by Dez Burke
The rain fell in torrents with frequent lightning and thunder. Every now and then, there was a slight pause in the rain at which time the wind would pick up speed. There were only two candles so Chevaine blew out one and left the other to burn. She had found a bucket with which she had set to catch the drip from the ceiling. Other than that, there were no more leaks.
She tried to call her mom again but the service was out completely, so she and John settled in a corner on the floor in the first room of the cottage. This area was used as a little waiting area with only a couple of chairs and a plant so far.
The dozen or so old robes from the closet were made into a bed and they settled on them with their snack of banana chips and mango juice. At first they tried to keep as far apart as possible but as they talked their bodies relaxed and before long they found themselves sitting quite close.
“This isn’t working, Chev,” John said. They were talking about the day’s events when John chimed in.
“What’s not working John?” She was confused as to what he meant.
“Us not being together. It’s killing me and I know it’s affecting you, too!”
Chevaine fell silent for she knew he was right. Trying to stay apart was not easy, but what choice did they have? They were people of God. It’s not like they could have a torrid affair.
The candle flickered and then it went out as it burned to the end of its wick. A loud burst of thunder struck and startled. Chevaine jumped. John, not quite thinking, pulled her into his arms to protect her from the thunder. His protective nature was his downfall because in that moment when their bodies touched it was the end of their resolve.
As if on instinct their lips found each other in the dark. Hungry mouths crushed together, opening to explore each other’s terrain. Hot tongues met as their bodies entwined. All of their pent up emotions finally came gushing out.
She found herself on her back while John’s lips pulled away from hers and started trailing along her neck while his hand cupped her breast beneath. She could feel the warmth of his hand through the fabric of her t-shirt. She never knew that her breast being gently molded like that could bring such pleasure.
Chevaine arched her back at the electrifying sensations which rippled through her. She wasn’t sure what to do so she twined her arms around John’s neck. John’s mouth trailed path of fire along her cleavage and a groan escaped her. His hand crept under her t-shirt to caress the skin on her belly. Wanting to experience more, Chevaine eased the shirt over her head. John’s hand slowly removed each bra strap as his mouth descended on her taut nipples.
His robe was in the way and Chevaine could not touch him the way she wanted, so she allowed him to do what he will. His mouth had moved along her torso and was headed towards her navel. Deep down inside her belly, Chevaine felt a tingling sensation that traveled between her legs. She could feel a twitch in her vagina as if it was contracting and expanding.
“Oh God!” she moaned aloud when John’s hand slid into her jeans to cup her lushness. She heard him growl and buried his face in her hair. “We can’t do this!” she exclaimed.
“I know!” he replied in the same manner.
Their breathing shallow, they clung to each other as they realized they almost broke one of the sacred marriage rule. “What are we going to do?”
“Marry me!” John blurted out. He had been thinking it but the execution lacked the romance of his fantasy. He had pictured them on a picnic or something and him giving her a flower with the ring in the petal. Blurting it out like this was not what he had planned.
Chevaine was not concerned about romance and how he proposed. All she could hear was that John wanted her to be his wife. She felt a bit intoxicated by the thought of it and sighed against his chest. “Do you mean that?” she asked, just to be sure she heard him right.
“Yes. I have been sure since the first moment I saw you.” Gently, he held her shoulder and pulled away from her, trying to find her eyes in the darkness. “I love you Chevaine, and I would be honored if you would be my wife.”
Chapter Four
John left while Chevaine slept in the middle of the night. He did not want anyone checking on them in the early morning to find them together. He was up most of the night pondering their situation and what almost happened and he did not want anyone to think of her in a negative light. There was not a stirring as everything was calm, not even a dog barked. The storm had cooled off around two in the morning and he left around three.
At four thirty he was still awake thinking about her response. “Please let me think about it,” she had said. Not “I love you, too,” as he had expected. It bothered him that maybe she wasn’t as in love with him as he was with her.
Mrs. Cameron found her daughter asleep on the pile of robes. She looked so peaceful that she refused to wake her. She went about tidying up as quietly as possible but Chevaine was a light sleeper and was soon awakened anyway.
“Mommy?”
“You woke up!’ her mother called. “I was so worried. I hoped pastor was here with you. You weren’t afraid?”
“No, I wasn’t afraid, and I wasn’t alone,” she replied.
“I know the Lord was with you, my child, but you must have felt alone with all the thunder and everything,” Mrs. Cameron added.
“Pastor was with me, but I fell asleep and he must have left.” Her tone reflected some disappointment and her eyes welled with tears. She hadn’t given him an answer and she was afraid he was hurt by it.
Her mom sat beside her on the pile of robes and wiped her daughter’s tears. “Come now, child, what’s the matter?” she queried.
“I love him!” she blurted out. “And he asked me to marry him and I said I’ll think about it,” she cried.
“What’s there to think about? You can’t marry him. You know nothing of this man. You forget this foolishness and wait for a nice Jamaican boy to come along,” her mother counseled.
“But I want to be his wife, I want to marry him!”
