Here Comes the Sun (39 page)

“I want Charles to be free. I want the charges dropped against him, and the reward. I want us to be together.”

Margot chuckles at this. “Really? Is that it?” A lump of pity rises in Margot's throat, seeing her sister's rounded shoulders, her young, pretty face bleached and sullied with confusion and defeat. How many girls has Margot seen this way? How many girls has she told to work for what they want? Girls her sister's age and younger. “
Mek me proud
,” she tells them. They bring business to the island that shuns them, lumps them like logs to be eaten away by the elements. Or rather, leaves them to sink at sea. Margot collects them one by one and gives them a new life. A new way to claim the freedom they were denied. Terrified of what the experience might bring, these girls cling to Margot for guidance. And very methodically, she turns them out, daring them to either sink or swim. Never in a million years had she thought it possible to let go of Thandi this way. She thought she would always be the ship on which Thandi sails. The buoy that keeps her afloat. But it occurs to her that maybe her sister will only learn how to swim when she, like Margot, is pushed into the deepest parts of the ocean—that she'll be able to manage out of sheer will for survival. Not even Pregnant Heidi's waves will be able to deter her. So Margot leans in and kisses her sister gently on the forehead for what will be the last time. And, very gently, she pushes her toward Alphonso. “Mek me proud.”

40

M
ARGOT WAKES UP IN THE BEACHFRONT VILLA—HER VILLA
—surrounded by damp, rumpled sheets. She sweated through the sheets again, though the overhead fan spins and spins above her king-sized canopy bed with its dark wood frame and its white netting. She cannot remember her dream, not even the tail end of it that still wraps itself around her neck and chokes her. It's the fourth time in a row this week that this has happened. She looks around the large bedroom, where daylight has crept through the shutters, and touches her neck. Earlier she had clawed at hands that were not there. Her skin is raw, bruised.

“Desrine?” she calls after her house girl. But then she remembers that Desrine, entering through the back door from her cottage, doesn't come until eight, which is around the time Margot leaves for work in the black Range Rover parked in the driveway. If Desrine were already here, Margot would have heard the
slap-slap
sounds of her slippers echoing on the marble tiles. All she hears now is the
tap-tap
of raindrops on the windowsill and on the upper veranda that her master bedroom door opens on to. It has been raining for days, as if to make up for last year's drought.

Margot throws off the bedcover, rises up from the sturdy mattress, parts the netting, and moves from the bedroom, padding lightly, as though the marble tiles might crack with her footsteps. She walks from room to room, opening and closing the arched French doors, her long silk robe sweeping the floor behind her, as she searches for . . . what? She doesn't know. Each of the three guest bedrooms, painted the color of the sky—not the gray that it has been these last few days, but blue—are empty, almost austere, like well-dressed strangers. She wraps herself in her robe and makes her way to the sunroom—the only place in her home where she feels like herself. Whatever that means. Each detail took months to perfect—the exposed wooden beams in the arched ceilings, the dark rattan furniture and white cushions, the brightly colored walls that she painted herself, experimenting with hibiscus-pink, Valencia-orange, and sunset-red, before deciding upon clean, clear white.

If Delores could see me now
, she thinks, rubbing her neck where the gashes have turned to welts. Last Margot heard of her mother, Delores moved one parish over to Trelawny with Grandma Merle to be closer to the dock. She heard Delores has lost a lot of weight, her skin sagging on bare bones. It was Maxi who relayed the message. Margot had gone into town to deposit money in the bank—an errand she doesn't trust Desrine with—when she bumped into him. His eyes examined her new clothes, her Italian-leather pumps, her Chanel handbag, the Range Rover keys dangling from her manicured fingers. He nodded his head slowly, though no one asked him anything. “
Tek good care ah yuhself, Margot
,” he eventually said. He spoke more formally—no jokes, no sexual innuendos, and no Rasta-man philosophy. And worse, it sounded final. Like a goodbye. When she turned away to go inside the bank, she almost lost her balance.

