HOMECOMING

It had taken many decades for Mrs. Burnet Adlam to return to the district of Chatam. In the '30s, when she left at age sixteen to move to Kingston with her mother, she never wanted to return. Even at the insistence of her mother, Ms. Clarabella, when Mrs. Burnet's grandmother died, she refused to attend the funeral to see her beloved sent off to her final resting place. The years spent in Kingston had hardened Mrs. Burnet. She felt a certain aura of accomplishment in her marriage to Mr. Dennis Adlam, one of the few black “Headmen” for the Shipping Association of Jamaica. Their union resulted in her giving birth to two obedient, good-looking daughters. She didn't love her husband, though. She married him for convenience's sake. Sometimes, women can’t find it in themselves to love men for many reasons, but they can still cherish them without knowing why. Mrs. Burnet struggled with these feelings towards her husband, Mr. Dennis, and they were the primary reason she stayed with him.

Now and then, when Mrs. Burnet's mind was unoccupied from the tedium of their marriage, she would mentally escape to her tiny village. She hadn't returned in twenty-five years until her teenage daughters insisted on traveling to Chatam by themselves.

“We know nothing of our relatives in Chatam because of you. Don't you think it's about time we saw it for ourselves?” asked her eldest child, Barbara.

Nora, the Adlams’ second daughter, was naturally confrontational, with a touch of inquisitiveness. For many years, she'd heard her grandmother, Ms. Clarabella, speak with affection about her mother, Granny Armstrong. She was curious to learn more about her, but never had the chance to meet her. Mrs. Burnet just wouldn't return.

“The journey back to Chatam is so long. The bus is bumpy, and I always complain about the nausea,” Mrs. Burnet would tell her girls.

“You know nothing about your family members, only that you have a younger sister named Winsome, who lived with you and 'Granny Armstrong,'” said Nora.

“Just let Grandma take us,” Barbara, her eldest daughter, insisted.

Eventually, Mrs. Burnet came around to the idea of having the girls visit Chatam with Ms. Clarabella. By the time she agreed to her daughters' demands, Ms. Clarabella, their grandmother, who was supposed to take them, had developed health problems that prevented her from making the journey. The atmosphere in the home remained very tense, with the girls trying to forget about meeting their only aunt.

At this point in time, in the mid-1950s, Mrs. Burnet received a letter from Ms. Zetilda, her sister's neighbor, informing her that her sister had fallen quite ill. The news pressured her to finally return to Chatam.

“I don't know what to say to Zetilda! I haven't seen her in years. How can I explain my long absence from Chatam?” Mrs. Burnet mentioned to her mother, who was now wheelchair-bound.

“Your sister would ask me about you all the time. She so wished for you to return. You didn't, but her heart ached for you anyway,” Ms. Clarabella told her daughter. “This might be the last time you ever see her. I know that she's been sick for a while. I mentioned it to you, but you chose not to hear me.”

“I'm sorry. I really didn't hear you. I never pretend to,” she replied.

Ms. Clarabella was used to her daughter’s forgetfulness. It was as if Mrs. Burnet wanted to leave behind a bad memory that she couldn't reconcile. Her mother could explain it no further, so she ignored it time and time again until it began to tug at the fiber of her being.

“Why yuh nuh want fi talk about it?” she'd snap at her daughter.

“You're seeing things again, Ma. I don't even know where you get these ideas from,” Mrs. Burnet would reply.

The tension was real in her daughter's head; it was not imagined. Ms. Clarabella knew that there was something not right about her when she left Chatam at age sixteen. She remembered vividly that it was an August night when Mrs. Burnet left, at her mother, Granny Armstrong's, insistence. She’d had enough of the teenager’s insolent and rebellious ways. The young Burnet had fits of anger and would throw pots and other cooking utensils at her grandmother. She developed a fear of eating oranges and resented all men who wore a full beard.

“Burnet, let me take you to church so that the preacher can pray for you,” Ms. Clarabella remembered telling her teenage daughter.

