I woke up with the intention of taking Conroy to spend the day with me at the Hope Zoo so I went into the kitchen to prepare some sandwiches to take with us. What seemed strange to me, however, was that there was no sound coming from the yard outside. I wondered why it was so quiet as normally Maud would be up washing or hanging out clothes to dry on the line, singing at the top of her lungs and the dogs would be up and about chasing the stray cats that every now and then would come into the yard. I peeped
out the window and saw Rex and Brutus sleeping. Maybe Maud was sleeping in because she had Conroy I thought to myself. Anyway, after I finished making the sandwiches I took a plastic gallon bottle of pineapple juice from the pantry, wrapped it in some folds of wet paper towels and placed it in the freezer. By the time I was ready to go to the zoo the pineapple juice would be nice and cold. I then went to get ready. As I looked at myself in the mirror I had to smile, I wasn’t looking too bad for an ‘old’ girl. I laughed as I remembered the lyrics from Champion, “What a piece of body gal tell me where you get it from!” I just hope I didn’t run into anyone from church, because next thing you would hear that someone saw Sister Cecelia wearing tight jeans! I still did not hear any movements outside so I decided to go and wake up Maud, because it was almost twelve o’ clock! When I reached Maud’s door there was a note pinned to it. The note read,
Dear Miss Cecelia,
I did not want to wake you up so early. I forgot that I had promised my friend to go with him to the Hellshire Beach this morning. I have taken Conroy with me. See you later.
Maud
I was mad! How dare she leave the yard with Conroy without checking with me first! Talking nonsense about not wanting to wake me up so early! How could she take him to a beach knowing what had happened to his mother and siblings! I went back inside and called her cell number but the call went straight to voicemail. After trying three more times I left a terse message for her. Hours passed and my calls were not returned. I tried to call her again and like before, the call went straight to voicemail. I left her another message. I was fuming! Conroy was my nephew not hers! I going to give it to her when she came home! Still fuming I looked around my room and saw the last set of Charmaine's diaries that Reverend Julian had found and decided that I might as well read seeing that my plans for the day were cancelled because of Maud. Reverend Julian had put the diaries together in the order of the year they were written. Seeing that there were only twelve of them I was assuming that this meant that Charmaine had continued writing from she was eighteen years old until she was twenty-eight years old. I removed the red ribbon from the first diary and realised that this one was written when Charmaine was twenty-one years old and she was married! My first thought was that maybe Reverend Julian had not put them in the right order or had misplaced Charmaine’s diaries for the missing three years but after checking them I saw that they were indeed in the right order and, after scanning through the first couple of sentences in the first diary I realised that nothing was missing. Charmaine had stopped writing in her diaries not long after her eighteenth birthday. I was just settling down to read the reason why when I heard a car stop at my gate. I glanced at the clock, it was six o' clock! Hearing laughter I put down the diary and went outside onto the verandah. It was Maud, with a sleeping Conroy in her arms and a silly smile on her face. I waited until her ‘friend’ drove off before I confronted her. I marched up to her and without saying a word I took Conroy from her and marched straight back inside the house. I took Conroy into my bedroom and laid him on the bed. Still sleeping, he did not make a sound, tired from his day at the beach. I came out of the room and closed the door. I noticed Maud hovering out on the verandah so I went out to her. She had obviously just listened to the messages that I had left on her voicemail and realised that I was angry with her. “I am so sorry Miss Cecelia but the phone battery died which was why I didn't return your calls. I am so sorry that I messed up the plans that you had for you and Conroy today but I didn’t want to wake you up and my friend said it was okay to take him with me.” she said. “What!” I exclaimed before lowering my voice because I did not want to wake up Conroy. “How dare you and your friend decide what’s best for Conroy! How dare you take him to the beach of all places, knowing as you do what happened to his mother and siblings! How dare you put him through this trauma!” Wringing her hands she kept saying she was sorry and she never thought about it until she arrived at Hellshire Beach. I looked at her incredulously. When they arrived at the beach, she said, Conroy ran towards the water and said that he was going to go to Cassie and ask her for his baby sister. They had to run after him and take him out of the water. I was shocked when she said that! Conroy was kicking and screaming, she said, when they took him out of the water, and he kept saying he wanted to go to his mother. I was about to say something further when she asked me to let her finish speaking. She continued to say that after a while he calmed down and began playing in the sand and it was as if what had transpired before never happened. I asked her if she realised how much she had damaged him by taking him to the beach and putting him through all that trauma, only for her to say that her friend told her that it was best that Conroy faced any fear he had of the sea while he was still young! I was livid when she said that. “So everyone is a Child Psychologist now! Everyone thinks they know what is best for Conroy” I exclaimed. “Well listen me carefully Miss Maud, Conroy is my nephew and I will decide when the time is right for him to face his fears!” I thought I heard Conroy whimpering and was about to go into the house when Maud blurted out, “It's not your nephew alone Miss Cecelia! It's my nephew too!” I spun around and held on to the recliner, oh no, I told myself, there’ll be no more fainting. “What did you just say?” I asked her. “Conroy is my nephew too.” she said calmly.
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