The night sky was awash with beautiful explosions of art. Our rental cabin, nestled on the side of a mountain, gave us an amazing view of the display. They came one after another, a myriad of colours dazzling our senses, evoking excitement. I sat at a table in the corner of the balcony, sipping red Moscato, my crossed legs propped up on the rattan furniture, a band-aid covering the gash just above my ankle. I was enjoying the show in the sky, while observing my husband adore his six-year-old daughter, Vicki. We could hear the crackling sounds the pyrotechnics made as they were released into the atmosphere, some twirling as they soared, some shooting straight until they erupted into thousands of shimmering fragments. With every climax, came a loud boom that ricocheted across the mountain, creating a sound like thunder. The crowd oohed and aahed as the residue floated down in a shower of glitter. If there were fewer trees, we probably would have seen the crowd from our balcony. The locals were celebrating a feast and we were celebrating our 10th anniversary of wedded twists and turns.
Vicki was chattering and clapping her dainty little hands. “Here’s a big one with colours!” She had a slight lisp that made her even more adorable. She covered her ears in anticipation of the boom.
Victor’s eyes danced and his lips curled as he recorded her. “The sounds are caused by the chemicals used to create the fireworks,” he explained.
“Ohhhh!”
Victor was a tall, dark man, pleasing to many women’s eyes. These days he spotted a goatee interspersed with a few strands of grey. His haircut was different too – a fade he called it, with some curly hair at the top – a youthful look that made him more attractive. There was a small scar in the middle of his forehead, recently sewn, just like my cut.
Vicki broke out in a little dance as more colours rained from the sky. Her ginger hair, thick and untamed, seemed to have a dance of its own as her body moved. It was unwashed from the sea water earlier and I was sure there was sand in those long coils. Vicki had her mother’s features – the way her hair framed her sparsely freckled face, the dimpled smile and the mesmerizing hazel eyes that changed with the light. The mother and daughter were beautiful in ways that I would never be. It wasn’t that I considered myself unattractive. I loved my honey-coloured skin, my large eyes and my kinky hair. But they had an exotic look, one not common in Caribbean people. Whenever we took Vicki out people swooned over her. I couldn’t imagine the attention the mother and daughter got when they were together.
I continued to sip my wine, nodding when I needed to and speaking when I was spoken to. I simultaneously loved and disliked the child. She was feisty, yet loving. She spent every other weekend with Victor, and on the rare weekends I was off, we did things together. She liked it when I took her to the beach because I allowed her to stay in the water for a long time. I would take her out on our big colourful tube, and she’d have a panoramic view of our island’s rugged, mountainous landscape. I taught her how to swim, to float, to hold her breath and dive for sand.
Usually, I was okay with Vicki, and I tried to accept her on this trip with us. She was innocent really, not to be blamed for adult indiscretions. But she was taking my husband’s attention and time from me, just like Nina had done. Her presence on this occasion was a painful reminder of his infidelity. And my childlessness.
I’d found out about Victor’s affair with Nina the same time I found out she was pregnant.
Endometriosis had made it difficult for me to conceive and when I finally did my pregnancy was high-risk. Besides my enlarged breasts and constant nausea, there were no outward signs that I was expecting. I was looking forward to getting through the first trimester. I was looking forward to finally being a mother. I spent hours talking to my baby, imagining what he/she would look like. Victor and I were both excited – we had discussed having a baby long before we had gotten married. Since college.
Ten weeks into my pregnancy, the constant nausea that had plagued me from the beginning was starting to subside. Adrianne, my identical twin sister, gave me a voucher for a spa she swore by, because she felt I could do with a little pampering. It felt good being able to luxuriate at the spa and feel a little bit of normalcy. The pedicure room was my final stop. There, three of Adrianne’s friends, whom I knew only by face, were discussing cheating husbands.
One said, “Girl, I don’t know how your sister puts up with her husband. I heard she can’t have children, and the other woman is expecting. Poor thing.”
Before I could answer, another woman added, “She’s a nurse, right?”
I had one sister. She wasn’t married. She wasn’t a nurse. They were talking about me, thinking I was Adrianne.
It wasn’t that I had not suspected Victor was up to something, it was just that I had no proof of anything. I had no why. No how. No when. No whom. I must have looked a pitiful sight hurrying out of that salon, with five toenails painted, five unpainted. I couldn’t reach Victor on his phone so I drove to his workplace. We owned a small maritime brokerage business. My labour, sweat and blood had gone into creating that company and we had struggled for years before the profits recently started trickling in. I parked on a ‘keep clear’ spot and hurried inside. The secretary insisted that she didn’t know where Victor was. I yelled at her, “You know damn well he’s with that bitch!” I stormed out of the building and with trembling hands called my sister, demanding she tell me what she knew.
