The Other Side of Blue (5 page)

Mayur should have whined to his mother that I was to blame, but he didn't. He told her he tripped into the pool and she sent him to change his clothes. Mrs. Bindas followed close behind him like a sheepdog, reminding him he should be careful. “You could have hit your head. And your suit, Mayur. It is ruined.”

I retreated to the door, where Mother was speaking to Dr. Bindas. He handed her a book he said had been Dad's, something he'd left by the pool one day. Mother took the book without looking at it.

That was the last visit. Mother and I left Curaçao the next day, stuffing clothes and unread books into suitcases and a few of Mother's most precious paints into her carry-on bag instead of toothpaste and cosmetics. She left the watersplotched book Dr. Bindas had given her on the coffee table when she took her luggage to the door, where Jinco waited with the taxi. Dad's
The History of Language.
I slipped it into my suitcase without saying anything to Mother about it. We rode to the airport in a silence we have clung to ever since.

Mrs. Bindas is talking, describing the landscaping, how many gardeners had to be hired to make it work. Mayur is
still eating, and is tapping his bare foot against the chair leg. Mrs. Bindas turns to me.

“The garden is so perfect this year. I am hoping Mrs. Walters will come here and teach an afternoon workshop. I have a few friends who like to paint.”

The gelato gives me a chill. Mother never likes to teach groups of women, the ones who are middle-aged, too rich, with no talent. Those with money enough to buy the best supplies and the best instructors.

Kammi looks at me to answer, but when I don't speak, she says: “Oh, I'm sure she would be happy to have a class. Though she's so busy, you know. An artist must concentrate on her own work first.”

Kammi sounds like a recording. I hear Mother's inflection when Kammi says “concentrate on her own work.” Mother takes on students here and there—but only those who are young, talented, and hungry, very hungry to learn. Catrione quit three winters ago, a month or two after Mother scolded her for spending an afternoon a week after high school art class to tutor other students who were behind. For giving me hints when she thought Mother wasn't listening. I overheard Mother lecturing Catrione in the studio, where I was no longer welcome. Because I did not follow her directions. Because I was not serious.

Someone touches my arm. It's Kammi. She frowns at me. “I'm sure she would. Right, Cyan?”

I look at Mrs. Bindas's expectant face. Maybe she's
thinking that this is the least Mother could do. After the incident at the pool, after Dr. Bindas went down to the beach that night to identify my father. And though the Bindases have been our neighbors here for years, Mrs. Bindas has never asked for anything from my mother.

“I don't know. I'll mention it to her.” Even though I know she won't want to do it.

Inside, a chime rings. Mrs. Bindas flits away, calling over her shoulder about the phone, winking at Mayur and reminding him to ask us about next week.

The houseboy follows Mrs. Bindas, though he turns briefly to look again at Kammi just before he enters the shadow of the house. Mayur waits until the houseboy disappears before he scoots over and scoops out more gelato for himself. A scoop for Kammi, too. Then the gelato is gone, a melted yellow pool in the bottom of the dish, a sprinkling of stray coconut.

Mayur clinks his spoon against his teeth as he rushes to finish the gelato in his bowl before his mother returns.

“Next week we're having bonfires on the beach.” He stretches his arms out wide. “With a
big
cookout. Another family, the Garcas, will come, too. And my cousins will be here. You're all invited.” He looks at Kammi. He's ignoring me on purpose. “Mother hires a girl to write the envelopes, a calligrapher,” he says. “She uses real gold dust in her inks.” He says this to impress Kammi.

Kammi oohs and aahs in the right places.

Mayur finally looks at me. “And bonfires,” he says to me. “Huge bonfires up and down the beach. To toast marshmallows. You do that in America, right?”

Memories of bonfires make me shiver.

Kammi answers for me. “Yes, marshmallows and bonfires. Our town does a picnic once a summer.”

“But on the beach. Late into the night?” Mayur is taunting me, and Kammi has no clue. She doesn't know what happened last year. Mother hasn't told her. Neither has Howard.

