E2 When The Rhythm Changes: Till The Storm Passes Over

Aunty Shelley shut down the culprit of those words with a quickness.

'Honey.' David when I hadn't moved.

My feet didn’t seem to understand what they were meant to do.

But with eyes on me, I stood.

Could that really be true? Because if it wasn't true what would cause anyone to say something like that? And if it was? If it really, truly was, what was the last three plus decades of my life built on? I shut down my lungs. I couldn't, didn't want to breathe.

Who else knew?

Who else is of the knowledge that the man I'm burying today isn't my father. Did aunty Shelley know?

'Mom', Sasha nudged when David gave her my right hand and Grace my left. But instead my youngest hugged my hips. David, he'd said something and was off. Somehow I was walking or was it guided and then light. Light breached my overly wide brimmed hat.

Out in the sunshine, I felt myself breathing a little. My husband ahead of us, took a place among the pallbearers. He hadn’t been asked. I'd not thought to include him that way. But here, he just stepped forward and lifted. And that more than any of the hymns, Bible readings or even this newly self-appointed aunty's comment broke me. All this time, I'd knotted my chest tight, froze my thoughts cold. But watching him carrying that casket, my father's casket, I couldn't hold it anymore. He didn't have to. But he did. It was the least he could do for the man who entrusted him with his daughter, he'd said.

Truth is, Charles Bandanny hadn’t.

'Mom you okay?'

'Yes Baby.' I made a pitiful dab at my eyes but water was in full flow.

But how in all these many years not a whisper, not a word, not a sit down across the floor, to tell me. Not one bad word. Not one cross word. Not one lightening flash, not even a low rumbling cloud. Nothing, from the dead man I called Daddy. Why hadn't he abandoned me like my mother did? Why keep me? Why choose to keep me? Why lie to me? But what would I have done?

See, this now hurt more than his death itself. Was I the one to be pitied? My entire existence hit on that pit of my stomach. Every lesson, every conversation. Every... every damn callaloo I picked without tearing the stalk. He'd taught me that.

When I brought home my first A grade and he said, 'Mi proud a yuh, Livie. Mi real proud.' If ever that man did proud. So, was he?

'Mommy, I don't like it when you cryyy.'

'I know baby. I-I-I'm just going to miss grandad.' Snivel. 'Are you going to miss grandad?'

'Why? Is Grandad Banny not coming back?'

Her six year old brain yet to process this rhythm change.

'Not for a long time Gracie.' I stooped low, gave them both a hug.

The casket disappeared into the hearse. The pall bearers to their vehicles and David to me. The dead heat of Jamaica, not so much. It hung with a suffocation. To take more prisoners. My light cotton black dress buttoned up to my neck a willing accomplice.

But it now dawned on me, I'd never knowingly asked my father for his blessing. Well certainly not the way David and I got married. I was my own woman long before I should’ve had to be. Made my own decisions before I knew how to spell and pronounce half the words I used in law school. And once I'd decided, I was going to marry David. Regardless. I was going to marry David, in spite of. Especially in spite of. David’s mother—well—she nearly lost David this wife. Me. Said everything under the Caribbean sun to talk him out of being with 'that girl'. 'That girl from Jamaica with no pedigree.'

Somehow, the boy found his 'brass nuts', chose me.

They're here by the way, David's parents that is and his younger brother Elliott, and his girlfriend. In the black limo behind Aunty Shelley and four other family members. They're the family I know. Grew up with. David's parents, they flew in yesterday, fly by back out to Anguilla day after tomorrow. That Lucinda would spend more than forty-eight hours on this here island, is frightening. That Lucinda Ellis would step foot back in 'lawless Jamaica' (her words not mine), much more attend my lowly father's funeral, is an unforeseen debt I know I'll have to grin and repay. Probably with interest. And you know it won't be in Jamaican dollars. It won't be East Caribbean dollars either. Pounds, honey. Pounds.

Still, I appreciate she could anchor herself sufficiently to do so.

'You okay?' David, as he buckles in himself and loosens his tie.

To answer would have been to exert energy, so instead, I clasp his hand and rest my head back. There's a low rumble of a thunder as the cars roll out. Rain started, though only a tease of a drizzle.

'That was good timing.'

I smile something weak for a response.

'Mommy'

'Yes, Baby Cakes'

Grace swings back. Her two puff-pigtails swinging with her.

'If its raining, will we have to stand in the rain?' Her little face innocent.

'Not if you don't want to darling.'

'Mooom.'

'Sasha darling.'

'Is what that lady said about grandad true?'

'What lady?' Grace chimes in.

My eyes been resting behind blacked out sunglasses under the brim of my hat. I parked that rest to look to my oldest. 'No Sash, it isn't true.'

'Why would the lady say that?'

'What did she say?' Grace back on the chime.

While my body allowed me to swallow, grip on both David's hand and thigh, the remainder of all of me froze.

'Okay you two.' David suppressing this Jamaican Inquisition with a half smile.

Only three words but a sufficient supply of them underpinned by tone, they both returned to face forward. And I to David. My face under all the words I prohibited to leave my lips.

He pats the back of my hand still on grip of his thigh.

Was it the first time I'd heard those words? No, but it had been a very long time since I last heard them. And now I had no way of truly knowing. Except now my own daughter had heard those words too. How did she even understand that dialect?

In front of us the sky forked bright, the windscreen wipers? They thudded with a fury battling the rain.

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