Margot sits on one of the wicker sofas in the sunroom and gazes at the panoramic view of the sea. It's a wonder to look at from up here. The view is more beautiful in the sunlight that usually streams in through the glass in enchanted beams. But lately the sky has emptied itself of everything, including stars. Like the ocean, it's deep and brooding, roaring over the city as if God has played a trick on mankind, the sea and sky switching places. It threatens to swallow Margot.

She pictures Verdene on every surface, their bodies pressed together as they listen to the sound of water hitting the glass exterior. Margot imagines them looking out at the lush green of the landscaped garden surrounded by rosebushes, hibiscus, bougainvillea, and manicured hedges. A garden that Verdene would've certainly taken pride in maintaining. Margot had built this room so that they could watch the sunrises and the sunsets together. But she has hired people to populate her property; people whose presence has kept her afloat—Cudjoe, an older man who used to be a farmer but turned yardman after his crops died in the drought, and Desrine. They both show up for work on time in the mornings—Cudjoe tending to the property and Desrine to the house. Though, whenever they are there, the house is still quiet—too quiet: the lull of the ocean, the intermittent billowing of curtains by the breeze. In River Bank she was used to hearing the crowing of roosters. But here, in Lagoons, when she wakes up, there is silence, as though the day has held its breath. Desrine and Cudjoe speak in whispers to each other or make no sound at all after their initial, “
Howdy, Miss Margot.
” It's this frozen formality that sparks an occasional burst of fire inside Margot's chest that makes her snap at them for no reason. “
Desrine, didn't I tell you to stop using that blasted cleaning liquid? It affect my sinus. What yuh want to do? Kill me?
” or “
Cudjoe, what am I paying you for? To sit under dat tree? Don't t'ink ah not watching! There's plenty more people like you in Montego Bay. Half ah dem need a job.
”

This, she hopes, would force them into a conversation, or even a protest. But that never happens. They simply nod in agreement and apologize profusely. “
Sarry, Miss Margot. Sarry. It won't 'appen again.
”

From time to time, strangers enter and leave—people she meets at the new hotel she manages. Most times it's one or two of the girls she hires—the ones more willing to work extra for a bonus. Tired of pining over Verdene, Margot lives from one orgasm to the next, trying to fill her loneliness with other bodies before kicking them out under the awestruck gaze of the night stars. Never mind if Desrine sees them from her cottage in the back. The girl has been trained to see and unsee. To hear and unhear. When Margot hired her, she had hoped for the closeness she once shared with her sister. Desrine is young, with dark velvet skin and a gaze that flutters away quickly like a skittish bird.

The welts on Margot's neck sting as though aggravated by the nightmare. Since the hotel opened last October, tourists have fallen victim to Pregnant Heidi's waves. One woman disappeared when she went for a swim in the deep part of the sea, and a little boy almost drowned when a wave reached for his leg and pulled him under as it receded from the shore. It's costing the hotel millions to install breakwaters and settle lawsuits, which inevitably have forced Alphonso to cut back on other expenses—like salaries.

When the rain finally lets up, Margot makes her way to the other side of the villa, walking through the house. Along the way, she passes the kitchen with the stone countertops, the living room that opens onto the pool terrace. The grass glistens with rain, and the bright green leaves of the mango, palm, and banana trees shudder under the weight of water. There's a small fountain by the pool, where a naked female statue pours water into a base that is shaped like an oyster—an inspiration Margot took from one of Thandi's drawings. She had kept it, though Thandi, like Verdene, has faded from her life as if she were never there. The last Margot heard of her sister, she had moved to Kingston. Maybe she'll make something great of her life, Margot thinks, examining the statue, which was carved to perfection by a young Rasta fellow Margot found on the street. “
Will I be paying for all this water?
” she once asked the landscaper she hired to install the fountain. The man had looked at Margot with his one good eye like she spoke another language. “
Is from di sea, miss. Unless di sea disappear, di wata won't stop pour. Seawata free.
”

As Margot stands on the pool terrace, the sun, which hasn't shown itself in days, makes its way from behind the soft, dove-gray clouds, bright and unflinching. The rectangular pool shimmers before Margot. Everything glitters in the new sunlight, just like Margot had always thought it would. Except for her lone, grainy figure on the water's surface, dark in the face of the sun.

