. “That really stinks!”
He laughed heartily, a deep chuckle that I wasn’t used to hearing, not since I had convinced myself that he couldn’t be safe at his own house.
“Would you like to have pancakes?”
“Of course, Bobbi, You always make the best pancakes.” He grinned.
“It’s Tanya, Dad.”
“That’s right. Sorry, honey.” His broad smile waned. Sometimes, in moments of clarity, he would realize what was happening to him.
“It’s okay, Dad.”
I didn’t bother to remind him that Bobbi had died. Eventually, he would remember on his own and become distraught. It was terrible to observe those moments when the fog lifted just enough to let the demons in.
I made the pancakes while he regaled me with stories about my childhood, as if they had just happened yesterday. He would tell me those same stories four or five times each, but I giggled like a child every time I heard them.
The telephone’s ring interrupted the idyll.
After a moment’s hesitation, I picked up the handset.
“Mrs. Smith? This is Greg Butler from Cider Oaks Nursing Home . . .” He sounded harried.
“Ms.,” I corrected. “I was going to call you . . .”
“Ms. Smith, my apologies. We’re required to inform you that we’re having difficulty locating your father. He hasn’t been checked out and we have no indication that he’s even left the facility.”
“But, he’s here!” I blurted.
“Pardon me?”
“He’s with me, at my house. He just showed up last night. We’re eating breakfast right now.”
A considerable pause elapsed before he spoke again.
“But . . . how did he get there?”
“I don’t know,” I replied, gazing at the blob of syrup dripping from my father’s chin. “He just showed up at my door.”