“Try to calm down, Ary. I was only trying to protect you and the baby.”
She wanted to come pick me up. I shouldn’t drive, she said. I did anyway. It was a beautiful, sunny day but my heart was dark. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I drove through town looking for Victor’s truck. When I didn’t see him I went home, pounding the steering wheel as I drove, and leaving him obscene voice notes. I gathered his best clothes and dumped them in a clearing in our back yard. I retrieved the kerosene from the tool shed and doused them. One match was enough to set the blaze. I watched the flames engulf the fabric and lick the leaves of the far-reaching branches of the guava tree. The leaves blackened and curled, as did the clothes.
He found me in the backyard near the roaring flames, a river of sweat running down my body. His secretary must have told him I was looking for him. Seeing him, my heart shattered again and I lunged at him trying to push him into the fire.
“Burn!” I yelled. “You deserve to fucking burn!” Exhausted from weeping, my body couldn’t match his strength. I crumbled in a heap of tears. And blood. I had not considered that the clothes would have been too heavy to carry, or the emotional experience would have been so detrimental. The happiest time of my life and my marriage – being pregnant – had been snatched away.
I worked at the island’s main hospital and that’s where I was admitted. After I was released, depressed and embarrassed, I moved in with Adrianne for a little while. Being a lawyer, she was ready to draw up divorce papers, but I wasn’t ready. Her sons were two and three years old and seeing them so alive and happy reminded me of my loss. I wanted to die too. I felt like everything Victor and I had built together was a lie. He had hurt me in the worst possible way, all while a life was growing inside me – a life we had created together. He begged for my forgiveness. He loved me, not her, he said. In retrospect, he was probably feeling guilty because he knew how much the baby meant to me. I moved back to our house after a few weeks of listening to his pleas, thinking it would be worthwhile to give him a second chance. After all, he was the love of my heart.
*
The fireworks display passed its peak and Vicki’s excitement was waning. I emptied my glass quicker than I intended and reached for the bottle on the table to refill. It was empty. In my peripheral view I saw Victor’s look of disapproval but I didn’t care. The other night he told me I was setting a bad example for his daughter, drinking so much wine. I told him my drinking couldn’t compare to her mother’s audacity to procreate with a married man.
I limped past Victor and Vicki and went inside through the bi-folding wood door. The cabin was made entirely of dark wood. Inside was an open floor plan comprising the living area and kitchenette. The bi-folding door allowed the living area and the balcony to flow into each other, creating an illusion of a wider space. A textured wood panel separated the living area from the bedroom, and on it hung a large captivating canvas print of The Pitons. I found myself admiring the work so many times as I did now. The Pitons reminded me of our very own mountains in Dominica. Victor and I had explored some together when we were younger. We probably visited all the natural wonders of Dominica – lakes, sulphur springs, and so many waterfalls. We would leave home at dawn, packed with water and light food. Sometimes Adrianne or other friends tagged along and we ended the day with a picnic by a beach or a river. I felt a pang of nostalgia for those lost days, before careers, before mortgage, before Nina, before Vicki.
From the first night of our getaway, the child slept in our bed. The bedroom was large. The furniture, including a queen size four poster bed, was dark wood. Even the en-suite bathroom had this rustic feel. Vicki was a bad sleeper, I was a light sleeper, and Victor taking up so much space caused some discomfort. I found myself on the couch, a large brown three-seater. The airbed I had requested for Vicki, and paid extra for, was still folded in its newness, at the bottom of the closet.
I found out Vicki was coming a few days before we left. It was on one of those rare occasions that I was driving Victor. I’d just worked a double shift and picked him up from taking his car to the mechanic’s shop. It had rained nonstop for two days and I was agitated about the grey ugly skies. In Dominica, too much rain means oversaturation of soil which causes mudslides and chaos.
“Fucked up weather,” he greeted me.
“Well hello to you too.”
“Those double shifts are more frequent these days.”
“More nurses joined the strike.” They were demonstrating for increase in salaries and better working conditions.
“Yeah. But you have to think about your studies instead of covering for people.” I knew what he was getting at. I had to retake a course I had failed due to my unavailability. I was working towards my Master of Science in Midwifery and he was funding that endeavour. Funny how life could turn sideways. I was the one who had delayed my career to get him on his feet. I was the one who had encouraged him to start the business and had taken loans to keep things going.
