Here Comes the Sun

by Nicole Dennis-Benn

  “What yuh saying, Margot?”

  “I neva thought of myself as di devil,” she says.

  Thandi gets up from between her sister’s legs, and stands in the dark.

  Margot looks up at Thandi from where she sits, the red dress she wears between her legs. “I mean, I was a child. What did I know? Maybe I thought it was something special because I was shown love an’ affection that I never got from my own mother.” Margot shrugs. “Delores made sure I came to my senses.”

  “How did she do that?” Thandi asks, the questions swirling inside her head. She makes out Margot’s face in the light from the flames and the kerosene lamp next to her.

  Margot shrugs, avoiding Thandi’s eyes. “She put me in situations where I . . .” Margot’s voice trails off as though the words are stuck in her throat. “I met new people—men—who offered me a lot more. Delores introduced me an’ they liked me.”

  “But you were—”

  “Young. The cure. That’s what Delores said. Di first one was a man who gave her six hundred dollars an’ in return she gave me to him. It only made me sicker. But dis sickness was different than the first—the first had to do wid losing someone I cared for and who cared for me. The second had to do wid losing myself. But it worked. Because I couldn’t hurt no more. I could no longer feel. It’s been easier that way.”

  Thandi stares at her sister in confusion, Margot’s eyes rimed with the charcoal, her blood red lips, the red dress, the overnight bag she packs that sits nearby. “Ah don’t get it,” Thandi says, shaking her head. “All of dis is not making any sense.”

  “The only person I ever loved was you, Thandi. You asked for nothing, so I gave you everything. An’ I work hard suh dat Delores neva feel she can use you di way she used me.”

  “Clover hurt me and you weren’t there to protect me.” Thandi blurts this out to Margot. “All Charles was doing was protecting me. He doesn’t deserve to be punished for it.”

  Margot drops the comb that she has been holding all this time.

  “When?”

  “In primary school.”

  Margot mutters something under her breath. She doesn’t say anything else for a while. Thandi is looking at her sister, who is clutching both hands so tight that the bones of her knuckles are visible against the skin, even in the dim lighting. She just squats there. Her eyes, from what Thandi sees in the light of the crackling flames, are still like glass.

  Margot awaits Delores’s return in the stillness of the dark veranda. Thandi and Grandma Merle are asleep inside; and the whole place is quiet except for the songs of the crickets that are hidden in the bushes and Pregnant Heidi thrashing about under the full moon. Flashlights blink in the dark like the illuminated bodies of peenie wallies as the search for Charles continues. When the gate opens and closes and Delores’s form appears in the doorway, Margot stands. The wooden chair creaks, relieved of her weight.

  “Who dat?” Delores asks. Margot imagines her mother squinting in the direction of the sound. She walks slowly toward Delores like a bride approaching a groom, the dark veil lifting halfway up her face.

  “Why yuh sitting in dark like dat?” Delores asks when she sees Margot. “Is me yuh waiting for?” Her perplexed face peers at Margot, who offers no answer.

  “You know what he did?” Margot asks. A vein throbs fiercely at the base of her neck.

  “Who?” Delores says.

  “Clover,” Margot hisses, bitterness rising from her gut, coating her tongue.

  At the utterance of the dead man’s name, the crease disappears from Delores’s face and she remains motionless in the moonlight. Margot steps closer and Delores steps back in panic, as though Margot is everything she has ever feared. As though she were death itself, here to claim her too. “Why yuh questioning me about di dead?” Delores whispers.

  “Answer me!”

  “You is nevah around.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Margot demands.

  “What was I supposed to do? Go up to dat palace dat yuh work at an’ announce it? She jus’ tell me ’bout it last week.”

  “Yuh could have told me!” A choked scream comes from Margot’s throat. The sounds of the crickets and Pregnant Heidi’s scream grow louder.

  “An’ what would you have done about it, eh?” Delores asks. Margot’s grip tightens on the overnight bag over her shoulder. For once her mother is right. What could she have done? All her life Margot thought she could shield her sister, protect her; but Clover has proven to her at last the futility of her effort. Margot whispers, more to herself than to Delores, “We let him in our house.”

