What Happens in Paradise(68)

Mama read my diary and found out about Russell and found out about Irene—and one night after work, I walked in the door expecting to find her asleep or, possibly, waiting up with a plate of chicken, beans, and rice—she was concerned that I wasn’t eating enough for two—but instead she was in the doorway, my diary in her hand, her eyes popping.

“A married man?” she said. “Have you no shame, Rosie?”

I grabbed the diary from her. “Have you no shame?” I asked. I went into my room and slammed the door behind me, my heart cowering in my chest because I had left it exposed and my mother had found it.

I’m going to set the diary on fire, I thought. And if the whole house goes up in smoke, so be it.

There was a light knock on the door and I figured it was Huck, there to try and fix what my mother had broken. But when I opened the door, it was Mama herself. I tried to slam the door in her face but she pushed back—for a second, our eyes locked, and it was a test of strength. I was younger but pregnant; Mama was Mama. Then she put a finger to her lips and I relented.

She entered, closed the door quietly behind her, sat on my bed, and patted the spot next to her.

I shook my head, lips closed in anger.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I had to be sure.”

What she meant was that she had to be sure the baby wasn’t Oscar’s.

I wasn’t naive. I knew there was talk across the island. Who is the father of Rosie Small’s baby? The odds were on Oscar. It was possible that Oscar had even claimed it was his, though we hadn’t been together since he’d been out of jail.

“My word isn’t good enough?” I said.

“It’s not,” Mama said. I gave her a look, which she brushed off. “You’re young, you’re afraid, you might have said anything to keep a roof over your head.”

“I don’t need this roof,” I said. “I have money saved.”

“Oh, that’s right,” she said. “The ten thousand dollars. Where is it?”

She knew about the ten thousand dollars, of course. She knew everything now: Vie’s Beach, the sex, the room service, the wife and sons in Iowa, the name of the boat—Bluebeard.

“I kept a thousand in cash,” I said. “The other nine I deposited a little at a time along with my paychecks.”

She nodded like she approved. “Good.”

“I haven’t contacted him,” I said. “I have no intention of ever seeing him again, Mama. Like I said, it was a mistake.”

“Your voice is saying it was a mistake but your face is telling a different story.”

I almost broke then. I almost said that it wasn’t a mistake, that I didn’t regret being with Russ, that there had been something between us and that something was real. But my mother was Catholic; she believed in the sanctity of marriage. A married white man having a baby with an island girl was no good. I could tell, however, by her mere presence in my bedroom that it was far, far better than me being pregnant by Oscar.

“What does Huck think?” I asked. I wondered if he might be more sympathetic to my situation. He had been married, then divorced. He, maybe, understood that relationships didn’t always fit into neat boxes—though it would be very unusual for him to battle Mama.

“Huck doesn’t know.”

“You didn’t tell him?” I said. It was even more unusual for my mother to keep a secret from Huck.

“I told him the man was white. A pirate.”

Pirate had been the word I used in my diary.

“That’s the story from here on out,” Mama said. “Pirate came in on his yacht, you had relations, then he left, never to be seen again.” She clasped my hand. “Do you understand me, Rosie? Never to be seen again. You see this man again, I phone the wife. Irene Steele from Iowa City. I called Information. I have the number.”

Hearing Irene’s name come out of my mother’s mouth gave me chills. I knew she was serious. I could never see Russ again, even if he did someday return.



August 22, 2006

It was as though we’d conjured him. Three weeks after my mother confronted me, I was at work—still cocktail waitressing, even though my belly was enormous and my ankles swollen—when Estella tapped me on the shoulder and said, “There’s a man at the bar who wants an order of the conch fritters.”

“Isn’t Purcell on the bar?” I asked.

“He is, child, but this gentleman asked for you.”

I was punching in an order and I had a table with food up and a table still waiting to order drinks and Tessie was taking a leisurely cigarette break as always and I was about to snap. The restaurant was closing September first for two and a half months—hurricane season—so I only had to make it through another week. I gathered my wits, delivered one table their meals, took the drink order, ran quickly to the ladies’ room, and then, feeling relieved and refreshed, I lumbered over to the bar to see which gentleman at the bar wanted the conch fritters.

Honestly, I didn’t even think.

Russ was sitting at the corner seat.

I was torn between running straight into his arms and running for the parking lot.

His eyes became round as plates when he saw my belly. He knew, Todd Croft must have told him, but maybe he didn’t believe it or maybe he was overwhelmed to see evidence of his child with his own eyes.