Crab Orchard Review Vol. 12, No. 2, our

Donna Hemans
children, from whom she was withdrawing. Brad would be off to college
in less than a year. I would follow shortly. Back home the house was
nearly always silent. We lived as if we were tiptoeing around so as not
to disturb each other. Perhaps it might have been better if someone
quarreled. There in Jamaica, we were doing the same thing, only Mom
parted ways with us so as not to be disturbed. It should have been us,
Brad and me, the seventeen- and sixteen-year-olds parting ways, if only
for brief shifts, from the adult left at home. At that time, I kept thinking
she was setting herself up for our departure and perhaps that of my Dad.
It was only later that I realized I had things the wrong way around.
Red drove us to the other side of Treasure Beach. He pointed us to
a large seaside hotel and we settled ourselves on a larger beach amid a
few tourists who braved the mid-morning sun. Before long Brad was
restless, no longer wanting the pampered tourist experience.
“Who can sit around in the sun all day?”
“The waiters bring you drinks,” I said.
A waiter pointed us to the restaurant where Red said his aunt
worked. We walked along the beach, Brad kicking the sand with his bare
feet. We found two fishermen preparing their boats for the night. One
took us out for a choppy ride. I hated the little boat, the spray of water,
the unanchored feeling. Brad loved it. He asked to go fishing that night
but the fisherman shook his head no. He didn’t want the responsibility.
We were children still. Idle children. We spent the remainder of the
afternoon cleaning fish, forgetting, of course, Red’s aunt at the nearby
restaurant. We walked the mile or so back to the cabins and when we
got back in the evening we fried the fish on the stove my mother had
wanted to teach me how to use. We were idle children no more.
Barbara, the woman who ran the cabins, came to see after us.
We were family now and she treated us as she would her nieces and
nephews who lived on the compound. The families shared without
question, the children eating wherever there was a ready meal.
“You can come sleep at my house,” she said.
“We’ll be okay,” Brad said before I could say I’d like that. She offered
us a salad, bread if we wanted it. But I had committed to making a meal
and I did.
Brad said little. He opted not to go to Shane’s or Red’s to watch
TV or play a game of Ludo. As much as I wanted to spend the evening
with Red or Shane, I didn’t want to walk in the dark alone, so I sat on
the balcony with four candles around me and tried to count the stars. I
thought that perhaps we should call Dad, but I didn’t want to be the one
Crab Orchard Review ◆ 89