She could see the terror in Burnet's eyes before they rolled to the back of her head, showing only the white, followed by her collapsing to the floor. Ms. Clarabella just didn't know what to do with her.

“Something happened to the child when she was living in Chatam, and she chose to block it out,” Ms. Clarabella's neighbor, Nurse Bell, advised her. “Leave Burnet alone for a while and make no more suggestions that she stay in Chatam.”

That bit of advice proved to be the best given to Ms. Clarabella about her daughter's mental health. Burnet thrived after she drifted away from Chatam physically and mentally. She did well in school, kept friendships with productive girls, and blossomed into adulthood with a positive tune, without ever mentioning Chatam.

Ms. Clarabella remembered an incident that threatened her relationship with Burnet. Her daughter must have been eighteen years old when she met a gentleman of means named Mr. Aubrey Croach. He was a tall, well-polished, brown-skinned man with a full beard. He used to visit her on many occasions, wanting to marry her. She remembered that Mr. Crouch was a liquor salesman and that Burnet took a dislike to him for some unknown reason.

“Mr. Croach has asked me to marry him, and I've accepted his request. Life has been so hard for me after your dad walked out on us, leaving me to act as a mother and a father to you. It's been difficult taking care of you two girls all by myself. I need the extra income. A good male figure would make a positive headship for you and your sister,” she mentioned to Burnet.

Upon revealing her intention to marry Mr. Croach, Burnet clutched her chest and struggled to breathe. She crouched down, holding her belly, screaming out that it ached.

“He's not a good male figure, Ma! He's not a good man!” Burnet blurted in pain.

“Burnet, stop that now! Stop saying such things!”

“If you marry him, I'm going to run away from home. I won't be going back to Chatam. I might find myself working at a whorehouse on Duke Street. Mama, trust me. You have to let 'Mr. Roach,' go so that I can live!”

Like all responsible parents who loved their children, Ms. Clarabella pushed Mr. Croach aside for the sake of Burnet. Ms. Clarabella was still an attractive woman who worked Downtown as a private secretary to a Syrian businessman. After that episode, she kept her romantic pursuits private while her daughter lived with her. Neither woman ever mentioned the incident again.

So, when the time had come for Mrs. Burnet and her daughters to return to Chatam, after some twenty-five years of being absent, she swallowed some peppermint balls to suppress the queasiness in her stomach. She ensured that her girls were appropriately attired so that no gossipy neighbor could talk about them. Nora, who was taller and svelte, boyish and awkward, got away wearing coffee-colored corduroy pants and a royal blue T-shirt. But Barbara, who was the spitting image of Ms. Burnet in her teenage years, was forced to wear a puffy white, lace-trimmed dress, two sizes too small, with matching-colored ribbons, to prevent her voluptuous limbs from protruding.

“I don't want you to stand out among the crowd,” she told Barbara, as the three of them walked down the menacing avenues of Downtown Kingston. “Men are always out to get a pretty, young girl like you,” she told Barbara.

“Am I not pretty too?” Nora asked.

Mrs. Burnet ignored her.

“The Mayflower Country Bus that takes us exactly to Chatam will not wait for us. We have to be at Parade on time,” Mrs. Burnet mentioned to her girls.

And so, at precisely 7 AM, the Mayflower came to relieve them of their anticipation, bringing them to the district of Chatam. The world twirled in front of their eyes for hours as they watched the tall, canopied trees move at the speed of lightning. Mrs. Burnet, who had always liked to sit in the corner seat when taking the bus, rested her unreminiscent head on the side wall. After a while, she closed her eyes to shut out the monotony of the scenery as it flowed by, forming a cloud of dust and haze. To entertain themselves, Mrs. Burnet's daughters read books and stared out at the kaleidoscopic fusion of earthy rural life.

“What's that place called, Ma?” asked Nora.

