The Rhythm of the August Rain by Gillian Royes Read Free Book Online

She used to come to the Largo Bay Inn—and we love to have her every time.” The bartender started playacting Shannon’s coming into the lobby, burdened with her bags and cameras, looking for her taxi driver.
    â€œAnd Rufus was always late for you, remember?” he said to Shannon.
    â€œLike yesterday.” She laughed. “And I would wait by the lobby bar with you until he came.”
    â€œYou tell me about Canada and how the leaves change colors and what snow feel like on your face.”
    â€œAnd you’d tell me where I should take photographs. Remember that time Rufus and I went looking for this river gorge you’d told us about, and how we got lost for hours? Boy, did I let you have it the next day!”
    They sat at the kitchen table while Miss Bertha went to get the money for the vegetables, and Eve slunk out the door. Shannon asked the names of the children ( four now?) and what they were doing. She and Eve might still be here for the wedding, she added, but she wasn’t sure. It depended on how much work she got done. Although it meant two more mouths to feed, Shad assured her they were invited to the wedding. Eve didn’t look as if she’d eat curry goat, anyway.
    Miss Bertha came back with the money. “The two of you just make yourself comfy. I going to the back to do laundry.”
    â€œTell me what happened to the hotel, Shad,” Shannon said after Miss Bertha had left. “I was looking at it from the verandah and it—it just broke my heart. It was so beautiful. It’s not even part of the mainland anymore, nobody told me that. After the storm hit, I kept trying to call, but I couldn’t get through for weeks. They kept saying the circuits were down. The news on TV was pretty dismal, but I had no idea . . .” She stopped, blinking hard. “When I finally got through to the Delgados, Eric was staying here, and he—he just made light of it, said there was a bit of damage which would take some time to repair, but I wasn’t to worry about it. He never said a word about it becoming an island, and we never discussed it again.
    â€œWell”—she looked away—“we don’t talk much, anyway. But the next thing Jennifer said was that he was opening a bar. I thought—I don’t know what I thought—that the hotel was being repaired, slowly, maybe.”
    Shad started in on the dreary story that he hated to tell but she had to hear. “It was a terrible storm, terrible. When the radio tell us it was coming, Mistah Eric sent the guests to the big hotels in Port Antonio and Ocho Rios, and he told the receptionists and housekeepers to go home. The men stayed and battened down the shutters and put the furniture up on blocks. Then he told me to drive the men home that afternoon and park the Jeep in Mistah Lambert’s garage.”
    â€œWhy didn’t Eric leave?”
    â€œHe say he have to stay in case anything happen. Early next morning, now, the wind start picking up and it was dark, dark. You could hardly see the gate in front of your house it was so dark. Then Albert start to scream—”
    â€œAlbert?”
    â€œThe hurricane—no baby in Jamaica call Albert after that. Anyway, the wind start, a hundred and eighty miles an hour, pure hellfire wind, I telling you. Everything was blowing down, shutters tearing off, branches breaking, dog and cat flying through the air. The roof come right off the house next door to me, but my house was good. I just finish putting on a new roof with the last of the money Granny leave me, so Beth, me, and the children was fine. But the village, Lord, help us, the village look terrible when we come out after it was over, almost nighttime then. Every blade of grass gone, every house near the beach get flood out.”
    Shannon’s eyes opened wide. “Did anyone die?”
    â€œTwo people dead—Miss Queenie grandbaby when a tree fall on her house,