No Safeguards (4 page)

“For a full thirty seconds your mother sneered at me, then folded her arms across her breasts and burst into song:

The Lord's my shepherd.

I'll not want.

He makes me down to lie

In pastures green. he leadeth me

The quiet waters by.

“Still singing, your mother went into the house and began to pack. ‘You bring pickney into this world; you don't bring their mind,' I shouted to her.

“She sang her reply:

My father is rich in houses and lands.

He holdeth the wealth of the world in his hands.

Of rubies and diamonds, of silver and gold,

His coffers are full; he has riches untold.

“‘Can I borrow a suitcase?'

“I didn't answer. I still didn't believe she was serious. I put the comb next to the hairbrush and the jar of Vaseline on the patio table beside me, and if I hadn't been sitting I would have fainted. I remember that Mr. Morris came to the foot of the porch steps then. ‘Look like you're having family problems, Sis,' he said.

“‘You're a lucky man, Bertie. A lucky man, you hear me. You don't have any child to make you wet your pillow of a night.' Jay, the tears came then.

“‘Go easy with Anna, Sis. We the older heads know the cliff. We mustn't let the young ones run carelessly and fall over it.' He went back inside his own gate and into his house.

“If your mother ever thought she was spirit, she found out soon enough that she had a body too. God fed the sparrows and clothed the lilies and dropped manna for the Israelites in the wilderness, but no such remedies awaited your mother. She moved in with Mopsy, a string-like, malnourished woman, with pop-out, iguana-like eyes — a deaconess, if you please, in the Church-of-the-Elect. She was one of a handful of field-hands who still squatted in the mud huts on Laird's plantation. Jay, imagine: your mother, who had a bathroom to herself in my house, was now bathing in the river with passers-by looking on. Fully clothed at least. Her church doctrine required it. And she began to shrink. Those workers didn't earn enough to afford proper meals.

“I gather that at the end of the first month, Mopsy said to her: ‘If you going to stay here with me, you is going to have to come help me with my weeding.'

“Already inclined to be thin — even though big-boned — over that month, your mother lost 12 pounds. Mercy became alarmed when she ran into her three days after the discussion with Mopsy. Mopsy and Anna were returning from working on Laird's estate, their hoes slung over their shoulders. Mercy confronted Anna: ‘Wind will blow you away. And what that hoe doing on your shoulder?' That same evening I sent Mercy in Pembroke's car to Mopsy's house, to pack Anna's things and bring her back to my house.

“A few months later Pembroke offered to sell me his store. I sold some of the shares your grandfather left me and ten of the twenty acres of land, and bought Pembroke's store and the building that housed it.” (When I went to live in Havre, Pembroke was the overseer at The Laird Plantation and lived in the overseer's house. He was the oldest of around 20 children the proprietor, old man Laird, had fathered with the house servants and field-hands. Grama and Pembroke were friends. She, he, and Mr. Morris often chatted on the front porch late into the night. At 86, he came to Grama's funeral hale as ever and stood at the graveside without needing a cane.)

Grama continued: “Anna and I ran the store. For the next five years, your mother and I never had a quarrel, until she announced that she was going to marry your father, her senior by ten years. The missionaries were going to install him in the church and manse they'd built in Georgetown. It was where they'd had their greatest success. Georgetown folks needed those things they were bribing people with. The sugar factory had closed, and almost everyone out there was out of work.

“I told your mother she would regret it. That I wouldn't be surprised if religion had already twisted up the man she wanted to marry. And was I ever right. We were standing in the dining room. I held her arm and led her to the two-seater, and sat beside her. It was a Sunday, around 3 pm. She hadn't too long come in from church.

“I took your mother's hand in mine. ‘Child, where did I go wrong raising you? It's clear in my head, clear as this bright, sunny Sunday afternoon, that I took a wrong turn somewhere.' Your mother did not answer me.