Acknowledgments

It is with great honor that I express my overwhelming gratitude to those who made this book possible—those who provided me with advice, wisdom, encouragement, support, mentorship, instruction, and opportunities. Without you,
Here Comes the Sun
would not have been the book that it has shaped up to be.

Many thanks to my amazing agent and reader, Julie Barer, who believed in this book; my wonderful editor, Katie Henderson Adams, for loving this book and going above and beyond for it; Cordelia, Peter, Philip, Bill, and the entire W. W. Norton/Liveright team; Michael Taekens, for loving the book and opting to work for it; my mentor, Marita Golden, for her unwavering, unmatched support and encouragement from the get-go; David Haynes, for your vision and insight; Janae Galyn Hoffler, for being my dedicated, phenomenal reader; Erica Vital-Lazare and the
Red Rock Review
team, for publishing my very first story; Laura Pegram, Juliet P. Howard, and Ron Kavanaugh, for nurturing me and other writers in search of community and an outlet.

I am grateful for the MacDowell Colony and the Hedgebrook Residency, for providing me with the space and time to write; the Barbara Deming Fund, for the gift that enabled me to create; and Sewanee Writers' Conference, Kimbilio, Lambda Literary, and Hurston/Wright, for providing fellowship.

Special thanks to the staff of Silver Sands Villas in Duncans, Trelawny, especially Tanesha, Kimesha, Miss Claudette, and Tracy-Ann, for your loving support and insight as I wrote this story; and also for the opportunity to be a part of a family. My heartfelt thanks always to the following cast of phenomenal people in alphabetical order: Alistair Scott, Brian Morton, Cheryl Head, Dahlia Campbell, Daniel Townsend, David Hollander, Dennis E. Norris II, Diana P. Miller, Diana Veiga, Dionne Jackson-Miller, Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Donovan Rodriques, Joan Silber, Jessica Deliazard, June Frances Coleman, Karenn Cohen Jordan, Kate Schmier, Kathleen Hill, Keisha Phipps, Krystal Brown, Laura Diamond, Lorraine Correlley, Mary Morris, Melesia Senior, Michael A. Fanteboa, Michelle Y. Talbert, Nancy Diamond, Natalie Wittlin, Nelly Reifler, Patrick Wilson, Rafael Flores, Romaine McNeil, Sadeqa Johnson, Sanderia Faye, Sharon Gordon, Shayaa Muhammad, Sheri-Ann Cowie, Soraya Jean-Louis McElroy, Stephen O'Connor, Timothy Veit Jones, Tracy Chiles McGhee, and ZZ Packer.

Also, I will forever be grateful for Professor Duane Esposito, for you knowing my destiny before me. Tina Whyte, for being the first real writer that I know and who inspired me to write my own stories! Verdene Lee, Ken Glover, and the Wari House girls, for enriching my experience at Cornell University; the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where I wrote many a first draft and buried them; the Sarah Lawrence College MFA Program, for asylum. R. Erica Doyle, OyaBisi Id, Julia Fierro, and the Sackett Street Writers' Workshop, for the courage to venture back into writing; and my Stuyvesant Writing Workshop students for being great teachers. Also, to the greats, Toni Morrison, Paule Marshall, Edwidge Danticat, Zora Neale Hurston, and Marlon James, who gave me permission.

I am grateful to my parents—Sharon Tucker-Gordon and Danville Dennis—who have instilled in me the importance of hard work; and to the rest of my family: Lewis “Louie” Benn, Juliet Jeter, Eugenia “Cooky” Benn, Joe Murray, David Watkins, Carol Horton, and Charles “Turkey” Benn, for your understanding and support.

And of course, my gratitude goes out to my beloved homeland, Jamaica, my muse and home of my grandmother Rowena “Merna” Hunter and my great-grandmother Addy—the woman who gave me the courage and freedom to write and live freely.

Finally, much gratitude to my amazing wife, reader, editor, listener, Emma Benn. Without you and your unconditional love, all this would not have been possible. Thank you so much for your patience and for putting up with me.

Here Comes the Sun
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places,
and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or
dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2016 by Nicole Dennis-Benn

All rights reserved
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