We Rip the World Apart

Evelyn Toronto

Evelyn

Toronto

2004

Evelyn stood at the counter chopping vegetables, adding them to the pot one by one. The onions and garlic, thyme and tarragon had already simmered, filling the room with the scents of her childhood. Hodge-Podge, the one dinner she remembered clearly, her mother’s go-to because you could make it once, have enough to last for days, add to it if necessary.

It wasn’t necessary today, but something had made her think of it, of her mother’s hands, ornamented only by a thin gold band, chopping, rubbing the thyme between her palms, sniffing, handing Evelyn a spoon and asking whether she thought it was “just right.”

Evelyn looked to Kareela on the floor with her legs tucked beneath her, one hand propping her up as the other held a puzzle piece. Her daughter’s brows knitted, just the way Kingsley’s would, as she stared at what Evelyn could clearly see was the eye of an octopus. Kareela looked from the pieces already joined on the floor to the piece in her hand, back and forth, back and forth, until her face lit up and those little, able fingers found the correct spot. She lifted her gaze to Evelyn and smiled before returning her focus to the puzzle.

Evelyn’s hips swayed to a soft beat on the ancient dial radio she kept above the stove, the same one she’d brought in her suitcase from Kingston. The sound of the front door opening and then closing traveled to her ear, followed by Antony’s voice. “Hodge-Podge?”

“You got it!” Evelyn beamed as her son walked into sight, dreads now hanging below his broad shoulders and, despite the difference in their style, looking more and more like Kingsley every day. He was a graduate, at last, only one year late, though he was putting off his law school acceptance to champion the fight against racial injustice—which seemed more muted lately. Meetings. Posters. Presentations at local schools. But no big rally since the one a couple years ago. He came around behind Evelyn, kissed her cheek, then swiped a carrot, crunching loudly at the corner of his mouth.

“What’s up, Doc?” he asked of Kareela, who looked up and giggled, adoration in her eyes. He knelt on the floor beside his sister, analyzing the puzzle, handing her a piece, asking her what she was thinking about the prospect of Grade One, whether she thought her teacher would be super cool or just all right.

“Oh, Ma!” He stood, reached past her to the radio, twisted the dial until the hip-shaking beat filled the room. He spun, swayed back and forth, his teeth showing, then grabbed Evelyn’s hand. She batted him away, laughing. “Ma.” He tilted his head, gave the wily smile he’d been giving since he was Kareela’s age, which Evelyn found impossible to resist.

Evelyn let him pull her to the center of the kitchen and spin her. She laughed again as the moves her friends had taught her over two decades ago, on hot nights, barefoot in the sand or at rec center parties, came back to her. She twirled and dropped it low—or lower, at least.

Kareela popped to her feet, clapped, and jumped, as Antony grabbed her hand, too, then dropped Evelyn’s to focus on his sister. “Like this, KeeKee!” He put his hands on his hips, did a little two-step, swayed. Kareela copied him, giggling all the way. Antony turned back to Evelyn, then grasped her hand and gave her another little spin.

“Dad always said you could dance”—he laughed—“for a white girl. But, Ma, wow!” Evelyn shimmied.

“Now, my ladies, try this.” Antony put his hands to his hips, squatted. “To the right, front, left, back. To the right, front, left, back.”

Evelyn shrugged and put her hands on her hips, then Kareela did, too.

“Smoother, now. Get that chest going. They call this the wine!” The music played on as Evelyn and Kareela mirrored Antony, Kareela’s giggles catching, so they were all laughing now. “We wining, we wining!” called Antony.

Evelyn tried to drop it low and collapsed to the floor.

“Ma! You all right?” Antony turned down the music and crouched to her, a hand extended.

“Yes!” Evelyn laughed and pulled him down beside her. “Just not as flexible as I used to be.”

“So.” Antony’s expression turned serious, though there was a glint in his eye. “You could get low.” He paused, the smile clearly struggling to break through. “At one point in time.”

“I could get low,” said Evelyn, as Kareela plopped in her lap.

“What was it like?” Antony leaned back on his hands. “Living in Jamaica. Meeting Dad. I was born there, and I have no idea.”

“It was wonderful.” A smile tugged at Evelyn’s lips. “Not all of it, of course. But a lot. So much when it related to our own lives. Our inner world.”

“Tell me.”

“Tell you what?” Kingsley stepped into the room, his satchel still slung over his shoulder, his brow lifting high. “And tell me what’s going on here.”

“He’s asking about Jamaica.” Evelyn reached her hand to him, gesturing for him to join them.

“Ah.” To her delight, Kingsley looped off his satchel and sat cross-legged on the floor across from them. “Well, the best part was meeting your mother.” He winked.

“But how was it different?” asked Antony. “How was it the same? Was it a huge culture shock for you, Ma?”

“It was.” As a memory crept over Evelyn, she laughed. “The time I was served chicken feet.”

“They have that at Dulcie’s.”

“Yes. But I’d never had it. I didn’t even know it was something people ate.”

Kingsley leaned back. “That was at Ma’s, wasn’t it?”

“It was.” Kingsley had taken her to the mountains, the farthest she’d ever been from Kingston, to a village where not just some but every eye turned to watch as she walked by, mouths hung open. “Your uncle was there.” Evelyn grinned at Kingsley. “He went and got the chicken, right from the yard.” Kingsley nodded and chuckled. “Chopped its head off, right there in the dirt.”

“What!” Kareela squealed. Her hands flying to her cheeks in shock.

“I know, I know.” With a laugh, Evelyn placed a hand to her throat. “I was scarred!”

“Oh, come on, they weren’t slaying chickens in Juniper Cove?”

“They were.” Evelyn looked to her husband. “But not right in front of me.” She turned to Antony. “So your grandmother, she plucked it right there, on a table in the backyard, under an awning. Talking away.”