Mrs. Burnet didn't answer. Barbara sat quietly in her seat, trying to breathe in the cossetted dress that constricted her figure, diminishing her vivacious personality with its size.

Around noon that Saturday, the Country Bus stopped at the port, where the blood-red sentiments of the flamboyant tree showed their arrogant head, signaling to Mrs. Burnet that they’d arrived in Chatam. The bus driver might have mentioned that the stop was his next destination, but Mrs. Burnet didn't hear him. Nora and Barbara abruptly stood up as the bus came to a full stop.

“Ma, we're here!” said Nora excitedly.

“Here? Where?” answered Mrs. Burnet in obvious confusion.

“In Chatam!” said Barbara, adjusting her ill-fitted brassiere.

All three women gathered their fiberboard grips[1] and held them sturdily in each hand. Chatam mysteriously awaited them like the goggle-eyed patoo[2] that howled in the wind. They arrived at the place of forgetful memories, a place of induced memories!

Mrs. Burnet hadn't forgotten her sentimental childhood, though she forced herself to remember it. It trailed her down the pathway into the yard, where she encountered the massive naseberry tree. It was there that Grandma Armstrong used to feed her hogs boiled yam peels in a trough near a mud puddle, where sows used to eat, then wallow. Mrs. Burnet's daughters realized that their mother was fixed in a moment of nostalgia and remained silent, enabling her to bask in its glory…. Or was it shame?

Mrs. Burnet could see the old cooking area carved from three huge red bricks, where Grandma Armstrong used to strike matches to light the fire. She could see the large dutchie[3] bubbling with homemade coconut oil. Strips of fatty bacon, cut from the dried pig's thigh that hung in a backdoor shed, sizzled over the fire. She could clearly see Grandma Armstrong dumping the bacon into the already heavy oil, then adding several newly laid eggs. Fat was her comfort, her means of escape. She could see herself at age eight, stooping down, drinking the thick hominy porridge from a huge, old, white enamel mug, and begging for more when she finished it. Grandma Armstrong would scoop some of her porridge into the little girl's mug. After she guzzled it down, the little girl rose, put her pointer finger into the dutchie, wiped it clean, and then licked her finger with a smile.

“Git goin', now! Ah don't want yuh mada fi tink mi nuh teach yuh nuh manners!”

The little girl laughed and ran away.

Suddenly, as she stood there reminiscing, the memory escaped her, and she found herself staring into space pensively, forgetting that her two daughters were just a few paces behind her.

“Ma, are you alright?” Barbara called out.

Mrs. Burnet shook her head and brought herself back into reality. She had arrived in Chatam. It was Ms. Zetilda who spotted them from a distance and waved to them.

“Burnet. Is it you? Is it really yuh, just standin' there like a ghost?”

“Yes,” was the only solid and direct word she could say when she turned to meet the face.

It was indeed her childhood friend, Zetilda, because she could see her small liver spot on her cheek. When she lifted her hand, she saw the same liver spot on the back of it.

“These are my two girls, Nora and Barbara,” introduced Mrs. Burnet.

She couldn't help but realize how Zetilda stared at Barbara as if she'd seen a ghost.

“She has your face,” Zetilda blurted out. “She's another you.”

Mrs. Burnet gripped Barbara tightly as panic overcame her.

“No,” she told Zeltida sternly. “She's her own person!”

“Yuh needn't get angry, for there was ah time when we were so close dat your grandmother used to say we were twins,” revealed Zetilda.

Mrs. Burnet laughed, sending a sprinkle of ease into the moment of tension.

“Yes, Ma. You two can pass for sisters,” said Nora.

They were both the same shade of brown— a mix of butterscotch and peach. Grandma Armstrong used to call their complexion 'sweet honey.' But in their youth, the girls were worlds apart in personality: Burnet was secretive, studious, and reflective, while Zetilda was boisterous and rough. She could fight a boy easily and win. Eventually, their teenage years mellowed them as they transformed into young ladies, making way for marital bliss.