I sighed. “I’m on it, Victor. I’m really looking forward to this respite in St. Lucia.”
I found myself hugging the steering wheel, peering through the windshield as the wipers could not swish swash quickly enough for the torrents. The road to our community was along a mountainside with a river rushing below.
I heard my husband sigh. “Everything ok?” I asked him.
“Yeah.”
I glanced at him sideways and quickly looked at the road. He sighed again and passed his hand over his face, lingering on the goatee. I felt my heart quicken as I braced myself for him to unload whatever was on his mind. He cleared his throat. “The thing is Nina is scheduled for surgery so Vicki has to come with us.”
I tightened my grip on the steering wheel. It wasn’t a question. It was a statement as if he was the only person in the marriage, the only person going on the trip. He continued talking – something about Nina’s eyes and her inability to take care of Vicki when she would be discharged from the hospital. I think it was at that point he said his mother was unable to care for Vicki and he wasn’t about to beg people to mind his daughter when he was perfectly capable of doing so. The pounding in my chest was too loud to properly hear him, even drowning out the sounds of the rain and the wipers. The corners were coming fast and I felt my chest about to explode. The car was floating around the corners, sailing up and down the hills. The river was swollen and brown. Oncoming vehicles swerved. I heard Victor say my name a few times. I wanted to hurt him. I would set him on fire. And Nina too. He kept asking me to slow down. Slow down. I took the sharp turn to our lane and was jolted when the vehicle slammed into a large mango tree on the lawn lining our driveway.
After the hours we spent in the emergency room tending to cuts and bruises, after the shouts, tears and silences, after the apologies and promises, I pleaded with my husband to leave Vicki with her aunt or grandmother. He didn’t relent. I wanted to cancel but we had already paid the deposit on the cabin and airline tickets were in our e-mails.
*
The cheering of the crowd pulled me back and I stepped away from The Pitons, into the kitchenette. While pouring my drink I realized the booming sounds had ceased. I didn’t go back to the balcony, instead, I curled up on my couch. I was thinking about the reservation I’d made for the night at Jade Mountain Club months in advance because of its newness and exclusivity. I thought about the money I’d spent on a dress that I didn’t bother to unpack. Victor and I used to enjoy dining at new restaurants. I was looking forward to going to the Jade Mountain Club. In the images I saw online, the place looked absolutely fabulous, with The Pitons in the background.
Through the open door, voices from the street reached my ears. The crowd was dispersing, the fireworks display having ended. I could hear Vicki asking her father about her mother. I tried not to listen to them but I couldn’t tune them out. She wanted to see her ‘now!’ She was probably pouting her lips too. And folding her thin arms. So much sass.
“Let’s video call her,” Victor said.
She must have said yes because soon after I heard my husband speaking in a tone that caused my heart to twist and flip. A tone that used to be reserved for me. He was asking Vicki’s mother if his brother had brought her the coconut water and if the nurses were treating her alright. I heard her voice and my heart rate quickened. A loving tone. A fucking loving tone. I placed my wine glass on the wooden surface of the coffee table, not trusting my trembling hands. Part of me wanted to go to the bedroom to avoid hearing their conversation, and part of me wanted to confront him. Did he forget I was just inside? I got up from the couch and went to lean on the varnished doorframe. Vicki was on the phone now, animated about the fireworks and the fun she had at the beach earlier. On the screen, the woman was propped up on pillows with a patch over one eye. I folded my arms and gave Victor the hard stare. He opened his hands and raised his eyebrows as if to ask “What?”
Later that night after Vicki had fallen asleep, he chided me for behaving like ‘that.’ We were sitting on the couch, I was on one end and he was on the other. His eyes were glued to the television, catching up on a cricket match. He still maintained his athletic physique, something I loathed and liked. He was constantly at me to keep in shape and admonished me when I fell off the wagon. It wasn’t easy to shed the pounds the way my body did when I was in my twenties and early thirties. I was by no means overweight, but I couldn’t be classified as slim. People always complimented me on my pear shape, but Victor no longer did, although he never expressed dissatisfaction with it. The hourglass had never been me. Nina was the hourglass, even after she had Vicki. In that moment, I resented the chest and biceps bulging under his grey “Best Daddy Ever” t-shirt that Vicki had given him last Christmas. Of course, I disliked that shirt. Vicki didn’t buy it herself. I said to my husband, “I’m concerned about the way you’re speaking with Nina.”
I was imagining things, he said or maybe I had too much to drink. Vicki needed to speak with her mother.
“What about my needs?”
“Aryanne, come on.” He glanced at me and looked back at the television.
