Excerpt: A Million Aunties by Alecia Mckenzie

kinda let slip.

The second morning, I look outside and see the tree-dem pon the ground like dead body, and lawd-god-a-massy burst from mi mouth. I go out on the verandah and wave mi hand to Lorraine across the way, who also looking pon the destruction. After the landslide last year, is like bad luck just can’t done. Lorraine raise up her arm-dem, like she asking: What to do? The rain still coming down, and Lorraine probably worried bout Miss Della nursery down the road. Every time flood and hurricane come, she have to start over with all the plantdem. I sigh and go back inside. I spend the day folding up clothes in the chest of drawers, putting blouses together, sorting panties according to everyday wear and the one-dem for going out, folding up the cotton housedress Teena send me last month from America. I already tell her that I have enough, but every time she see one that she think I might like, she send it down with somebody coming to visit. So a stream of her friends always coming by, bringing me housedress from Sears or Jcpenney. I know where they come from because of the tag. She take the price off but leave the tag on, maybe to show me that they brand new, she not sending me secondhand stuff.

Not that I would ever think that. I wonder sometimes if she trying to tell me: Check out these dresses, Mommy, they nothing compared to what you can stitch up from scratch.

When I finish with the chest of drawers, I start on the closet, which is not in a bad condition since the things Albert did leave behind burn and gone already. Is a hell of a fire I light in the yard, even though the big-big flamedem shooting up in the air didn’t make me feel much better. Him clothes used to hang on one side and mine on the other side. Now some of Teena clothes, things I make for her, hang where him shirt and pants used to be. Teena like to keep a few clothes at the house so that when she come home on holiday she don’t have to bring heavy suitcase. She moved to Florida only a few months after me and Albert separate, and when the divorce finalise, she ask me if I didn’t want to come to America. But what I going to do there? I don’t want to be a burden on her. And she say she don’t want to come back right now because when she was here she was just boxing bread outta horse mouth, couldn’t get paid right for all her hard work. Now she making decent money in one of dem-town near Miami, even if she have to get up at six and drive one hour to the school and one hour back. When we talk on the phone, she always telling me things bout her students, how nearly every day police come and have to cart off one of them in handcuff. I worry bout her, but when I look at her clothes-dem in the closet it make me feel like she not gone forever, that one day she going come home again and things will go back to normal. Sometimes I tell her that she should call Albert too, he still her father, but she say she don’t feel like talking to him. Nothing I can do bout that.

The rain don’t stop. On the third day I start looking through the bookcase, at all the book-dem that Teena used to use in high school. I take out A Midsummer Night’s Dream and flick through it. I used to like reading long-long time ago, in elementary school. But when Teena little, is Albert who would read to her at night because I was too tired by then. Poem by Miss Lou. Things bout princess. I used to love hear him voice, that same voice that . . . but what the point of thinking bout that now. Albert always so sure him was the smarter one, but not too smart to stop him woman from calling me. Him used to joke that him have the brains and me have the looks. I didn’t find the joke all that funny, but I way past all that now. I have mi own way of being smart. Not everything have to come from book.

I pull out a big green-cover one from the bookcase and open it in the middle. This one is old English. I did learn bout that in school. Is like yesterday and donkey years ago at the same time. Paradise Lost. I like the language, even if this kinda thing could give people headache. Anyway, enough with the book-dem. I decide instead to cook up a big batch of rice and peas, because who know when this damn rain going done.

But next day the sky clear and sun bright like nothing did happen. When I go outside on the verandah, I see him, the new man, another one of them artist people staying at Miss Della place. Last year she had a friend of Stephen staying with her for a long-long time, Chris him name was, painting flowers. Flowers every day and night until all her walls full of them. Everywhere she look is flowers. But they nice-nice. The first time I go up there to take a look, he give me one of the painting-dem as I leaving. See it right there on mi wall. But imagine, when Miss Della come down here to work at her nursery, she have to look pon even more flowers. I tell her that that woulda make me go nuts. But she just laugh. She love her plants to kingdom come, know how to make them grow and send out blossom like no tomorrow. When Albert go off, she bring me one plant that look all dry up like it soon going dead. Vera, she say, just keep watering it, take care of it for me. So I care for that plant like mi life depend on it, making sure it always have water, putting it in bigger pot, feeding it fertilizer. And look at it now, big-big croton on mi verandah, like mi best friend. Is yours, Miss Della say, when it come back to life.

This new man is from I don’t know where, tall, bony, and kinda shy-looking, with a thin face and hair cut short. I think him maybe a little bit older than me. He walk round each tree lying there on the ground then bend down and run him right hand along the bark of one. Like him saying sorry or something. Him probably feel me watching him because him glance up at the verandah and him smile. I smile back. I would like to hang round and see what him plan to do with the tree but I have things to do. I have to go to the supermarket because the fridge look like I just buy it, brand new, not a thing inside. And I been longing for some fried sweet potato. Wish I had somebody to share it with, though, because one of the things that most make mi spirits drop these days is the eating by meself.