“You couldn’t understand half of it.”

“I couldn’t!”

“You can’t understand Granny?” said Kareela.

“Not then. She was speaking full-on patois.”

“Probably to throw you off guard,” said Kingsley. “See how much sticking power you had. She could have toned it down enough for you to understand.”

“Well, she didn’t.” It all came back to Evelyn: Her nerves at meeting this woman who’d given birth to the man she loved. The sweet scent of tropical flowers, ripe guava, and soursop. The sharp tang of blood in the dirt. “And it’s hard to make conversation when you catch maybe two words out of twenty.” The land came back, too, so lush. So vivid. Greenery like she’d never imagined. A sky that went on for miles.

“So dinner is served,” Kingsley continued, “and the guest of honor—”

“Gets the chicken feet.” Evelyn put a hand to her mouth, just as she’d done then, the horror alive at the memory. “I had to try not to heave when I saw them floating in my bowl. I didn’t know about this guest-of-honor thing. But I looked up at your father, and his eyes told me to grin and bear it.”

“So you ate it?” asked Antony.

“I did.” Evelyn shivered at the memory. “And I never have since.”

“Do you like chicken feet, Daddy?”

“I do.” Kingsley leaned forward and grabbed at Kareela’s toes. “Such a delicacy. And little girl feet are even better.”

“No!” Kareela pulled her toes away with a laugh.

Antony leaned to the side. “What else?”

“I don’t know,” said Evelyn. “It’s just so different there. Life moves at a different pace.”

“With the seasons,” said Kingsley.

“Yes.” Evelyn laughed, attempting her best Jamaican accent. “When mango season come, yuh put up pot.”

“What?”

She looked to Antony. “A saying. In mango season, you cook far less. You eat the fruit until your belly aches.”

“They’d rot, otherwise,” said Kingsley.

“Nature provides. And you let it.”

“Did you feel like an outcast? Or like you didn’t belong?”

Evelyn looked to her son, her heart aching as she heard his own experience in his words. “I did. At times. With the Jamaican born. There was such a sense of community, of history. And people were kind, welcoming—so much so—but I was always aware I was a bit on the outside. Not quite one of them.”

He nodded.

“The children loved you,” said Kingsley.

“I was entertainment. Not a day could go by without a child touching my hair, wanting to feel it slide through their fingers.”

“And the women were so scared you’d burn. Cover up, Miss Godfrey. Cover up. ”

“They became family, though.” Evelyn met Kingsley’s gaze. “More than I’d ever experienced before. I didn’t want to leave.” A sharp yearning reared up in Evelyn, for that feeling: Family. Belonging. Acceptance. The sense of being home.

“Why’d you go?”

“Hmm?” Evelyn looked up at Antony.

“To Jamaica. Of all places.”

“Oh.” To get away. She’d been holding off until graduation, biding her time, trying to stay far from her father’s wrath—working as many hours as she could at a local pub or holed up in the library whenever she didn’t have shifts, searching for an escape. “I saw an ad, that the Red Cross was looking for teachers, that the training was only six months for a yearlong teaching position, with the possibility of renewal.”

It lined up well; the training would start two weeks after she got her diploma. Only, in those last days, as she spent time at home figuring out what she could and couldn’t live without, it meant more time around her father. She’d arrived black and blue for her training in Toronto—the makeup barely masking her bruises—and firm in the conviction that the past was simply that, and her real life was about to begin.

“So you just wanted an adventure?”

“I did.” Evelyn smiled, willing away the bad, focusing on the good. “And to help people. To do what I could to make the world just a bit better.”

“And why’d you stay?” asked Antony.

Kingsley laughed. “Do you really have to ask that question?”

“Your father,” said Evelyn. “Of course. But it was more than that. I never felt like I fit in, in my town. Not in the way I wanted to. But in Jamaica”—she looked to the ceiling—“there were people from everywhere. The Red Cross was practically a United Nations, and then the locals. As I said, they were so friendly, and loving. It was like returning to the home I’d always wanted but never known, like, finally, I belonged.”

Antony stared at her—a question in his features.

Kingsley reached for her hand, knowing all the details of her past she didn’t speak: that Jamaica also held the security of knowing her father couldn’t reach her, that he had no idea where she even was, and that for the first time since childhood, she’d felt safe.

“I wish we could go back.” Evelyn looked to Kingsley. “Maybe we could. For a visit, at least. It’d be safe enough now.”

“We should.” Kingsley nodded. “Soon.”

“Please don’t let that just be words,” Antony pleaded. “And when you do, you better take me!”

“Of course.”

“And when we do”—Kingsley’s gaze met Evelyn’s, love so deep in his eyes it made her heart swell—“we’ll dance.” He pulled her up, then turned to Antony. “It wasn’t like you kids today. At clubs. We went to friends’ houses. Rec centers.” He grinned, motioning for Antony to turn up the music. “It was community. It was celebratory.” He winked as the music rose, then stepped away from Evelyn, the way he used to. “It was how I made your mother fall in love.”

Evelyn laughed, waving a hand at him.

Kingsley spread his feet, adopting the slouch Evelyn remembered so clearly. With a smile tickling at the corners of his lips, he held out his hands, snapped, lifted his shoulders, then shuffled and swayed, two-stepping island style, almost as smooth as all those years earlier, and focused his gaze on her, just as he had back then. Antony whooped. Kareela stood, bouncing. “Daddy! Daddy!”

Kingsley extended his arm to Evelyn—“Me lady”—and pulled her close. He drew her in and sent her out, spun around her.

Antony clapped, his grin wide. He pulled his phone out of his pocket, flipped it open, then froze, his expression falling.

Evelyn dropped Kingsley’s hand and straightened. “What? What is it?”