“Nonsense!”
Chevaine started crying as she felt her heart break into little pieces. How could her mother be so unreasonable about this? Plus, she was an adult of twenty-six years. What should she do? “I don’t want a nice Jamaican boy, Mommy, I want John.”
They went home in silence where Chevaine locked herself in her room. Sadness came over her with her heart in turmoil. She feared she may have hurt John’s feelings by refusing an answer and her mom were making matters worse by not acknowledging the fact that Chevaine loved him. Her mom noticed she hadn’t come out of the room and so did her father, who was always in his farm. He was a quiet man who hardly spoke or got involved in anything. However, when it came to his only daughter, he doted on her.
“Is Chevaine sick?” he asked his wife.
“The pastor proposed to her,” she told him.
“So she sick?”
“No, she love-sick. I tell her she can’t marry him. You know how it go, she need a nice Jamaican boy.”
Her husband, who was sitting at the kitchen table, got up and started walking towards his daughter’s bedroom. “Where you going, Roy?” Mrs. Cameron called.
“Going to check on me daughter,” he called over his shoulder.
“What you going tell her?”
He stopped and turned to face his wife. “I don’t know yet, but if she love that man you can’t tell her to marry some other boy.”
“You want her to marry a strange man from foreign place. We don’t even know anything about him!”
“I know that he’s a man of God and you can’t control everything!” Mrs. Cameron stood dumbfounded, mouth agape. Her husband had never spoken to her like that before. He had always been a calm man who gave his wife full reign to rule the household, but now he had to put his foot down. He turned and walked towards Chevaine’s room.
It was about fifteen minutes later when they emerged. Mrs. Cameron was very silent for she knew her husband was all for their daughter marrying a man they h
ardly knew. Chevaine walked over to her mother and kissed her which surprised Mrs. Cameron, for she thought she must have been sore with her.
“What is that for?” she asked her daughter.
“I love you and I know you just want what’s best for me.”
“Where are you off to?” she questioned as Chevaine turned to leave.
“Leave the girl be, she’s an adult, you know,” Mr. Cameron said to his wife calmly, patting her shoulder reassuringly.
Chevaine wasn’t sure where John was but had a feeling he would be cleaning up the church office. Being outside was like being in a strange land. Some trees were down and the earth was quite soggy. There was no major damage and no one was hurt but some farms would need much attention.
There was a lot of cleaning up to do with all the debris that had been scattered by the wind. Everyone was still cleaning up and Chevaine had missed most of the work due to her own issues. She felt awful for not helping out.
She found him helping Mr. Thomas moving the breadfruit tree which had fallen in Mr. Thomas’ back garden. She waited until he was done then they walked up the hill, stopping every few house to check on everyone. Nothing seemed strange about their stroll because it was expected of them both.
When they reached the ackee tree with the huge stone they both sat. They could now see even more of the city below, as many trees had lost many branches. A glimpse of the sea was now visible and everything seemed kind of new.
“John?” It was Chevaine who spoke first.
“Hmm?” he replied. He was sure she was going to tell him no and he had prepared himself for it.
“I can’t…you know….what you asked,” she said a bit hesitantly.
“I know,” John replied, sadness in his voice.
“You knew?” she asked, puzzled.
“When you hesitated, I figured it was something like that.” He did not mention how he though she did not feel the same. He wasn’t sure if he could take it if she confirmed his belief. There was only one thing left to do and he had to do it fast, he thought, before he lost his mind. John knew he wasn’t strong enough so he came up with the only solution her could think of.
The left the ackee tree in silence and walked down the hill checking on those they hadn’t seen on their way up. Chevaine did not want to make John feel worse than she knew he already felt so she omitted to tell him why she could not go through with marrying him. She thought that maybe he had an idea of the situation as well.
They spent the next two hours sorting out the office and making plans for Robert’s wedding. The wedding would be in one week and everything was a mess. Susan was pregnant and wanted the wedding before the baby. She also wanted a water baptism as well, for though she attended church, she was not baptized; neither were most of the brethren. They were Christians in their right but many of them did not go through the ritual. They had wanted to wait until there was a real pastor in Cotton Tree Hill.
Susan was five months pregnant and really hoped that she would not have been showing so much for her wedding. She would wear a simple white maternity dress with some wild flowers in her hair and the same for a bouquet. This was all Chevaine’s idea.
Chevaine was her wedding planner and thought of everything. The bride was unemployed and the groom was a cab driver with a baby on the way so they needed to save some money. Though Chevaine was all for a big wedding, she also did not see the need for spending so much on a single event when you would need the money in the near future.
The idea was to use natural resources and thing that could be used again, such as the dress and shoes. White flats, white beads of necklace which looked like pearls, and the crown of wild flowers could all be saved for another day. Her maid of honor was her sister, who would be wearing a lavender dress she had worn for her graduation party.
They were seated under the mango tree in Susan’s yard. The two had gotten pretty close since Chevaine started planning her wedding two months ago. Susan wasn’t sure what was going on with Chevaine but she could see that something was different with her.
