In the rearview mirror, Eileen saw the heavy-breasted woman with the quick eyes and unruly mouth purse her lips. The woman took in the exposed springs that jutted out from the back of the front passenger seat and the long metal rods that dangled from the door’s cavity. Next to her, the broken window inched its down into the door every time Eileen drove over a bump in the road. The woman’s brow furrowed and she clutched her fake leather bag to her bosom as she met Eileen’s eyes in the mirror.
“I’s Debra. You’s the girl that just move into the apartment by the tamarind trees?”
Eileen could tell from the way Debra asked that she already knew, but Eileen still replied, “Yes.”
The woman nodded in a self-satisfied way and leaned into the seat with a huff. Eileen’s left eye twitched; she suspected that Debra had a running commentary on every and anything, adding flourish and supposition to every retelling. Debra seemed intent on confirming the theory when she said, “Well, I ain’t know if you know, but that apartment blighted.”
“Uh…that’s unfortunate, but thanks for telling me.”
“Ain’t nothing ‘unfortunate’ about it. Lock your doors and mind your business. That’s what I do and I already live longer than my grandmother.”
Eileen bit her lip. Debra didn’t seem like someone who minded her business. Her eyes challenged Eileen in the mirror. It was obvious that she was eager to reveal more details about the apartment’s blight, but refused to give them up without a half-hearted struggle.
After what Eileen suspected was an agonizing moment for Debra, the woman changed tack. “I’m surprised that a high brown-skinned girl like you move into that apartment though. Your family ain’t got money?”
Chris’ shoulders hunched as he tried to fold in on himself while he kept his eyes on the road ahead and Eileen’s eyebrows almost touched her hairline. “I don’t have any family, so there’s no family money to have,” she said, trying to laugh off the woman’s intrusion.
“Hmph.” Debra seemed dubious about Eileen’s claim; she probably thought Eileen was a rogue daughter who ran off to slum it with the common folks as a way to punish her parents.
Eileen asked quickly, “Which bus station are you heading to? Lower Green or Fairchild Street?”
“Chris does go to Lower Green. I work at the supermarket on Buckworth Street.”
Eileen’s breath caught in her chest. The mere notion of running into Debra every day was excruciating. Luckily, Debra didn’t seem to notice Eileen’s wide eyes before she turned her attention to Chris. She pointed out her concern that Chris' newborn baby had a broad nose and drooped lips that resembled those of his pastor at The Newberry Tabernacle and she was “only looking out for Chris’ interest” as she put it. The look on Chris’ face was enough to make Eileen change the conversation to the prices of rice and corned beef, subjects which Debra weighed in on with great gusto until Chris reached his destination. A few moments later, Eileen breathed a sigh of relief when she deposited Debra just up the road from the funeral home. Holden had taken the short walk from his house and was waiting for her in front of Davis and Sons by the time she arrived.
Holden got into the car, his omnipresent ledgers and diary in tow. He gave directions before becoming engrossed in a tangle of figures, tallying and reworking numbers as the wind whipped the pages of his books.
Wicklow Gardens was a tidy row of houses on a narrow lane in a rural community. The James family lived at the end of the cul-de-sac in a small white bungalow next to a patch of grass where black belly sheep grazed for hours before walking two abreast back to their pen. Holden walked across flagstones to the verandah and rapped on the wooden louvres. Lydia’s mother came outside, clad in a pink housecoat that hung forlornly on her reduced frame. In a matter of weeks, she’d become an economical version of her former self, as though picked apart and reassembled using the least amount of material possible. Eileen’s heart sank when she saw what grief had done to Ernesta James. She waved at her through the window and asked how she was doing.
“Holding on,” Mrs James said with a slight lift of a bony shoulder as she held out a tattered envelope to Holden. Her fingers lingered on the edges of the package before she bit her bottom lip and looked away.
“Thank you very much, Mrs James. It’s unfortunate that we met under these circumstances, but I wish you and your family all the best.” Holden handed her the receipt for her final payment. “I hope that we offered you some comfort during this difficult time.”
Mrs James shook her head in disbelief as she stared at the envelope. “I was saving that for Lydia to go overseas and study to be a chef.”
A tear slipped down Eileen’s face. She saw Holden look at it as though unsure what to do with it now that he knew the funds symbolized her child’s hopes and dreams. “I’ll bet she was quite the cook,” was all he could say.
“Yes… she was talented with food. Last thing she did was get a little part-time job to pay for her plane fare.”
Holden bowed his head. “They say that only the good die young. In this particular instance, it’s painfully true.”
That was too much for her mother; Ernesta excused herself and went back into the house. Holden took his time coming back down the path to get into the car.
“Lydia was my age,” Eileen said slowly as a muffled wail came from inside the house. “When I took this job, I only thought about old and sick people; not healthy young women with so much potential.”
Holden looked at her, his eyes speculative, and rested his hands on his knees. “This isn’t
