“Where are we going anyway?”
She picks up the pace as we near Parliament Square. “I heard it on the four o’clock news, but I didn’t think they’d be out by us already.”
There’s a smattering of applause like a small crowd has gathered up ahead. “Just tell me!” I half-shout, and then I stop short, we both do. In the square, where I ate scarlet plums, a few dozen people stand watching three men and two women with placards raised above their heads: they read NO TO BIG DEVELOPMENT and HOTELS OUT!
“We oppose this proposed development and the loss of important beach access, coastal habitat, and community infrastructure,” one of the men shouts. “We call on the government to reject this proposal.” I look at Mummy. Her tightly pressed lips tell me this is about us, about our little beach. About what happened earlier today.
“Get your recorder.” Mummy edges closer to the man who spoke. She stands a little straighter, leans forward, and waves at him. “Excuse me, can we talk to you?”
I slide my hand into my bag and fumble past the folded-up piece of paper. As I pull the tape recorder out, I wish I was back on Pinder Street with KeeKee in the yard or hanging around Mr. Rahming’s store. Anywhere but here. I’m not like Mummy. I don’t want to ask this loud stranger all kinds of questions. But the man has lowered his placard and walked over to us, and Mummy is waving me over to stand beside her. Mummy nudges me forward and it feels like I’m wearing someone else’s too-tight shoes as I step onto a pathway I don’t want to walk down.
I take a big gulp anyway. “Can I ask you some questions about what’s happening here today?” I say, and press record.
KEEKEE
Tap-tap-tap. Water drip.
Tap-tap-tap. Spoon curve on cup lip.
Tap-tap—my eyes fly open as my ears scan for sounds again. It’s Saturday night, when the pop and zing of firecrackers, music blasting from a passing car, laughter from a house a street over, are almost guaranteed, even this late. Beside me, Angel stirs in her sleep, then settles again. Through the open window, not even a tree shadow shifts shape in the moonlight. Clouds are low, and it’s oddly quiet tonight.
Sniff.
A tiny lift of air through a nostril, the sound of a person hiding who wants to be found. I slide off the bed and lift a corner of our tired curtain. To one side is the clothesline, bobbing in time to a light breeze’s beat. To the other, the melt of overgrown bush. Too still.
Tap-tap-tap.
In an instant, Angel is up, soundlessly rolling off the bed, soft feet finding the way even before her eyes adjust. I follow behind her in a klutzy din—sweaty soles damp on tiles, cotton nightgown’s swish. She opens the front door. Night spills in, washing up a new victim: a girl, no older than me, shadow long, shoulders hunched like a wind-battered tree without roots. Her thin body curves away from Angel’s outstretched arm. We understand—this one cannot be touched.
I heat water to just before boiling, then brew tea while Angel wets washcloths to let the girl wipe herself off. Fear, sharp and animal as pee, mingles with Lipton’s bitter steep. While Angel rummages for clothes, I stir in a thick shot of cream, then return the can to the fridge. I hold the steaming cup out to the girl. At the edge of the room, my mother breathes, waiting.
A hand darts out. Three lines traverse the thin wrist, raised scars like young, green twigs. The lowest one is so fresh it’s still scabbed. Broken people come here—women with wet faces, men with black eyes and bloodied lips, girls walking alone who creep away by morning, boys whose soft bodies shake in the dark. Once, we woke to the sound of a cat, but when we opened the door, a baby girl was there, a twist of human rope connected to her belly, snaking out into the night. A woman came and took her and I never saw either of them again, but I know that baby’s out there still, old enough to be running, by now.
Angel never asks questions, so neither do I, just boil water, pour it over bags of dried leaves, lay digestive biscuits on a plate while she patches their faces with rubbing alcohol and ointment, mashing a balm of part silence, part whispered words, to comfort the cuts we can’t see. I don’t make a sound at the sight of that carved-up little wrist, but she sees me seeing, feels my breath draw in, and in an instant there’s a low whine as Toons turns over in bed.
I let go too soon, or the girl does. Hot tea splashes my legs and I clap a hand over my mouth to keep the scream in. The cup clatters onto the floor.
“You’re all right, sweetie.” Angel steps between us as the girl slides back toward the wall. Toons’ bedroom door opens and Angel shoos him back in. “Only me and my daughter and son here tonight,” she tells the girl. “Nobody ga hurt you.”
I open the freezer, take out an ice cube, and dab at the burned spots on my legs. Tiredness has my head fuzzy—did my fingers slip on the mug, or did the girl mean to scald me? I’m sure I was holding the mug, sure I felt her grasp the handle and start to lift it away. Would someone really do that? Can someone hurting that bad do anything but hurt others too?
I wait on the sofa while Angel convinces the girl to sit, back against the wall, fingers around a fresh cup of tea. Angel stoops over to speak to her and her nightdress slips down over one shoulder and reveals the long, smooth, raised scar that cuts across her back. She adjusts the gown quickly and straightens up again.
I trace a finger over the sore patches where the tea landed. If Baseball Cap was the one tap-tap-tapping the window, demanding help in exchange for Toons almost splitting his head open with that shell, would we take him in? Would my brother get to lie in bed then too? If I were handing Baseball Cap tea, would I pull my hand away from him too fast too? Or would I be like Angel and whisper kind words, never mind the tender spattered spots on my skin?
3
KEEKEE
Pinder Street totes soft breezes and ocean birdcalls. There are stray dogs and dusty children darting between yards, dub blaring from a speeding car. Conversations blast out tinny from phone speakers; people yell back. For a place far east of everywhere, our corner beats fast.
But when I turn onto my father’s road, with its old-paved asphalt bleached white by the sun, I step into a different Nassau. Here, there is yellow pine forest for miles. It seems monochrome at first, but if you stop and look, stubby palms begin to show themselves, their fronds like hands waving; little ferns and sharp sisal plants push up out of rocky ground, laying low. I wonder, not for the first time, how it would be to melt off the road and into that forest, to keep moving until the bag eases away and my shoes disappear. Moving until my feet are done walking and my arms stop their swing, until birds hover around my hair, then dive in. Until sunlight streams right through my body. Until no one I’m responsible for knows how to find me.
“If I walked out, could I become a pine?” I say, as the words take shape in my mind.
“If I walked out, could I become a pine,
legs fusing and feet unfurling pale roots the color of
my palms?
Would my toes curl and shoot into the soil
and pull up food?”
As I speak, I drop my bag onto the cracked street, sinking down to sit. I look out, and up.
“I would
reach up my arms and feel the tiny twigs shoot out from where