In those days, the women groomed girls to become compliant wives, while the boys ran wild and free—free to do whatever they chose. Mrs. Burnet remembered those wild days before blossoming into adolescence. Just then, Zetilda pointed to the old wooden chattel house. It hid its bareness amid a burst of tropical flowers behind a small river of sweet running water. In Chatam, rustic elegance made up for the lack of money and luxury. People's lives ran supplely like the catch of the wind: the content was apparent, but you couldn't see it.

In the corner of her eye, Mrs. Burnet saw a busy bee floating towards her. Instantly, she fell into a panic, slapping her face so hard that it felt like the violent water dashing against the rocks.

“Let me go!” she shouted. “L-e-t m-e-e-e g-o-o-o-o-o!”

As her screams turned into quiet sobs, the girls rushed to her side. Zetilda hurried over to soothe her and instructed the girls to take their suitcases to the front of the house.

“Yuh go now an' let me attend to yuh mother!” she urged them imperatively.

After waiting patiently for her friend's nerves to settle, Ms. Zetilda gently took her by the hand and led Mrs. Burnet to the simple little house filled with memories she'd rather forget. It was a house inhabited by silence amid the tenebrous night— illuminated in the enigmatic sky. Melodies unseen and unheard by the human eye lingered in its dark space. Mrs. Burnet's sister, Winsome, had a book in her hand and sat on the old rocking chair in silence. A blanket was tossed across her stubborn legs that had stopped working all of a sudden. At first, she stared at the stranger, bewildered, eyes squinting, trying to jerk back the memory. It wasn't until her sister bent down and kissed her on the cheek and she caught the whiff of lavender, that Winsome recognized Mrs. Burnet.

“Burnet,” she said excitedly. “You never mentioned when you would come visit.” Winsome then turned her attention to Zetilda. “You kept it a secret. You didn't tell me that she was coming. You knew about it!”

A brief shock of silence filled the room until laughter and tears took over.

“I never thought you'd return. Grandma Armstrong called out your name before she died. I didn't know that I'd be seeing you again...”

There was no physical loveliness in the room, but the warmth of bittersweet memories remained its key focus. Winsome felt it was her duty to explain her recent medical issue.

“It's my brain. The doctors in Montego Bay told me it was a stroke,” she said apologetically.

“Please don't think about that now,” Mrs. Burnet said, consoling her.

“Did you bring your daughters?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Barbara and Nora will be sleeping in my spare room tonight. I want to give you both some time to catch up. You'll be seeing them the first thing tomorrow when I return to tidy you up,” confirmed Zetilda.

Both Ms. Clarabella and Winsome suffered from frail health and were left in the care of others. Mrs. Burnet was the only woman in the trio who hadn't succumbed to any physical ailments. It was as if the debilitating maladies were flown in on the wings of the night and perched themselves on a pillow by their bedsides, waiting to take them home. It was still a long wait, for the women went about their business as they did when they had the use of their viable limbs, holding on to life. Even after Grandma Armstrong became wheelchair-bound, she continued to live her life with zest. Ms. Clarabella, her daughter, also used a wheelchair. Even though she'd slowed down, she was no burden, and her daughter, Winsome, who was a lifelong reader, had escaped into a world of books for comfort. She traveled to every corner of the world through her books and recalled her adventures, which she talked about at night. Even though Mrs. Burnet admired the women in her life, she didn't want to face an illness that would take away her only means of walking the paths of her imagined journeys. She'd rather arrive there on foot.

Stooping down to kiss Winsome’s cheek, Mrs. Burnet explained to her sister that her luggage was in the yard and that she needed someone to fetch it.

“Never mind, mi will send Max, my son, to take them yuh. I'll give you catch-up time to spend with yuh sister while I hold on to the girls until tomorrow morning.”

“Thank you, Zetilda, you haven't changed a bit!” said Ms. Burnet.

