The loud knocking on the
gate woke me up. I looked at the clock, it was half past nine in the morning. I
had fallen asleep in the chair. I looked through the window, it was Reverend
Julian knocking on the gate. Darn it! I said to myself. I hated unannounced
visitors! I don’t know why people believed that they can just show up at your
home anytime they wanted to, especially when rain was falling! If it were anyone
else they would be out there knocking for all eternity! Jeez! I half-opened the
front door and shouted out to him that I would be there in five minutes. I went
and hurriedly brushed my teeth and washed my face. I changed into fresh clothes
and then went outside to put the dogs back in their kennel before opening the
gate to let in the Reverend. “Good morning” he said. I am here because Maud
said she had been calling you all night and even this morning and you were not
answering your cell phone. I also called and I didn’t get any answer either.
She is worried - we were worried - that maybe something was wrong.” I led him to
the verandah for him to have a seat before I responded. I sat down in the chair across from
him and said, “Well as you can see I am fine. As a matter of fact, where is
Maud?” Reverend Julian looked down at his feet before answering. "Maud has
decided to stay a little longer to help Cassie with the children." “What!” I
shouted. “She has forgotten that she has obligations here with me!” “Please
Miss Cecelia, that’s why she was calling you last night." He continued, “Cassie is very sick, she
seems to have picked up what Maud is referring to as ‘baby cold’ and this has
taken a toll on her entire body. She can’t move her limbs and Maud is very
worried. She says you will understand.” “Don’t tell me that Cassie went out in
the rain” I said. “She has enough children to know better than
to allow rain water to wet her!” Reverend Julian said that Maud told him that
Cassie had gone to take the baby clothes off the line because she didn’t want
the rain to wet them and ended up getting soaked by a sudden downpour. I
shook my head, that didn’t sound good at all. I told him that seeing that it
was still the holiday season and I was on vacation from work, Maud could stay
and help her out. I secretly believed that the Reverend came to ask me to allow Cassie and her children to return to the house. I told the Reverend I was going to
pack some things for the children so he should wait a while. I went inside and packed all the
leftover food from Christmas, except the ham, in a box. I also packed a bag
with towels and bed linen. I took up the large bottle of disinfectant that I had
just bought, along with a box of detergent and packed that also. I remembered that I had a bottle of Bay Rum
that could be used to rub down Cassie, if she developed a fever, so I added it to
the box. I sighed, 'baby cold' was a serious thing and not to be taken lightly. I gave the stuff to the Reverend and told him that if they needed anything
else he should let me know. He reluctantly took the things and left. When he
was going through the gate he turned as if he wanted to say something else to me but
decided against it when I shouted out “Bye Reverend Julian!” I laughed to
myself. No way Jose! Not taking back those ‘migrants’ across my border. Once
bitten twice shy! I was hungry so I went to the kitchen and made myself
breakfast which consisted of two boiled eggs, sardines and a cup of coffee. When I finished my
breakfast I went outside to feed the dogs. The callaloo seller was passing by so I
bought two bundles of callaloo from him. I threw a couple stalks of the
callaloo to the fowls and went back inside the house. Maud wasn’t here so I had to strip
the outer membranes from the stalks of callaloo myself, wash the stalks of callaloo, cut them
into small pieces, bag them and put them in the refrigerator. This done I
returned to my room. My cellphone was on the floor, I picked
it up and realized that it needed charging. No wonder I never heard it ringing! The phone was dead! I connected it
to the charger, plugged it in to the electrical outlet and went back to my reading. 
No comments:
Post a Comment