  Delores’s hands drop, and with them the defense she usually puts up when she’s around Margot. “People g’wan disappoint in life. Is jus’ so it guh.” She gives Margot an apologetic look, but Margot is wary; she sees a dark satisfaction under its mute plea for forgiveness. “At di end ah di day, dis is we life. Look around yuh, gyal. Look where yuh is. Dis piece ah ground worth more than we. Yuh see dis air we breathing? Is debt we owing.”

  The air is stale, the dust-yellow lights piercing the night, looking for Charles, as clear as the moon that follows men with machetes all over town. Pregnant Heidi’s screams rush in to fill the silence on the veranda of the shack, impurities of the past dredging from the bottom. Standing before her mother in the glare of the moonlight, Margot refuses to hum the same tune of grief. She begins to walk down the steps when her mother stops her. “Yuh sistah is a smart girl,” she says. “Ah tell har to do di right t’ing an’ turn in dat boy fah di money. Ten thousand dollars is a whole lotta sorry.”

  Giving Delores a final bitter glance, Margot leaves.

  34

  MARGOT TAKES A SHORTCUT TO VERDENE’S HOUSE. THOUGH she’s aware of the danger in going to Verdene’s during the active search for Charles, she needs to clear her head. Put things back into perspective. She cuts across Miss Gracie’s yard, perhaps trampling the already dead cayenne peppers as she makes her way to the back of the pink house. She lets herself inside through the back door, careful not to make the bolt on the grille squeak when she lifts it. The house is quiet as usual, but from the orange glow inside the bedroom, Margot can tell that Verdene is still awake. She slips out of her shoes and drops her bag on the floor. She heads to the bedroom and pushes the door open. Verdene is sitting up in bed with her reading glasses, sheets of paperwork scattered around her. She’s sexy this way. Margot bends and kisses Verdene deeply. “I’m home,” she whispers. She steps away and unzips her dress, letting it fall.

  Verdene takes off her glasses and places them carefully on the nightstand. As Margot searches for a nightshirt in the dresser, she pauses and puts her head back, inhaling the patchouli incense Verdene lights to keep the mosquitoes away. Margot wasn’t prepared for what Thandi had told her, but all that is in the past. Soon she will celebrate Thandi’s future and move them from this godforsaken place. And from Delores. She and Verdene haven’t made love in a week with all the late-night shifts managing the girls. Plus Verdene is selling the house, and the paperwork has been keeping Verdene occupied. Margot doesn’t know what’s taking her so long, and quite frankly, it’s making her a little nervous. Maybe this is her fault, since she discouraged Verdene from hiring a lawyer. All Verdene has to do is sign the contract, which was drafted by a subsidiary group under the Wellington Estate. Alphonso did not want his or Wellington name on the contract, and Verdene is the last property owner in River Bank who has not signed yet.

  “Come here.” Verdene gets up off the bed to pull Margot close. She lowers herself just a little and puts her head under Margot’s chin, slipping her arms around Margot’s waist.

  Margot cups her face. “We’re about to build this new life together, might as well we celebrate that.” Verdene nods in agreement and kisses Margot on the chin, then on the lips.

  “Wait till you see the design of the sunroom,” Margot says, thinking of the sketch of the dream villa in Lagoons that the architect showed her at the office today.
She was finally able to put down money for it with her raise. “Everything will be made of glass.”

  “I’m excited,” Verdene replies. “But first things first. I still have a couple pages to read.” She steps away slightly and assumes a mannerism Margot imagines she adopted from her days as an editor. She has never seen the business side of Verdene. Had not counted on it to interfere with the progress of the new development. “I have to read every word carefully before I sign on the dotted line. I don’t trust these—”

  Margot puts her finger on Verdene’s lips. She slips her right hand down Verdene’s pajama pants, for she would not be able to tolerate another excuse. Not tonight. It seems as though Verdene, despite her resistance, cannot wait either, because they collapse onto the pile of papers beneath them, some of which sail off the bed, loose and free.

