Good WoMan

Delroy, my baby daddy, towers over me, silently daring me to move.

Chelsea, our two-year-old daughter, is wrestling the rail of her crib and screaming her lungs out. Her chubby arms stretch towards me, curled up on the gritty concrete floor, “ma ma”. Even without the tears she still would have said it was broken as though she had to pause to catch her breath. I want to get her. Protect her. But I can’t.

A fractured rib, I am sure. I hear Dr. Karen’s voice in my head again, “There’s not much use keeping you here when there ain’t nothing more we can do for you. While at home make sure you remember to treat yourself well. Practice a combination of rest, pain management, and breathing exercises.” I try to breathe as normally as I can. A sigh escapes me and I bite my lip to offset the pain under my breast.

The insipid malice that had hung between us all of last week collapsed into the heel of Delroy’s boot the minute he walked in, drunk and hungry, to find the stove clean and pots washed and turned down. No matter the fact it’s been five straight weeks now that the only answer he has when I ask him to buy or pay for anything is that “Boasty says next week is pay week. Don’t worry man, I’ll soon sort out the bills and t’ings.”

Boasty Sufferer - his old high school friend who is now Center player for the national football team, The Reggae Boys - has been working on his house across the ball field down by the main road. That is where Delroy is now employed full time to do mason work on the upstairs hall and master bedroom. Boasty wants it done so he can move back home from England where he now stays.

    “Get up, bitch!” Delroy has arms built for his employment – I’ve seen him before with two bags of cement, one under each arm – and for my destruction.

I don’t move. Instead, Chelsea and I lock eyes and for a moment he isn't here. Just us: mother, daughter. No angry “da da”. I smile, momentarily soothing her. He strides over to her blocking my view and I shove my hand deeper into my side, wincing slightly. I don't even bother protesting when he picks her up and walks out of the room, closing the door behind him. His footsteps turn up the street – back to the bar. I lean heavily against the wall. 

Why me? Maybe I should leave. 

But Chelsea. Delroy won’t hurt his own daughter, right? Please God don’t let him hurt her.

There is no winning. My words stir him so violently. Yet I can’t even stay silent without being boxed around like a fucking punching bag.

A knock at the door. Missis Grant. 

Holding onto Chelsea’s crib I scramble to the front door. “Good evening, Missis Grant.” Our neighbor, to the left, stands with one slippered foot on the red-polished verandah step, the other resting on the dusty pavement separating our yards, “You alright, Danielle? I heard Chelsea she, bawling down the place.”

     “Chelsea cries for every little thing Missis Grant. Maybe it was a mosquito bit her. Eventually she stops and goes back to sleep.” I pull the door a little closer to me and straighten up even more. I know fully well that if not for the fact that Missis Grant saw Delroy leaving she wouldn’t have gathered the strength to come over here.

Any chance Missis Grant get she will gladly spread my business to anybody who will listen. It was not even three full years ago – in 2013 – she same one was all over George’s Town community telling everyone who would listen how I was underaged and pregnant. She almost got my baby father locked up with her lies. No matter the fact that I had shut her up when I went into the house and showed my national ID to the officer. Five more months and I would have been nineteen. Yet this old, wrinkly face lady never cares to keep her nose out of my business.

It is because of women like Missis Grant – and mummy, too, who readily put me out the minute she heard about the pregnancy – why many men disappear when they hear about children. These women always want to send men to jail for some reason or another. I mean, the fact that I am so much as living with – most times even love – my baby father should show them that if you allow it you can always find a good man. I did. Everything worked and I finally have the family I want – just me, Chelsea, and Delroy.

A good man.

    “If there isn’t anything else I can help you with, Missis Grant, then goodnight.”

*

The unwelcome smell of stale Red Stripe Beer and Matterhorn smoke perfumes the air. It lends the living room a certain staleness perfected only by wasted time and carelessness. Just the way Delroy seems to like it these days. A whole month has gone by now since the construction site paused working, something about “Boasty run out of money and gone back to England for a while”.

Although cleaner than many other mornings I make a mental note to use a cloth soaked in bleach water to wipe the center-table top and wardrobe shelves this weekend. These are the only other furnishings in the room apart from the three-piece settee that Delroy bought for my birthday last year. Or so he had said at least. I know he still owes Courts - the furniture store - for it to this day. 

Either ways, it will be me who will worry about them, too. I will have to scavenge the cigarette butts and bottle caps from among the prematurely saggy seat cushions. Then spray the two smaller armchairs and long couch, where Delroy is fast asleep right now, with air freshener. Open the windows to air out the room.

