If I walked to the window in the kitchen, the little one right above the creaky sink, I could look out over the backyard of my mother’s grandmother’s house. I gazed out, watching the hill gently slope beyond the fruit and tamarind trees, out to denser brush which split off swiftly into a cliffside, rocks clambering into the sky. I imagined my mother there, young and restless, feet tripping over fallen mango, chucking the pits at her brother, the sticky juice slipping down their fingers. She used to spend her summers here, baking under the hot sun, her skin growing rich and dark as the island soil, hair curling like a crown upon her head. In the midst of humidity and sun-trekked shores, she forged her own path on untrodden clay.[1] Through the little curtains on the window over the sink in my mother’s grandmother’s kitchen, I could see her there. Fingers reaching as she swung up high, lounging in the branches of the trees like the iguana. Happy in her little island home.
My mother’s grandmother’s home was small and green, with a bright blue door that seemed impervious even to the passing of time. It was simple and quiet—my footsteps and the wind, the only disturbances in the home. The first day I was there I took time to tidy things the way my mom would have wanted. Shining the fixtures until they gleamed, straightening bits and ends, fluffing pillows and fluttering curtains. The doorknobs and drawer pulls winked at me in gold, the kind that someone had clearly once loved. I listened as the floors creaked, telling me about the memories of all those who had wandered the halls before.
When the blanket of night finally started to creep up over the golden sky, I laid in my mother’s old bed. On top of the scratchy comforter, her memories seemed my own. My mind replayed visions of delicate fingers stitching flowers and trees into fabric, making a few pulls here and there that grandmother would disapprove of. And then, visions of fingers making more pulls in places grandmother would never see in a small act of defiance. As I laid there, trying to find sleep, a soft breeze played into the room, ruffling the curtains and bringing with it the smell of hibiscus. Soft and floral, like a visitor in the night. I imagined the bushes outside blooming brightly under the moon, the night goddess’ smiling face pleased with her floral kin. And when sleep finally came, I dreamt the hibiscus scent was Mother, leaning down over me to leave a kiss on my forehead. Her tucking me in a little tighter when I was having a bad dream. Even when her visits home to the island became fewer and further between, she never lost that sweet scent. It seemed to come from her hair, underneath her nails, from her pores. It brushed my face now, settling the sticky hairs near my neck, tucking soft fingers into the pits of my arms and my elbows and my knees, the bottoms of my feet.
In the morning I awoke, drenched in my own sweat and with a taste in my mouth like burnt plantain.
#
On the third day, my aunt rang. She said it would be good for me to get out of the house, and thus I found myself in the bed of my uncle’s pick-up truck, bouncing in the back with cousins I knew and others I didn’t. The rusted red metal machine made its way through the hilly streets, occasionally slowing as my uncle called a “How you?” to a neighbor or a friend he knew.
I watched the island go by in a blur of greens and reds and charcoal black. The sky a bright blue thumbprint over us. When we got to the store, my uncle gathered things he needed and a few things he knew I did. I didn’t complain at his gathering for me. It was easier that way, without me having to speak to the attendant. Amidst the lullaby tones of the island accents, I knew my voice rang like a note off-key, a tone-deaf response to a refrain I should have known. Though my hair, my eyes, my wide forehead and broad nose tried to give me a pass, my tongue would out me. I didn’t know how to ring out syllables that sounded like a hit on a steel drum, or like water running over smooth stone. And as we climbed back into the truck, bobbing along the roads again, I felt an angry heat rise at my mother. If the island song was one I was ever to learn, shouldn’t she have taught me?
But as the engine started, the heat tempered into something remorseful. I sat with my hands tucked tightly into my lap, tears tucked behind my eyes. The island blurred by again, this time with grocery bags brushing against my legs.
Where have you been? A voice inside me asked. It sounded oddly like my mother.
My tongue grew thick, words and sentiments constricting my throat. I looked away, letting my thoughts drown under the sound of the motor, my cousin’s laughter, the quick calls of the island birds.
I don’t know. I answered. I don’t know.
#
My mother always said she didn’t want a busy service. She was bright and bold, like streaks of sunset across the sky. But when it came to things like this, her heart was deceptively simple. Family, is what she told me. Just bring my family and the sea.