“Susan, what kind of food you want?”
They were discussing menu ideas. There were not many options but knowing the community and how close everyone was, you would find about a dozen women volunteering to cook, bringing their own ideas.
“Forget about the food, we’ll eat anything. What’s wrong?” Susan inquired.
“Nothing is wrong, Sue,” she replied turning her head away.
“You can’t tell me that. I know something is wrong. Is it that Gregory? Is he bothering you?” Susan pressed.
“No, it’s not Gregory, it’s me. I think I may have lost the only man I have ever been in love with.” She felt like she was going to cry again but steeled herself against it.
“What? Who?” Susan asked, dying to know who Chevaine’s man was.
“That’s not important. It’s just that I may never fall in love again. This feels right but we can’t be together and it hurts more than ever, Susan.”
“Have you told him how you feel?” Susan asked in her gently voice.
“Not really, but I think he knows,” Chevaine’s voice sounded a bit thin. “My mom doesn’t like him for me and she is making it clear we can’t get married.”
“Chevaine, you are an adult. Your mom can’t decide who you should and shouldn’t marry. That’s your choice.” Susan was right, but if she went ahead and married John there would be too much tension in the community because she knew some people would take her mother’s side.
This wasn’t just about her. The entire community’s unity and cooperation was at stake. Going against the will of her mother would bring tension in the family which would ultimately filter into the church. She could not live with a divided congregation. Plus, people would think John a bad leader for marrying her against her mother’s will.
“I know, but in this case I can’t.” Chevaine changed the subject back to the wedding and Susan felt really bad for her. She could see the hurt in Chevaine’s eyes. She wished there was something she could do to help her.
“So what you going to do?” Susan asked.
“I don’t know yet, I’m thinking of going back to school.”
They decided to go along with the traditional country wedding food of curry goat, mannish water and a second meat of jerk chicken. They would get one of Robert’s friends who was a chef to come and prepare the meal. The last time there was a wedding in Cotton Tree and the couple asked a few people from the district to cook, quite a few others were upset that they should have been the ones doing the cooking. Susan thought that to avoid the same thing happening she should not ask anyone from Cotton Tree to cook.
John had a few things lined up in his diary. First was the wedding in November, then there were the Christmas celebrations, his first Christmas in Jamaica. They also had arranged it to have a baptism in January so that the church register could be officially organized. Susan’s baby was due in February, so he had the christening scheduled for then.
His plans would have to work around that time, so he went about his business of running the church as usual, waiting for the right moment. Chevaine, along with his home church in Canada, had made it so he could obtain his license to conduct marriages and christenings on the island where he was the officiating pastor.
John also made a decision to appoint some deacons to the church as well. That would be done after the baptism. He decided that he needed to put his own feelings aside and do the best job he could for the sake of himself and the community.
Before they knew it, the wedding was upon them and it was time for Susan to walk down the aisle. Robert would be wearing a beige suit he had a tailor make for the occasion and his nephew would be the ringer bearer. Everything was going great.
The only thing amiss was the dull silence in the church office. There was a slight tension but nothing impossible. The pastor decided to make sure he was too busy as a way to keep from losing his mind. Chevaine was a bit withdrawn from her firs
t broken heart.
She thought about taking Susan’s advice and marrying John anyway. She would just have to convince the church and her mother that they were meant to be together. It was a serious contemplation on her part but the execution was the trouble. She had no idea where to start or what to do. She thought that after Susan’s wedding she would worry about it.
Susan came to check up on her every day. Sometimes they would take a walk up to her ackee tree where they would have some lunch and talk. Susan didn’t have many friends and she thought that Chevaine could use a friend right now. She was also grateful for all Chevaine was doing free of cost, since it was saving them a bundle of cash in the process.
Both the ceremony and reception were to be held at Susan’s house, left to her by her grandmother. It was not a very large house but the yard, like so many other Jamaican yards, was huge. There was a large grassy area outside and, given the weather, would make for a great area for tables and chairs. To be safe, a very wide tent was erected just in case the weather became foul again.
There had been two weeks of rain in early November but by the time the twenty second day came around it was very fair. The food smelled delicious and children were very happy. The whole community turned out to witness one of their daughters marry a city boy. Deep rural weddings were like that. A wedding was announced and everyone would show up, no fancy invitations required.
The living room was turned into a little church where the bride and groom would repeat their vows. It already overflowed with people trying to cram inside. Pastor McCrary took his place near the window where a small table was set up as a podium. The groom was already there and the bride was with Chevaine. The thought of her helping to prepare someone else’s wedding made his heart skip a beat.
Shortly after, Susan appeared in her white maternity dress. The dress was almost ankle length and made of light silk. She wore crown of white flowers on her head and a roughly put together bouquet drooped in her hand. You could hear the approval of the crowd and Susan smiled. Chevaine discretely slipped out the back door. She knew John was a bit uncomfortable around her at the moment and she didn’t want him to feel more so, especially since this could have been their wedding, had she only said yes.