My cell phone alarm starts to vibrate. 7:00 AM. Time to get Chelsea ready for school. I head to the kitchen and make breakfast of cerasee tea and bread & butter. Some cornflakes for Chelsea. Then I head back to the bedroom and wake her.

“Hello my angel. Good morning.” I bury my face in her stomach and blow against it making her laugh groggily. Again. And again. Then I remember her father sleeping on the couch and stop.

“You wanna eat?”

    “Eat.” her head bobs up and down.

    “Yes, let’s eat.” Once I lift Chelsea from her crib and onto the floor she sets off running. In no time she is on top of Delroy waking him. “Da da. Da da.”

         “Danielle, how much time I tell you not to wake me so early?” Not a question.

         “I am sure you know it is not me waking you. It’s Chelsea.” I grab her and set her on the floor of the extended room that doubles as both living room and kitchen, separated down the middle by a length of string through several mismatched curtains.

    “Anyways, before you go back to sleep, I have a question?”

    “What?”

   “You know when Boasty Sufferer will start working on the house again?”

    “Whenever he’s back in Jamaica. I don’t know when that will be so I guess that work is dry for now. I’ve been looking for work elsewhere but nothing is available right now. I am still trying though.”

    “Trying!” my scoff was involuntary. “Hm. Okay.” I quickly add and shrug to pass it off.

It fails. “You think I didn’t hear that? What the hell you’re saying huh?” He is up now.

“Trying, Delroy? Trying is putting out a little bit of effort to care about the two other people who your actions hurt the most. Trying is caring that Chelsea’s school fee is due and every morning I take her down to the school they ask me when I will be able to pay and I keep telling them ‘soon’ and that ‘t’ings hard right now’. Whatever you tell me I tell them and only because you insist on doing this all by yourself. I can try to get a job too and help out but ‘no, Danielle’, or ‘what kind of job are you going to get in these tough times’, and never once are you willing to change your mouth and say ‘try Danielle’. Is what so wrong with me trying?”

    “You know what? You win. Try, Danielle.” He gets up from the couch, makes his way to the bedroom and slams the door. I can hear the bed sigh under his weight. It loses its footing and skids just a bit, setting my teeth on edge. Disregarding that, I hightail Chelsea out of her high chair sailing rather giddily out the side doors toward the back of the house. We take our bath together inside the water-soaked ply board and shower curtain amalgamation that is our bathroom. Delroy built it when I first got here. He has been promising to fix it up and paint it ever since then.

By the time Chelsea and I are ready Delroy is already fast asleep again. A mosquito buzzes near his ear and he slaps at it and misses. I spread a sheet over him and turn on the fan before heading out.

~

One morning it seems none of us would be able to leave the house. Darks clouds clammer closer overhead threatening to hurl showers of rain at us. After much beseeching, Delroy had finally left me some money to go down to Mr. Chin supermarket. Even though it cannot do much Chelsea needs a few pampers, some Lasco for her feeding, and a few other things for the household maybe. In truth the most I can get is just some free time to be out of the house so I can start looking for a job. So despite the meagerness I intend to put aside some change for the printing shop, too. There I can use the internet to find any available jobs. Or I can look at their notice board. Sometimes even the cashiers know of places that are hiring.

Hurriedly Chelsea and I set out. I hope I will make it to Chelsea’s school and back before the rain.

Being the sole provider for three can be a lot for any one person. Worse so, I imagine, when your best shot is all sorts of odd jobs. But I have no problem helping Delroy keep our household afloat. Truth is, he has done a great job these past few years. Especially that time Chelsea was 13 months and really sick with her heart. He did everything he could, sometimes all at once when he had to. It worked: JMD$65, 380.00, one successful heart surgery, and three weeks later Chelsea was back in her bed. We were happy.

We are.

A few minutes on the road and I know I couldn’t have been more wrong. The rain wasn’t going to wait.

    “Ma ma, rain.” Chelsea pointed to the drop of water on her arm. Not even a minute later the clouds heaved a sigh of relief and rain torrent down on us. I suck my teeth. The earth opens its pores and the scent of raindrops and soil was all around us. I lift Chelsea and burrow her into my blouse, running into the nearest building.

    “Morning, morning.” I set Chelsea down and greet the woman across the bar counter. 

    “Morning, dear.” Miss Jacky, the bar owner, responds. It’s just us three. The bar stools are empty and the speaker in the corner plays The Gambler so low we can hardly hear. 