The three women grew up together in Chatam, but later went their separate ways. Zetilda embarked on a path to midwifery, birthing babies and overseeing their care. She married a butcher named Brenton, who owned a shop that served the district's needs. Winsome stayed back to take care of Grandma Armstrong at her own volition, even though Ms. Clarabella sent for her.

Mrs. Burnet was another story. She experienced a lingering fear that no one understood. After her sixteenth birthday, she blossomed into a raving beauty and was the talk of the district. Grown men lecherously eyed her, and the silly boys ran behind her to carry her school books. The woman slowly became suspicious of everyone around her. She adopted a vigilant attitude: checking exits and entrances, closets and under the bed, watching her surroundings, making sure the coast was clear before advancing.

“Wat de matter wid yuh girl? Hav' yuh gone mad?” Grandma Armstrong would ask her.

The young Burnet would only hiss through her teeth and retire earlier than usual. Sometimes, when a group of men from the newly built tent-church up the hill would visit, making sure the occupants in the community were “spiritually clean,” Mrs. Burnet would become a mess! Their nonsensical chirps lingered in her ears, causing her to cover them long after they had gone. She hated the sound of those men!

She knew an East Indian boy named Akhat Babooram, who used to walk home from school with Burnet since third grade, always carrying her books. One day, at age sixteen, she ran home to Grandma Armstrong, making accusations that the teenager showed her his buddy.[4]

“I swear dat I'm goin' to kill dat coolie boy today!” exclaimed Grandma Armstrong.

Luckily, his soft-spoken, logical-thinking parents, Mrs. Radhika and Mr. Pranav Babooram, took their shattered son to Grandma Armstrong to explain the situation.

“Ah was jus' walkin' to 'ere home from school,” explained Akshat, pointing to his pelvis, “an' mi buddy just rise. She saw it and started to scream an' run away. Dis has happened many times before, but dis time she became fearful!”

All the grown-ups laughed and dismissed the event as some misunderstanding.

“She's growing up and should understand how the body works,” said Mrs. Radhika with gentleness and understanding.

“Thank you all for providing me with more explanation,” said Grandma Armstrong.

Akshat Babooram would later move to Kingston, where he opened up a business, selling textiles and importing and exporting local spices.

All the children with whom Mrs. Burnet grew up moved on to embrace their chosen paths, while she kept clinging to childhood memories that haunted her dreams, crippling her during the day.

The next day, when the children had settled down, Mrs. Burnet asked Zetilda to entertain them while she took Winsome, at her sister's behest, for a walk on a familiar path where they used to hide from Grandma Armstrong. Winsome sat in her homemade wheelchair, a device fashioned from a wicker chair, made by the dexterous hands of Mr. Clifton, a local furniture maker. It had both a footrest and a legrest for her comfort, a cushion for her rump, two huge bicycle wheels, and wooden handlebars to rest her elbows.

“This might be the last time we have to bring back our teenage memories,” Winsome told Mrs. Burnet.

Mrs. Burnet could see Winsome in a clear light. She hadn't aged much. Her fine brown skin, the exact shade of naseberry, had no visible wrinkles. Staring at her sister, Mrs. Burnet wondered why she hadn't found a sensible suitor to marry and then move away from Chatham. But then she remembered Grandma Armstrong mentioning that Winsome was not easily impressed and was attracted to no one.

“She's ah eunuch an' wi hav' several of dem ya types inna wi family history....” revealed Grandma Armstrong. “She happy, suh wi mus' leave 'ere alone an' nuh put nuh pressure on 'ere.”

Mrs. Burnet couldn't recall her sister, Winsome, ever having a crush on anyone while growing up.

“Let's take the trail up the Great House on the hill. I used to love sneaking around the backyard. The family didn't know I was there, hiding behind the cerasee[5] vines that grew on the huge elephant trunk tree.”

“So, that's where you used to escape to. Granny Armstrong and I used to call out your name, but you didn't come running, ” revealed Winsome.