“‘And hear me out on this: when Caleb Jackson finds the Christian cross too heavy — and he will — you know who will have to drag it?
You
. And don't you tell me “the Lord's will be done,” because you don't know a damn thing about man's will, so forget about the Lord's. And please don't quote me any scripture. Six years ago, you left my house, and I got frightened that you would finish on some trash heap, so I sent Mercy to bring you back home. I don't think you ever had sex, and I know it's that more than anything else that's itching you. I was young myself. You're thinking that it's something everybody is getting except you.' Jay, I begged her to not have any children right away. ‘Wait till you get to know Caleb before you conceive. Find out first if you can count on him. It's easy to leave when you don't have children. There's no load to carry; nothing to hold you back. Even when the man looks trustworthy, it's not a good idea to have more than one child, because men, after they've stripped the bloom off us — after they've turned lovely Rosy into Rosehips and pumped her soul-case dry, they drop her for firm, fresh flesh. You all fundamentalists don't believe in birth control. I'm begging you, Anna — don't let that man turn you into a brood sow and praise God for it. Rapture!'” — Grama sucked her teeth, paused and turned her head away briefly. “‘You love to say that Christ's yoke easy; you better not let Caleb put bit in your mouth and saddle your back.'”

“‘Mama, you're snarling.'

“‘I am! Don't worry about
my
claws. Start sharpening yours.'”

Grama stared out at the dusk now covering the Caribbean Sea, and was silent for about ten seconds. “Maybe you're too young to be hearing all of this. But I'm telling you just the same. Everything has a cost. Most times it's hidden. Soon you and Paul will be in Canada, away from me.” She paused. “I'm worried. I don't want you and Paul to go there and throw away your lives.” She brushed a gnat from her face.

“Back to your mother. Jay, let's face it. I knew I had one daughter; sometimes I wish I had a son too.” She took a loud breath. “I married your mother in style. She was marrying a pauper. I swallowed my pride and put out the outlays for the wedding, bought furniture for the empty manse, and gave her half of all the linen, dishes, pots, and pans I had.

“I'd thought your father received a stipend from the missionaries, so I was shocked when, unannounced, I visited your mother eight months later, already pregnant with you, and found nothing worth eating in the house. In Georgetown, I knew everyone over 30. I ferreted out your parents' business. The weekly collection was dimes and quarters. Never added up to more than a few dollars. Could barely cover the electricity bill. And no stipend from the States. Nothing. Your father was following some sort of course at home, which he had to pass, and only after that would he get a stipend. I sometimes met him with the papers spread out on his desk and a pencil behind his ear. ‘Mr. Jackson,' I told him — I had vowed never to get on familiar terms with him — ‘You haven't the means to support children.' To Anna, I said: ‘Child, if you continue to starve like this, your baby will have congenital defects.' I went out and bought her vitamins and protein supplements, and I met her in town every Saturday to put $40 in her hand — ‘Not for you,' I insisted. ‘You don't deserve it. For my unborn grandchild.' And, Jay, when you came due and she had to be hospitalized, and Caleb put her in the pauper's ward, I was livid. I had her transferred to a private ward forthwith. ‘Not for you,' I told her: ‘You're too hard-headed. For the sake of my grandchild.' And I paid the hospital bill.

“After your birth, I found out they'd christened you Jacob Habakkuk Zephaniah. I begged them to shorten it to Jay. Then I looked Caleb straight in the eyes and said: ‘You're a father now. You need a job. God feeding the sparrows, but he's not feeding you and your family. I am. Now if you expect prayer to feed you, you better start getting results, because, beginning today, I stop.' It was then that your father took advantage of the building boom created by those people who'd gone to England in droves decades before and were returning home to retire. The stones he collected never covered all the household expenses, but I saw he was making an effort so I didn't cut off my assistance; I only halved it.

“I warned Anna again: ‘One child! One!' I grabbed her by the shoulders, right here, on this back porch where we are now, and shook her. So five years later, when she became pregnant again, I said: ‘Child, this time, you're on your own.'