    “Wowowow this rain sure did come from nowhere. But it’s been long overdue still. Been really hot lately.” She was either talking to herself or me. 

Not sure which one, I respond all the same, “I tell you. Any hotter and we would probably scorch to death. This heat has been something else.”

    “True.” she agrees, then as if an afterthought she asks, “Say, you know anybody want a bar work? I need a bartender.”

    “I am looking for a work. Bar work is work. But I would need a little time first to make some arrangements before I start. How soon would you want me to start?”

    “In about a week or two, three at the most. My second bartender, Sasha is leaving after her shift ends next week. Then the other one, Shawna, can take over. Everybody works two weeks at a time so maybe you would start when Shawna’s shift ends. How does that sound?”

    “Good! Just let me get back to you. Is that alright?”

    “Yes man, no rush. Plus, I see you have your little daughter to take care of. Just take my number and call me to let me know. But let me know as early as you can, alright?”

    “Okay, thank you.” 

When the rain eased up and I drop Chelsea off at school there is a light spring in my step that not even the mud clinging to my boots can restrict. This will be very good news to tell Delroy. Finally, a chance to show him that I can help to support us too. But let me not get ahead of myself before I tell him. It won’t be until nightfall till I see him anyways.

In the mean time I let the good news wash over me. The pep in my step did not go anywhere all day and every task - from cooking, to laundry, to picking up Chelsea later that evening - all seem a bit lighter than they used to be.

When I picked up Chelsea we walked by the little ice cream shop across the road from the school. I used the change I had kept from shopping earlier to buy Chelsea her favorite, strawberry ice cream on a cone. Then I make a note to remember next time, a task assigned many times before, to get a cup instead. She licked the ice cream too slowly as usual and it quickly started dripping on her school uniform over and over. I can’t be mad. It’s funny. I laugh. She smiles a strawberry smile. It makes me all the happier. 

See, I am happy.

Sometime around 1 AM, Delroy dragged himself home and onto the couch. All he could do long into the next afternoon was throw up in a bucket while I make tea, reheat last night’s dinner, and even put a cold cloth on his forehead to help with the spike in temperature. If there was ever an occurrence of alcohol poisoning, this is it. So instead of sharing the good news I bottle it up and take care of my big baby, hoping that tomorrow he will resume manhood. 

It was somewhere close to dusk, when the evening news was almost ready to come on, before Delroy forced himself out of sleep and into the kitchen. 

    “Here is a glass of water. How are you feeling?”

Instead of a response, he grunts. I ignore him not expecting much of a better answer anyways. “I got a job offer I want to talk to you about.”

    “Go ahead. I’m listening.” He sips the water.

    “Well, it’s in the bar down by the crossroads.” I wait, not sure what to expect. 

    “Bar work? You might as well be a prostitute. You want to sprawl yourself across a bar counter while every man that come by flirt with and touch touch you like you is market goods? You must be a mad man!” He is shouting.

    “Well right now it is better than doing nothing. I have to do something. I can’t continue to live like this.” I am whispering.

    “Okay, seems like it is you who’s running your show today. So who will keep Chelsea, eh? Boasty Sufferer is back and work will start up again on Monday so I won’t have any time.”

    “Really?” This is great news. “How come you are just telling me this?” 

    “Because I just find out yesterday.”

    “Hm. Okay then. But the bar is not too far from Chelsea’s school so I can still drop her off in the mornings and easily ask someone to pick her up in the evenings if I’m too busy. I also plan to ask mummy for help. It’s probably a good time now to cash in on her offer from back then to ‘babysit Chelsea any time’ for me.”

No response. I let it go.

After dropping Chelsea off at school one morning, although it would be easier if I took her with me to keep my mother’s guilt trip going, I head to my mother’s house musing that the prodigal daughter act will just have to suffice.

When I finally rounded the corner to the shop, which acts as the grand entrance to my childhood home, I find it closed. I am not able to remember a time that my mother locked the shop. Even when we were asleep the red and black 24/7 paint across the front prompts at least the grilled side window to be open. I wonder what this could mean for my mother. I circled to the back of the yellow painted ply board and zinc structure.

         “Mummy?” I start to call before realizing the piece of zinc blocking the gate is not latched properly. No answer. I enter.

“Mummy?”

A clatter from the plyboard outside kitchen makes me swirl to face it. “Who’s there?” Still no answer. I start to creep towards the door. It creaks and a tiny head emerges from the shadows.

