Black Cake(25)

And it was his father who had shown Byron what a man could look like once he had accomplished all of that. Byron’s parents were exceptional people. He doesn’t think he’ll ever feel as bold as his mother was or as secure in his actions as his father.

Now they’re interviewing other distance swimmers, including Etta Pringle, the grande dame of them all, the black woman who’s done all the most famous crossings. Byron knows they should get back to listening to his mother’s recording, but Etta Pringle has an accent just like his mother’s. Very British-sounding kind of West Indian. Old-school. Last winter, when his mother’s leg was broken after that so-called accident of hers, Byron took her to see Pringle speak at the convention center.

“Distance swimming is like a lot of things in life,” Pringle told the audience that day. “There is no substitute for preparation, for training, for putting in the miles to build strength and endurance. But none of these elements really matter if you’re not in the right frame of mind.”

The marathon swimmer tapped the side of her head with a finger, then nodded as she looked around the room. She stopped and squinted when she saw Byron’s mother. Yep, island people. They can spot each other a mile away. Satisfied that his mother was properly settled in, Byron slipped outside to take a work call. One thing led to another and by the time he was done, he’d missed the talk entirely.

When Byron walked back into the auditorium, he saw the speaker hugging his mother, laughing with her, then being ushered out of another exit at the far end of the hall by a small cadre of assistants. Only his mother and a few other stragglers remained in the lobby. She was stabbing at the floor with her crutches, moving quickly toward him.

“Was it good?” Byron asked.

“It was good,” his mother said, her face pulled wide by a smile.

“What did she say?”

“She was happy that I’d come to the event.”

Byron chuckled. “No, Ma, I meant, what did Etta Pringle say about the swimming? What did she say was the right frame of mind?”

“She said that you had to love the sea more than you feared it. You had to love the swimming so much that you would do anything to keep on going.” His mother looked out the car window. “Just like life, you know?”

Byron is thinking, now, of the girls in his mother’s audio recording. The swimmers. How, exactly, did Ma come to know them? What happened to them? And what was so terrible about those times that she had to wait until the very end of her life to tell her children the truth?





Before Covey’s mother disappeared, she and Pearl had amassed a long list of clients. Pearl’s black cake was widely acknowledged to be the best in town, though it riled some people to admit it. As far as they were concerned, Pearl was too uppity for a domestic with skin as black as hers. Pearl had a perfect partner in Covey’s mother, who could make icing flowers that were second to none. Again, some of the ladies from the town’s upper crust felt awkward about this. Covey’s mother had shown poor judgment by having a child with that Chinaman.

Covey had heard people saying these things because no one ever thought young children had ears. The teachers in the corridor at school. The shoppers at the market by the carrots and potatoes. She’d heard them say that Mathilda Brown was so beautiful to look at that she could have married up. At the very least, she could have done better than Johnny “Lin” Lyncook. That man was always off at the cockfights and they knew no good could come of it. It was a mystery to them how he remained so popular among some of the more decent fellows around town.

Still, there were more important considerations, such as the satisfaction of having a black cake worthy of applause wheeled into the reception hall at your daughter’s wedding lunch. A cake that would be discussed for years to come. Covey’s mother could turn sugar into delicately colored periwinkle blooms or, for the more daring brides, hibiscus flowers and orchids in bright reds, deep purples, and golden yellows. And Pearl could make a person close their eyes at merely the thought of her cakes.

Mathilda and Pearl pocketed and divided up their cake profits and gained a few well-placed admirers in the process, women with the right surnames and enough funds to get things done. Some of whom, over time, had come to understand the misfortunes that could befall a woman with fewer material resources.

One day, those alliances would come to bear fruit and change the course of Covey’s life. But until then, Covey had no idea that her mummy would leave the island with the help of a former customer. She did not know that Pearl would remain in her father’s employ, in part, to keep an eye on her. Covey was too young to understand what it meant to be a mother, what it must have taken for Mathilda to leave. She only knew that black cake meant sisterhood and a kitchen full of laughter.





Covey





In the spring of 1965, Covey’s life veered onto the path that would eventually connect her to Eleanor Bennett. The kitchen floor was littered with tamarind pods that day. They crackled underfoot as her father approached.

“Mmm, tamarind balls,” her pa said, reaching into the bowl and pinching a bit of pulp as Covey kneaded it together with sugar. Pearl, described by some as the best cook in the parish, had taught Covey to mix in a touch of Scotch bonnet pepper and a few drops of rum before separating the pulp into balls, though Covey’s favorite way of eating tamarind was still fresh out of the pod, scooped up off the dirt floor under the tree, cracked open, pulled away from the stringy bits and dipped right into a bowl of sugar before being popped fully into the mouth, the tartness of the fruit drawing her face tight.