Did he expect me to put my feelings aside because the bitch he impregnated six years ago was still causing me stress? Was I was supposed to give a fuck that she was in the hospital when I should be celebrating? My chest was tightening up. This man was my first and only love and his affair was never far from my mind. He knew how much this trip meant to me. I inhaled deeply and released slowly.
“Victor. We’ve been planning this trip for a whole year. You knew the surgery was coming up yet you put nothing in place.”
He kept his eyes on the television, while my heart accelerated. This was our fifth day. Five more to go. And the shadow of the child’s mother hovered, hovered, hovered.
I sucked my teeth. Loud. “I feel like I’ve wasted time and money.”
He looked at me for a little while. Not long enough to see my eyes glistening. His eyes shifted to the replay of the cricket match. He already knew the West Indies team had lost, yet he was still interested in the game. The patrons at the stadium were drinking and cheering, enjoying the soca music blaring from the sound system.
“I’m disappointed in you, Aryanne. At a time when you should show Vicki empathy and love, you’re thinking about money. Her mother cannot take care of her now. She needs me.”
“Me too,” I blurted. He shook his head as if I was being unreasonable. “I was hoping this vacation would be more about us.”
Victor finally turned to look at me. He sighed, exasperated. “I told you we can celebrate another time. But you insist on wanting everything to be all about you. You’re saying I should abandon my only child for ten whole days, to come all the way to St. Lucia, while she is distraught about her mother? Who behaves like this Aryanne?”
His only child. His only fucking child. Every time I heard these words I felt like he was twisting my heart. Squeezing it and forcing everything out of it. I tried to swallow the lump that was forming in my throat. “You know how difficult it is for nurses to get time off Victor. And on the rare weekend we’re both free it’s all about Vicki.”
He gave me the side-eye look and went back to watching T.V.
“Well forgive me for wanting to spend time with my husband,” I said as I stood.
“Ary, come on.”
I went to the bathroom and locked the door before the tears fell. I sat on the beige, fluffy cover of the toilet’s lid, and ignored his knocking. When the knocking stopped, I closed my eyes and listened to the insects calling to each other, probably proclaiming their love, probably to satisfy their innate desires. I thought of my own state of deprivation and my mind went back to the loving tones I’d heard earlier. Not for the first time, I wondered about Victor’s relationship with Nina. Why did his brother have to bring her coconut water? Why did they speak like they were making love? I had woken in the night and seen the light of his phone. I had seen his smile.
Victor’s affair had made it hard for me to trust him. After Vicki’s birth we went to counseling. He courted me again, doing his best to reassure me of his love and commitment. We explored our island together. It was just like when we were dating. Two years after Vicki’s birth we renewed our vows on a Caribbean Cruise and tried building back our relationship to what it used to be. Over time, I welcomed the child into our lives and convinced myself that his affair was over, just as we had agreed. As the years passed, and I got used to the idea of Vicki, our romanticism ebbed and resurfaced occasionally.
Throughout the years I observed Victor and Nina’s interaction and hadn’t suspected anything romantic. I had spoken to Nina a few times when I had to. There were those birthday parties for Vicki, her dance recital, the times when I brought her home. But lately, I noticed the well-made bed when I got home in the morning from my night shift. I noticed how closely he guarded his phone. I noticed how seldom we made love. I was too ashamed to tell Adrianne, who had never been convinced their relationship was over.
I must have dozed off because a knock at the door startled me. “Aunt Ary, I need to use the bathroom. You in there a long time.” She stretched out the word long.
I went into the living room after tucking Vicki into bed. Victor was snoring lightly and I felt a pang because I missed the love I used to feel from him. Part of me wanted him to touch me. To pull me in his arms and reclaim me. Only once had we been intimate on this trip. It was the day I had taken Vicki for pizza, the day she told me her daddy’s toothbrush at their house matched hers and her mommy’s. She thought I should get one too. That night, it rained. After Vicki had fallen asleep he came into the living room and touched me in ways I had longed for. I welcomed him into my body and told him how much I missed us, but I couldn’t keep my mind off the toothbrush. My body divulged my feelings. He sensed my hesitation and mistook it for anxiousness. The baby will come, he whispered. Relax. Just relax.
I shook him awake and he shuffled into the bedroom after mumbling goodnight. None of us acknowledged the tension. I stayed up late watching erotic movies and drove myself wild with longing until my fingers succumbed to my primordial instincts.