         “Marsha, what are you doing here?”

         The dusty foot little girl looked at me surprised, “My mother sent me with some soup to feed Miss Shirley. I was getting a spoon from the kitchen.” Marsha’s mother – Miss Madge – is my mother’s church friend. They don’t get along much, but they are both too stubborn to give up on their friendship.

         “Feed mummy, what’s wrong? Why do you need to feed mummy?” I start over to the house.

         Marsha follows, “My mummy said she had a stroke in church last month. Her mouth crook to the side and so she can’t talk and her right-side is limp. You can pull off the sheet and look at her, you will see.”

The curtain of bamboo beads strung on fishing lines announced me at my mother’s bedroom door, stirring awake a mound of sheets piled high on the bed.

         “My mother normally feeds her herself or ask my oldest sister, Polly, but is Friday evening now so they are all gone to sell at Coronation market in Kingston. I do it when they are not here.” She pauses then cocks her head sideways and asks me, “You want to feed her?”

         “Yes I will Marsha. You can go home. Thank you. And tell Miss Madge I say thanks a lot.”

The light from the 40W bulb overhead revealed my mother’s droopy face, eyes listless staring back at me. Staring wordlessly at me, tears start to slide down her cheek. My heart breaks.

Staring at her, unable to speak, I wish we had spoken more. Instead we had argued and kept a malice for far too long. I get it now though; she wanted the best for me, just like I do for Chelsea.

I knelt by the bed and held her hand. Just us: mother and daughter.

Time flies when you are having fun, but boy does it drag when you are not. Getting Delroy to allow me to take care of mummy one day each week was tough. First, he didn’t have money for bus fare to and from mummy. If not broke, then he would just be too busy to simply pick up Chelsea from school in the evenings. Or worse yet to drop her off in the mornings if I end up having to sleepover at mummy’s, a privilege he has not yet approved. So after dropping Chelsea off at school some mornings I would start the forty-five-minute walk to wash, cook, and clean for mummy. Each done in stages for I still had to leave and head back to get Chelsea and look after things at our house. And every day I go and take care of mummy Delroy comes home drunker and drunker than the time before. For someone who is broke, free rum seems to be giving away at the bar. 

One especially drawn-out Thursday evening I reach home to find Missis Grant had propped herself on my verandah steps waiting for me when I walked into the yard.

“Can I help you Missis Grant?” I really want to know.

“I hear that your mother is sick. Is it true?” she returns. Not waiting for the answer, definitely having already checked her facts, she offered, “I know it must be hard on you to keep up. Caring for Chelsea and Delroy and now your mother too.

Although I am itching to tell her to mind her own business, she has a point. But I don’t get what that point has to do with her over here telling me what I already know.

I sigh. “It’s alright Missis Grant.”

“Ah, I bet it is.” She gets up and brush the dirt off her skirt bottom.

“What?” she couldn’t just leave without irritating me.

“I just stopped by to tell you that I am right across the fence if you need help. Maybe sometimes I can keep Chelsea, you know.” She seems genuine.

“I’ll let you know.” I walk to the front door. At the door I turn back to her, “Honestly, thank you, Missis Grant.”

The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. If I go to work everybody benefits. Missis Grant lives right next door so it’s not too bad to let her keep Chelsea in the evenings. She is so nosy I might as well give her something else to do. So I decided fine, I will bring it up to Delroy later.

     “Missis Grant? You’ve been talking to that bitch?” Delroy yells atop his lungs the minute her name escapes my lips.

Poor lady, just trying to help. I shake my head and sigh, very ready to drop the topic.

“Fine. Forget I said any thing then.

I see it all. His eyes turning jet black. Me, trying to take my words back as the flashes of me getting the wind knocked out of me instead flicker in my head. The pain. The way Chelsea screams when she sees me crumpled on the floor. It is all too familiar. Too common.

I walk over to the kitchen counter. I try to put space between us.

He edges closer. I start eye the counter behind me looking for anything near me to protect me. A pot. A knife. A tablecloth, for Christ’s sake. Nothing. 

Delroy takes a stride across the floor and grabs me firmly by the throat. I cough trying to catch my breath. I grasp his fingers tightly and try to loosen them. “Stop.” I scream, but it comes out as a hoarse whisper. 

I struggle against his hold. Why does shit like this keep happening to me? I wonder. Surely one day I will end up dead and I wonder what he’s gon’ think or do then. 