My aunt’s backyard, then, seemed the most fitting place to hold the initial gathering. As the garden teemed with life from every corner, fruits and flowers alike bringing their faces up to the warm sun, family near and far reckoned with my mother’s passing. After the ceremony, I sat to the side on a little bench, watching bees buzz in between flowers, visiting for a moment before moving to the next. While watching, I caught myself wondering if they remembered the flowers they’d seen, or if they ached for a particular one once they had to move on.
My aunt found me on the bench hours later, the black of her funeral dress incongruent in the blossoming garden. She sat down next to me wordlessly and draped a hand over mine. I was grateful for her silence, as there was nothing that I could quite fit into words the way I wanted to.
Instead, I watched the flowers and bit back an urge to scream. A bitter taste like tamarind crept over my tongue.
This wasn’t right. I wanted to spit. It didn’t fit—death shouldn’t be here in a space like this. A space of green and birth and life. Its cold fingers shouldn’t be able to taint the glory of growth– its patient hunger feast on my family.
And yet.
#
The next day, the ocean shone despite all odds. We rowed out to sea; five, six, seven piled in my cousin’s little boat. Eight, actually, I thought, the little box clutched in my hands. We had ditched the formal black from yesterday, instead opting to wear an assortment of island clothing dipped in red, my mother’s favorite color.
As we rowed, I closed my eyes, feeling the spray of the surf on my face. I pretended for just a moment that it was my mother’s hands, rough and calloused from cleaning, always cleaning, and playing the guitar. I held back a quiet sob as they brushed across my face.
Finally, we came to a stop. All fell quiet except the subtle shush, shush of the waves hitting the side of the boat. I was grateful that my family didn’t rush me, instead sitting just near enough to give me needed space. I took deep breaths, trying to sync my heartbeat to the sound of the waves caressing the metal. I counted the beats. One, shush. Two, three, shush, shush. Four.
The island sang me her song.
It took a minute before I realized I was crying. The sun was so warm on my face, I almost missed the salty tears slipping down. Was this it? I thought, my grip tightened on the box in hand, the wood cutting into the inside of my palms. The ocean was bright and the sun was warm and the island was singing, but my mother was gone? Gone? It couldn’t be right.
As the island continued to sing, and I continued to cry, a gentle hum came to me over the sound of the waves.
Listen, listen, little island girl, the voice said again and again. I leaned into it, savoring the sweet rise and fall of the notes. Listening to the intonation that I knew so well—whether it was humming as fingers braided my hair, scolding me for staying out too late, whispering a last I love you over the metal rails of a hospital bed. Her voice had always been a song—and now I’d finally met the composer.
You’ve gotta look at the bigger picture.
I sat in silence for a moment before slowly opening my eyes. The surf greeted me with her bright beauty, winking at the shoreline only a league or so away. On the tan sand, I could see small Black bodies jumping around in the shallows, running, chasing, splashing one another. I watched them—straining my ears to hear the laughter, not epitaphs, that flowed from their mouths.[2] My eyes turned, looking just past the edge of the boat. Right here, the ocean looked blue, brilliantly blue. The sun shone golden red, bright and flowing over the sky like the underside of a robin’s wing, its familiarity and comfort like my mother’s tongue folding over a fruit, like my family’s hands worn by a day’s work. And as I took a breath in, her scent came back again, strong and sweet, a gentle reminder with a firm voice.
My heart pulled the direction of the tide. My breath, the direction of my family sitting beside me. In my mind, my feet reached down, down, down, beyond the boat, beyond the waters, deep to the bottom of the ocean. Down, down, down, taking root on the floor of the sea. My fingers spread out, out, out, wrapping warm and steady over the family that rocked with me in the little boat, that held my shoulders in a garden turned wake, that loved me from near and far.
And on our little boat in the middle of the sea I had never felt so much at home.
I breathed in again, then let go, watching my mother dance one last time over the sea.
[1] A reference to Lucille Clifton’s “bridge of starshine and clay,” from “won’t you celebrate with me,” Book of Light (Copper Canyon Press, 1993).[2] Sanchez, Sonia. “This is Not a Small Voice.” In Wounded in the House of a Friend; Wounded in the House of a Friend, Boston, 62-64. Boston, 1995.
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