Land of Love and Drowning: A Novel by Tiphanie Yanique Read Free Book Online Page B

Though Antoinette dabbed her breasts with a soothing salve, her nipples still cracked and bled. So raw, they looked like the inside of a snapper fish. Antoinette, determined as ever, thrust the nipple into the child’s mouth and they cried together.
    It might be said that Anette clamped on because she knew her motherwould go. She didn’t even get a chance to hold on to her father. Owen Arthur didn’t even leave Anette anything when he left. Not even a piece of land. That was what every island man knew he should leave. For in the beginning there is the water but in the end there is only the dirt. Owen left his wife and children nothing but the sea.

12.
EEONA
    It was I who corrected Anette’s English, for even as a child she spoke like a Frenchy. It is true that my hair was dark and thick and full of vinelike curls, but it was I who tamed her picky hair with the burning hot comb. I was a well-bred girl. I did not have to go to Puerto Rico for finishing school, as Mama had to when she married Papa.
    After Anette was born, there was an entire week where it was only Papa and I at the dining table. He passed me each dish. He conversed about his business with me. He openly expressed his troubles with the ship itself, which was aging, and with the shipping, which was tedious and lacking in decent profit. I sipped from his glass of prohibited rum. I was the mistress of Villa by the Sea those days. Papa smiled and said that I had a head for running things and that I would make a fine madame.
    Even after Mama was recovered, it was I whom Papa escorted down Main Street during holidays and holy days. Mama stayed home with baby Anette and pretended she did not care. I wore the gloves Mama made for me and I would proffer my gloved hand, as many mouths trembled and leaked saliva when they kissed it. Little girls would follow me, caressing the skirt of my frocks, hoping that touching even my clothing wouldgrant them any bit of my beauty. I believe Mama was greatly bothered by this all.
    Mama and baby Anette joined Papa and me for the Anglican church service. Still, I stood beside Papa. He always kept a handkerchief ready to wipe away the sweaty embraces of the other parishioners who rushed to give me fellowship before the organ quieted. Papa cared for me in this and many ways. Even the altar boys shook the bells and lifted the host to the bishop’s mouth with a grace I knew was for me alone. These appeals were in vain, for I belonged only to my father.
    Baby Anette was no beauty. She burnt with fever regularly, as if she knew this was the means to smuggle Mama’s attention. Now Anette is a history teacher and studies the past, but perhaps then she knew the future. Perhaps she knew Mama would leave us. Either way, Anette became Mama’s new doll. This left Papa and me to ourselves. Only now, I was a young woman.
    After the sun set, Papa would teach me the waltz and the seven step on the balcony. Linen curtains separated the balcony from the house and also shielded the balcony from the elements. They billowed in and out with the sea breeze. “Yes, my lovely. One, two, three, four, five, and six and seven. One and two and three. Good!” I would wear Mama’s housedress and feel it was a ball gown. Papa would swing me about on his toes and then shuffle side to side. He held his hand high and stiff, clutching me like a Frenchy man clutches his old-shoe wife. After all, though we were supposedly not Frenchy, we did live in Frenchtown. We danced on the balcony overlooking the harbour, where
The
Homecoming
lay awaiting Papa’s command. We swam in the sea, nude as the Lord made us. The ship a large shield from prying eyes. I would imagine that it was only we alone in this family. No Mama, no baby sister. I knew this imagining was vile, but I could not help myself. My mind wandered and plotted.
    “I love you, Papa.”
    “I love you, my own.”
    By breakfast it was a hushed rendezvous that we kept from Mama. I knew the stories. Miss Lady, who