“Shut up. I tell you time and again to stay away from people with our business. Well today you are gon’ learn. I’m tired of you now. Tired I say.” Delroy lands a blow for every word that he utters. He is slapping me across the face, back, hands and trying to slam my head against the wall. I try to get a grip of his hand still locked firmly around my throat. I struggle to speak, scream, anything. But the more I move the more he slaps me all over and the harder he squeezes my throat. I struggle to remain conscious. When I gasp for air blood and mucus mingle in my mouth. I can feel a searing pain in my tongue. 

Suddenly Delroy stops hitting me and forcefully pushes me away. I hit the wall behind me and quickly slide to the floor

When the lights came on again they are brilliant. I don’t open my eyes. Delroy must have cleaned up as usual. It smells like disinfectant in here. Where is he by the way?

My eyes flutter open. The hospital?

I sit upright in bed. I cannot stay here. I know the drill. As soon as they know I am awake an officer is going to waltz in here and try to coax information out of me. Information they hope to use and confine someone else to that god-awful system of theirs. Not my Delroy.

I remove my right shoulder from the sling it is in. It hurts like hell. Nevertheless, I shrug on my blouse and use my other arm to help me into my jeans.

The chart in the plastic holder at the foot of the bed says I have a dislocated shoulder and bruising around the neck, eyes, and ears. No mention of the pain in my head and my aching muscles. I move on.

Using a slightly rusted end of the bed I cut the patient wristband off my arm. The guards can’t stop me if they don’t know I am a patient. Last time, they insisted I wait to be discharged first. Right now I just want to go home and see Chelsea.

Hailing a taxi at the hospital gate, I get in. The taxi let me off at the end of the dirt trail and I walk the rest of the way home.

         “Delroy?” the front door of the house is ajar.

It isn’t Delroy. “Missis Grant, what are you doing in our house?” If my looks could kill her then she would have dropped dead.

         “Oh Danielle, sit. Sit.” She rushes to the door taking my arm and leading me to the chair. I pull away from her, “What are you doing in our home. Where’s Chelsea? And Delroy will be home any time soon.”

         “Child, sit.”

I do.

         “I tried to call but your phone went to voice mail. Delroy ain’t coming back here for a little bit. Chelsea is asleep over at my house. I’ve had her for the past two days so I’m here to get some more Lasco to make some tea for her when she wakes up.”

         “Sorry for the inconvenience. I didn’t really get to take much with me to the hospital.” My phone is still in the house somewhere.

         “Well, seeing as it wasn’t so much a planned trip I can definitely understand.”

I roll my eyes at her.

         “What you mean Delroy not coming back for a while? What happened to him?” the worse thoughts cross my mind. “Is he hurt?”

         “Shouldn’t you be more worried about you right now? He left you on that floor. I was the one to call a taxi and send you on your way to the hospital, you know?”

  I don’t doubt it. “Missis Grant, what is wrong with Delroy? What you mean ‘not coming back for a while’?”

         “Well, unless you plan to bail him out of jail that is where he should stay for a while. And by the looks of it I think the last part is a much better idea.

         “Jail? What!” My throat is instantly dry. “What did I do?”

         “Child, Delroy knows how to cause his own problems. According to what I hear, Boasty Sufferer is back and made a bunch of promises about how he is going to pay the workmen all that he owes. Delroy and some others didn’t end up getting their share so they waited on him at his yard gate late the other night and beat him senseless. I don’t know how the rest of the story goes but two twos and he ended up right where he belongs. This time he didn’t pick on somebody weak. He finally met his match.”

         “Meet his match? You do realize this is Chelsea’s father we are talking about, right?”

         “Chelsea’s father or not. It is time you stop covering up all this nonsense for a man that doesn’t have the decency to treat you and his own daughter right.”

         “You don’t know anything about my baby father. He is a good man.”

         “I did not say otherwise, my dear. But aren’t you a good woman?”

Silence.

She continues without me, “Even so, don’t sometimes you make bad choices? We all do. What we don’t all do is get a second chance to start making some better choices than the one that got us in this mess in the first place. Delroy might do that when he gets out, but you have that chance right now. Question is what are you going to do with it, eh?”

A second chance, huh. I sit on the couch long after Missis Grant left. I sent a text to Miss Jackie, the bar lady, letting her know to expect me as planned in a few more days. Missis Grant can keep Chelsea for the night. They will be spending a lot more time together, anyways, once I start working. Tomorrow I will go spend a few days over at mummy’s house.

With all the plans set and nothing else to attend to I curl up on the couch.

Finally, I cry.