Before sunlight filtered through the slatted windows, I rose from a restless sleep and packed a small suitcase. My head was throbbing. Probably from the wine or lack of sleep. Or probably from heartbreak. I called the taxi that had brought us here and arranged for pick up in one hour to take me to a small hotel in Castries. I wrote my husband a note, saying I would be back in the afternoon. He and Vicki were still asleep when I left. I looked at him sleeping so peacefully, while my mind was in such turmoil. My heart ached for what we had.
The driver was on time, a greying little man who looked about sixty. He wove his way carefully down the hill. The similarity between this island and mine always amazed me – hills and valleys, rivers and mountains – so much natural beauty and lush greenery. The trees danced in the breeze as the earth warmed up. The sky was clear. It would be a beautiful day and I wished we wouldn’t stop driving. We arrived at the hotel in about fifteen minutes. The crisp air chilled my bare arms when I exited the vehicle. Check in was at seven o’clock, the security guard informed us, the receptionist would arrive soon. The taxi driver waited with me and the three of us discussed our governments and islands.
*
My room was modest. The walls were painted beige, the double bed covered in a floral duvet. I placed my luggage in the closet and went to check the bathroom; no tub but the shower would do. There was a sliding door leading to a balcony. I unlocked it and stepped onto a small unfurnished space. I could hear the waves tumbling rhythmically onto the shore, but I couldn’t see them. My room overlooked a beautiful garden with a fountain in the middle. In the room, I had a choice of air conditioning or a ceiling fan. I turned on the fan, stripped to my bare minimum and sunk into the comfort of the bed. Thoughts about the chance I had, and lost, at motherhood tormented me. I was almost forty with a reproductive condition. What time would I have to meet someone new and have a baby? I only wanted Victor’s baby, but did he want mine? Did he want this marriage? Tears spilled tears down my cheeks.
I must have cried myself to sleep. I woke seven hours later to sixty-two missed calls and messages that went from concern to anger to placation. I thought of going back to the cabin but I preferred to be lonely by myself than to be lonely with Victor. It crossed my mind to ignore his calls and messages. After typing and deleting my thoughts several times, I called him. “The sleeping arrangement was taking a toll on me,” I said. “I needed space to rest and think.” He didn’t understand why I needed to go to another hotel for that; I could’ve just told him so, and he’d take Vicki somewhere for a few hours, or he would’ve slept on the air bed. But these solutions wouldn’t take away the bitterness I felt. It wouldn’t change the fact that even from a hospital bed, over a hundred miles away, Nina affected our marriage.
I decided to spend the night at the hotel and ordered a late dinner. While picking at the food in my room Victor called. They were missing me he said.
“You hardly looked at me,” I hissed. “I didn’t expect you to miss me.”
He sighed. “Ary, I’ve not given you the attention you deserve and I am sorry.”
My heart lurched. I switched the call to video. He was on my couch wearing a white t-shirt and a frown. He was so fucking gorgeous. I pushed the thought away.
He said, “I know this trip is not turning out how we planned but I need you to understand that I couldn’t leave Vicki.”
“You couldn’t leave Vicki because you had to prove to Nina that I don’t matter.”
“That’s not true.”
“Then tell me what’s true. What’s going on between you and Nina?”
The seconds ticked away in silence. I watched his mouth open and close. I watched him pass his hand over his face. I watched his fingers linger on his goatee. I watched him sigh before his eyes misted. My chest tightened.
“This is fucking happening,” I wasn’t sure if I said this aloud. “Am I not good enough for you Victor?” My voice trembled. I tried to swallow the lump in my throat as salt water tumbled down my face.
There was no denial from him.
It was a blow, the way he accepted my resignation, the way he didn’t fight to save us. Wasn’t I accomplished enough? Attractive enough? Womanly enough? Worthy of commitment? What was missing in me?
That night I exhausted myself from walking the perimeter of the hotel, sobbing and plotting ways to hurt my husband and his lover, then thinking of ways to win back his affection.
I called Adrianne. As soon as she heard a croak instead of words, she knew. “I’m going to burn them both,” I told her.
“You’ll have your satisfaction in court, Ary.”
The next day I headed back home. I declined Victor’s calls. I ignored his declarations of love and apologies. I’d given him too much.
Adrianne met me at the airport and wrapped me into her heart. It’ll be fine,” she assured me. “Let’s go clear that house.”
As she navigated the rugged terrain, I cried because every mountain, every river, every village evoked memories of Victor. At the house, overcome with heartache I crumpled to the floor and howled as if someone had died. “I can’t live without him!”
“You can,” Adrianne comforted me. “You deserve so much better.”
My sister tried to convince me to leave but it took me seven years and another child to muster the will to walk away from a world I’d spent more than half of my life building.