  35

  MORNING CARRIES THE SOUND OF A ROOSTER AND THE BIRDS and, if you listen closely, the waves in the sea too. Morning also carries with it the residues of a sleepless night. Margot had left with her overnight bag slung over her shoulder after awkwardly kissing Thandi on the forehead. At breakfast Thandi plays around with her food, using her spoon to stir her cornmeal porridge. Delores watches her from across the table. She’s waiting on Maxi to take her to the market. Margot hasn’t returned.

  “Ah wondah where yuh sistah could be,” Delores says. Thandi doesn’t respond. She can’t. Neither can she look at her mother. “Ah tell yuh ’bout dat Margot. She see dat yuh sick an’ can’t even tek time fi stay wid yuh. She know me haffi go work. Unlike she, ah can’t get no time off.” Delores fidgets with the two bags of eucalyptus leaves on the kitchen table that she got last night. She gets up to put them on the kitchen counter, then walks over to feel Thandi’s neck to see if she has a fever. Thandi flinches. “Is wha do yuh?” Delores asks.

  “You sold Margot,” Thandi blurts this out, unable to keep it in any longer. She still cannot look at her mother.

  “Is dat what she tell yuh?” Delores asks.

  “How could you do such a thing, Mama?” Thandi turns to face Delores.

  “Watch how yuh talk to me. Me is yuh mother.”

  “She was young.”

  “An’ sick.” Delores lowers herself into a chair. “Yuh sistah was sick. Possessed. Did she tell yuh ’bout dat? Ah bet she neva mention dat. Ask har ’bout Verdene Moore. She was di cause ah har sickness. Dat Verdene did something to dat chile. Put di devil in har. Mek she tell ’bout dat.”

  So it’s true after all. All of it. And Verdene Moore is a part of this? Margot never mentioned the girl’s name. Thandi pushes her bowl away. It repulses her to look at it. She fed out of Delores’s hands, licking the lifelines in her dirtied palms. Thandi breathes calmly, hoping that this will appease her unsettled stomach.

  “Yuh sistah did need straightening out. She did need fixing. So I fix har.”

  “But why?” Thandi hears her voice come out small, like a baby chicken hatching out of an egg.

  “Me was sixteen years old when ah had Margot. I was a young girl who neva know me lef’ foot from me right. Margot father was a man who all di children in di community used to call Uncle. Him took special interest in me. Maybe because me was fat. I was big for a young girl an’ him did like dat. When me get pregnant, my mother ask me is who’fa pickney. I tell her dat di pickney belongs to Uncle. She get so mad dat she beat me terrible. Everyt’ing aftah dat hurt. Margot come, an’ jus’ di sight of har hurt. Then yuh father came along. A good-looking coolie man wid hair down to him shoulders. Him did come to visit him cousin who was living in River Bank at di time. Nice, nice man. Me an’ him was together for a couple months. An’ two months lata ah was pregnant. When him found out about it, him neva like it. I neva like how him look at Margot either. She was fifteen at di time. Is she him did want. Ah couldn’t do nuttin’ ’bout dat. Him was helping me a likkle wid money. But it wasn’t much. As long as him could have Margot. One day ah come home an’ see yuh father gone. All him t’ings dem pack up an’ gone. Ah ask Margot where him gone an’ she tell me dat she refuse him, an’ him neva like dat. So him disappear. Raising two children on yuh own is not easy. Yuh hear wha’ me tellin’ you? Not easy a’tall, a’tall.”

  Thandi wraps her arms around herself, because suddenly she is cold. She thinks of the man with the oblong face—the beautiful man she imagines as her father. He never wanted her. He wanted her sister. “It was him putting food in di cupboard dem,” Delores says. “Margot already did owe me fah everyt’ing ah went through wid har. Di least she could do was—”

  There’s a knock on the door. Delores moves to open it. A man dressed in a white shirt and black pants greets her when she goes out on the veranda where Grandma Merle sits. Thandi can see his silhouette through the curtain. She can also see the silhouettes of the other men that accompany him. They hold narrow cylindrical tubes across their shoulders. As the main man talks, the other men survey the yard and the field where Mr. Melon ties his goat. The main man is American. Thandi can tell. “Good day, miss. We’re giving these out to all the residents who don’t own property here, but are renting. We’ve gotten the green light from the property owners.” He hands Delores a letter, then leaves. The other men go with him to the next shack.