The two sisters slowly followed the downtrodden paths of trampled vines and yellow-and-white Spanish needles. Coming through an entrance on the main road, in front of a huge cornfield, they turned right, then made their way to an old, abandoned well. Huge jackfruit and pawpaw trees displayed their mellow fruits.

“I'd like to stop here for a while and bask in the glory of Chatam. When I left, all this pastoral beauty didn't stay with me,” whispered Mrs. Burnet into her sister's ears.

The two women stopped. While Winsome sat in her wheelchair, Mrs. Burnet found herself resting on a huge stone, in front of a cluster of mother-in-law's tongue.[6]

“Winsome,” reminisced Mrs. Burnet. “Do you remember when I used to whip the plants upon the rocks until all the flesh was gone, leaving only the fiber?”

“Of course, I do,” said Winsome, with some unsteadiness in her voice.

“I would braid those fibers into long plaits and use them as a whip to chase you around the yard,” said Mrs. Burnet, giggling.

“I wish I could forget those times. My skin used to scratch so much. It was not fun at all,” revealed Winsome.

“I know, and I did it just to taunt you for being so wretched,” commented Mrs. Burnet. Both women laughed at the spiteful pranks they used to play on each other.

“Wheel me along the path where I loved to lie low to bask in my moment of escape,” suggested Winsome.

“Please guide me. I don't know where to find it,” said Mrs. Burnet.

“It's just up the lane, then you'll turn left after the abandoned well. I'll show it to you when we get there,” said Winsome.

And so, the two sisters trailed along the forgotten path. Their juvenile memories took hold of them, slowly releasing a farrago of suppressed ones. When they reached the well, Mrs. Burnet’s heart began beating rapidly. She complained to Winsome about feeling lethargic.

“I don't want to go any further. I am afraid and tired,” she said.

Winsome chose to ignore her because the fun-filled memories consumed her.

Just then, one of the proprietor's sons, Noel, came from the opposite direction and spotted the women fussing over whether to go up the hill.

“Never mind,” he said, “I'll take Winsome, and you could stay behind.”

Noel didn't even recognize that the other woman, Burnet, was his childhood playmate. He didn’t stop to make small talk when he wheeled Winsome up the pathway leading to the Great House. Mrs. Burnet didn't make him any wiser about the fact that she was the one who often caused him mischief. Instead, she remained silent, perturbed by the intrusion of the atmosphere that was suffocating her. She wanted to run away and hide, but her indolent legs wouldn’t move, insisting that she brave the moment of revelation.

I know this place, she whispered to herself.

Then it all came back to her: the restrained colors of the flowers in the dark, the aphrodisiac scents, and the ecclesiastical sounds. She felt as if her teenage body had exited the stiff, upper-bodied personage who stood downhill on the trodden path, walking slowly uphill. She could see the tent-church pitched a distance from the beehives and the orange tree. She hated having to pass the hives to reach the church, where Granny Armstrong insisted she attend. Winsome was sickly, so she wouldn't go.

“Yuh need extra-spiritual lessons fi mek yuh stronger,” her grandmother used to tell her.

She'd show up on Wednesday and Friday evenings to listen to Pastor Boon Sutton, the “tent-preacher,” and his wife, Caroline. They were Southerners from the Mississippi Delta area of America. He was a tall, thin, mustachioed man with a full red beard and moss-green eyes, while his wife, Caroline, was a small-framed, pretty, docile blonde who wore pinks and floral pastels to hide her degeneracy. The couple ran the Holiness Church of God Christians, a new faith that emphasized the "second work of grace" called “Entire Sanctification,” which meant living a life free from voluntary sin. The Southern preacher was loud, with an intoxicating drawl, and he always called her “Little Miss Missy.” At age sixteen, Burnet found this charming.

Burnet remembered that Pastor Sutton loved to see her dressed in white: white dress, white gloves, white stockings, white shoes.....

“And my good God, Little Miss Missy, do you wear white panties too?” he once asked. “That's sanctified by God, and no one should touch it but me.”