“Jay, I was raised mostly by my mother's mother. A broomstick of a woman. Wise and with more love in her than water in this sea.” She swallowed. I heard the catch in her throat. “My unmarried mother was 17 when she had me. We were
not
a beating family. I don't beat. As you know, I can be stern and I do more helling and damning than I should — and nobody has to tell me I'm bossy — but hitting” — she shook her head — “out of the question. I told the wretch I married after the death of your grandfather: ‘If you ever hit Anna, this marriage is over, and don't you ever yell at her.' One good thing I can say about your granddad Kirton is that he adored Anna. As a baby the moment Anna started wailing, he would rush to comfort her, change her diapers, wash and powder her. I never heard him say an angry thing to her, and he knew children should be hugged and encouraged to use their imagination. So, imagine the rage I was in when Anna told me Caleb often strapped you. Jay, I hope your mother forgave me for the cussing I gave her that day. ‘Why didn't you grab Jay and leave?' I asked her. I told her, come hell or high water, I was going to rescue you. I would ask her in private: ‘Is Caleb still hitting Jay?' And she would lower her eyes and say no. The day she showed up here dizzy and said she was leaving Caleb, she confessed that she'd lied to me, that the beatings were still happening.

“Let's go back to the beginning. I visited, to see you and Paul — for anger or not, blood is thicker than water — and I swore to my God, who, as you know, dwells nowhere else but in my own bosom, that there wouldn't be a third child. ‘Your wife is tired,' I told your father. ‘I would like to give her a short holiday. I don't think the Rapture will happen while she's gone, and if it does you two will meet in heaven.'

“I told Anna: ‘I am taking you to Barbados to have your tubes tied.'

“Your mother replied: ‘Caleb will divorce me if he finds out. He wants seven children. He already has names for the three daughters he wants: Hope, Faith, and Charity.'”

I chuckled, remembering my father's sermons on charity.

“Jay, I gave her such a stare, she lowered her head.

“‘You can't blame him, Mama. He was lonely; he was an only child. Caleb was still in the womb when his father left for Panama. No one ever heard from him. His mother died from TB when he was seven. His aunt and her husband, who raised him, drowned in a fishing-boat accident when he was 15. You can't blame him for wanting a big family. Mama, I want daughters too. They care about family. Boys care only about their penises.'

“Jay, we were silent for at least a minute, then your mother said: ‘Mama, I can't disobey Caleb.' Her fundamentalist foolishness.

“‘You wear an IUD without his permission.'

“‘That's different.'

“‘So how he plans to feed these seven children?'

“Your mother did not answer. ‘God will provide. Right?'” Grama said nothing for a while. “There's more to this story. You all can read it in my diary after my death . . . Two weeks later your mother and I were off to Barbados.”

In 2004, right after her death, I read what she'd edited out of the conversation:

Imagine I deprived myself of an education to raise a fool! ‘Mama, I want children.
Before Paul came, I was unhappy and depressed. I felt hollow and empty — like bamboo. Mama, I was born to have children, lots of children. No ifs and buts about it. I am never so happy as when I'm nursing a baby.'

I told that fool: ‘Have all the children you want, but before you do, let your husband know he'll have to break stones at night too, or become one of those preachers that can get their congregation to hand over all their wealth, because, darling, I won't feed them. In the meantime if you change your mind, let me know.' Maybe I should have had another child. Then again both might have turned out to be fools.

When Kirton proposed marriage I had already signed up for extramural classes to complete my secondary education. Abandoned that and married him, and spent my youth raising a child who turned out to be a fool.

The first and last sentence bothered me. I removed that notebook from the rest of Grama's journals so Anna would never have to read this entry. Now I doubt I'd ever let Paul see it. Paul too thinks that Anna is a fool. Probably heard Grama say so during the long periods he spent with her in the store. Are there parents whose children don't in some way disappoint them? Paul turned Anna's life into unrelenting pain. I too have disappointed her. If I could, I would have chosen not to.

***

“I think I know the rest of the story,” I told Grama that evening nine years ago.

By then the porch light had come on, the sea looked like liquid lead, and the fireflies twinkled around us.

Anna was gone for two weeks. Sister Simmons brought breakfast and supper for Daddy and me. At lunch I went from school straight to her house.