  Delores hands the letter to Thandi for her to read it out loud. Thandi looks at the piece of paper before taking it.

  Dear Resident,

  We are officially informing you of the development of a brand-new hotel resort on this property and hope that you will cooperate with us. We kindly ask that you vacate your premises by August 1st. The owner of this property, Mr. Donovan Sterling, has sold us the right to build our hotel resort here. Failure to vacate by the requested date will result in forceful evacuation. Thank you for your cooperation.

  “But Jesus, lawd ’ave mercy, Missah Sterlin’ sell we out. Weh we aggo go?” Delores snatches the letter from Thandi and reads it herself, her eyes moving swiftly over the page. When she finishes, she blindly searches for a chair to sit down on and stares at the ceiling. Delores then lowers her head and looks at Thandi. “Is dis is punishment fah what I did? I’m not a bad mother,” she says, mostly to herself.

  36

  EVERY DAY THANDI FEELS THE FUTURE SLIPPING AWAY FROM her. Having light skin and going to medical school seem distant dreams, and even the results of her exams promise little in the way of hope. Her family is falling apart. She needs Charles. He is the one person who won’t fail her. She packs a few things in her bookbag—clothes, her sketchpad, Charles’s towel. It’s barely dawn, before the rooster crows. Delores and Grandma Merle are asleep. Margot is still gone. Thandi slips out the front door of the shack. She walks briskly down the path that leads farther away from the hill. She walks in the opposite direction of the women who saunter to the river with pails on their heads—women who march together to the river that is miles from where they live, only to see that it’s blocked off by cement and working tools. They return to their towns, each one with her neck held straight to balance her pail and what appears to be the weight of the world on her head.

  The sun is peering above the hill, just the cap of its head rising. The sky is a clear violet blue sprinkled with leftover stars and half of a moon. Thandi quickens her pace. She has to get across the Y-shaped river to where Charles’s mother lives. She might be lucky enough to get Miss Violet to tell her where Jullette lives. She opens the gate despite the yellow tape. Mary and Joseph are no longer in the pen. Someone must have taken them to sell. Or killed them. The four dogs roam the yard, their bones more visible, protruding through their skin like ridges of broken sticks. They follow Thandi, sniffing up her skirt. “Shoo! Shoo!” She waves them off. She bypasses Charles’s zinc shed and goes directly to the main shack, where she knocks. There’s no answer. No sound. The familiar foul smell hits Thandi when she pushes the door open. This time there are no cooing sounds to guide her as she makes her way farther inside, feeling around in the dark shack. She pauses when she gets to the upholstery curtain that s
hields off the bedroom. Thandi pushes it aside, looking for the woman lumped on the bed. But when she parts the curtain there is no sign of Miss Violet. Just the soiled rumpled sheets. She has already left.

  Thandi backs away, nearly stumbling this time over a footstool. She goes next door to Miss Ruby’s shack. Before she knocks, she sees an eviction note posted on the door. By the faded look of the paper, it seems to have been there for weeks. Thandi bangs on the door, her heart somersaulting in her chest. Her dream of finding Charles seems further away with Miss Violet gone. Miss Ruby might know something. When Miss Ruby opens the door, Thandi is surprised to see the woman’s face. It appears bruised all over with purple blemishes on her cheeks. Gone is the clear salmon-colored hue she bragged about just months before. Presently she appears to have aged, her skin paper-thin, wrinkled, and blotchy like a days-old navel orange. When Miss Ruby sees Thandi staring, she fumbles with her housedress, bringing the collar up to her mouth. “What is it yuh want so early in di mawnin’?” Miss Ruby asks.