No one did touch it except Pastor Sutton and his wife, Caroline. She used to love watching him lie her down at night in a little orange grove behind the tent-church. There was a scented night-blooming jasmine shrub, with its white-yellow flowering beside them, and for the six months that the liaison went on, it was in full white bloom. It didn't emit its usual ambrosial fragrance in the evening, but spurted noisome stench that stretched a mile away. Everyone who inhaled its fumes got sick. It drained them of their God-given strength and silenced their tongues. Its inharmonious laughter murdered the innocence of time and drove away the notion of love. Its unenlightened awakening shattered her world and every aspect of her life. The purity of her white dress, her white-gloved hand, and her white shoes were symbols of her uncleanness. The jostle of her white underpants turned it into a bedrock of thorns that pressed themselves upon her head.

“So, there you go now, Little Miss Missy,” Mrs. Burnet remembered Pastor Boon Stutton saying.

After he'd rogered her one last time behind the tent-church, he gave her a pat on her backside and added, “My time preaching here is done. I must move on, but I'll always remember the good times we had on that sacred ground.”

Caroline looked back at her sheepishly, wetting her lips with her saliva. After their goodbye, she never saw or heard of the couple again.

The shame she felt about her shattered innocence caused her to retreat from life, existing in a world of torment, without confronting the culprits. Mrs. Burnet remembered trying to tell Grandma Armstrong about the Stuttons, but she dismissed her.

“Those white people sure know how fi preach de gospel,” Mrs. Burnet would hear her grandmother telling her neighbors, urging them to stop by the tent-church to get “de nourishment from de food of de Lord.”

Standing at the foot of a gradual incline, waiting for the return of her sister, Winsome, Mrs. Burnet thought about her husband, Mr. Dennis Adlam, the only “gentleman” she had known. He was a healer, not an injurer. He was the one who rescued her from the storm when she ran to take shelter under his wings like an injured bird. He never asked her about her past, but she felt that in the back of his mind, he knew she was holding back secrets. He offered her a home and unrequited love. She took his love, devoured it, and left nothing for him. Still, he continued to love her.

Standing at the foot of the hill, she realized she had to make it her duty to pay her dues. She now understood that her husband, Mr. Adlam, was the prize God had given her to reconcile with her past so she could start anew

[1]

Fiberboard grip- an old-fashioned suitcase.

[2]

Patoo- owl.

[3]

Dutchie- also known as a "dutch pot," is a heavy, thick-bottomed cast iron or aluminum cooking pot, essentially a Caribbean version of 4 Dutch oven. It is a staple in Jamaican kitchens, used for slow-cooking stews and curries, making rice and peas, and frying.

[4]

Buddy- a penis.

[5]

Cerasee bush- (Momordica charantia), also known as bitter melon, is a fast-growing tropical vine widely found in Jamaica and throughout the Caribbean. In Jamaica, it is primarily valued as a medicinal "bush tea" and is famous for its extremely bitter taste.

[6]

Mother-in-law's tongue- In Jamaica and the wider West Indies, snake plants (Sansevieria trifasciata or Dracaena trifasciata) are most commonly known as mother-in-law's tongue or simply sansevieria.

S. D. Brown is a postcolonial writer born in Kingston, Jamaica. She holds a B.A. from The New School for Social Research and an M.S. from Adelphi University. Her work has appeared in Anthurium, Sargasso, Two Thirds North, The Journal of Postcolonial Writing, Adelaide Literary Magazine, The Lemonwood Quarterly, and The Caribbean Writer. She is the author of The Roar of the River: Slave Stories Inspired by Thomas Thistlewood Diaries, 1750-1786 and Let me Hold Your Hand, both published on Amazon. She is a member of The International Women’s Writing Guild. Her story, "Planter's Punch," was recently shortlisted for the 9th Adelaide Literary Prize. More information can be found at: postcolonialauthorsdbrown.com.