I clink the spoon into my bowl. I squint at the lowering sun.

“It's time to go.”

Kammi looks sideways at me, but she doesn't argue. I'm in charge.

Like Mayur, I take pleasure in small victories.

M
OTHER'S WAITING
for Kammi and me in the living room when we slip through the door.

“Come on out here.” She waves us through the open French doors and onto the deck.

Kammi obeys immediately, not even stopping by her room to drop off her straw tote. Maybe she thinks she'll get Mother's attention now, and that she'll have the chance to talk about painting.

I follow, a few beats behind. It might be worth it to hear the conversation. I wonder how Mother will frame the words, how she'll make everything she says sound like she has only Kammi's interests in mind.

Mother has arranged herself on the lounge chair facing the sea. A still-life composition. This late in the afternoon,
the sun is behind the house, and we're in the shadows, where it isn't too hot.

“Sit, sit. I want to hear all about it,” Mother says, too cheerful.

In the kitchen, Martia bangs the pans and dishes she's clearing away. Her rhythm sounds off. Did Mother find food hidden in my room? Did she scold Martia for it? How many times has she told Martia that coconut is not good for me? The
kokada
she makes is too fattening.

Even though the kitchen doesn't sound like it's supposed to, the smells of fish with lemon and
funchi
—fried cornbread—tease me. Despite the gelato I've eaten, my stomach whines.

Kammi sits in the chair closest to Mother. “Mrs. Bindas is really nice.” She doesn't bring up right away that Mrs. Bindas wants Mother to hold an art workshop for her and her friends. Maybe she senses that Mother won't be thrilled. Or maybe she wants Mother all for herself. “She told us about her garden.” Kammi describes the birds of paradise and the vines that cascade over the low stone wall. Mother nods as Kammi talks. I close my eyes and I can see everything just as she says.

Mother sips a Blue Bay drink while she listens to Kammi. Curaçao tastes so sweet it makes my throat ache. Last summer Dad and I toured the distillery. The tour guide said that the Spaniards brought the original orange trees from Valencia. In the dry soil of Curaçao, though, the oranges produced only
tart fruit. People later found a way to turn the bitter fruit into something sweet. At the end of the tour, Dad bought a crate of liqueur in all its colors—blue, red, green, and mandarin. Last year he poured me a thimble-sized drink for toasting when we celebrated Mother's upcoming one-woman show, what she called a retrospective, at a gallery in Atlanta. The retrospective wasn't opening until October. After Dad died, the gallery asked Mother if she wanted to cancel. Mother said no, the art could be a tribute. Except that the art was never about Dad.

I sit on the rattan hassock. Taking my feet out of my flip-flops, I cross my legs under my skirt.

“What did you think of the Bindases' house?” Mother asks Kammi, and then answers her own question in the same breath. “It's grand, isn't it.”

Kammi freezes for a second. “We didn't go inside. But if the inside is like the pool and patio, it must be beautiful, too,” she says a moment later. “Mrs. Bindas served us gelato.”

Mother's gaze flickers my way. “I hope it doesn't spoil your appetites. Martia's grilled red snapper.”

I stare straight back at her.

Kammi says quickly, “Mayur says they're having a cookout on the beach next week.”

Mother smiles. “The Bindases' house is on the prettiest stretch of beach on this part of the island. The view is unsurpassed.” She means the view from the Bindases' house is better than the view from here.

“Did you swim?” Mother asks me.

“No,” I say. “Mayur took up the whole pool with his butterfly stroke.”

Mother raises her eyebrows.

“I barely got wet,” Kammi says, as if she's apologizing to Mother for my not having gone in. She doesn't make a big deal of her own lap.

“Mayur is exuberant.” Mother raises the back of the lounge chair so she sits straighter.

“He does seem to like the pool,” I say, thinking back on last summer.

Mother frowns and starts to say something, but Martia appears at the French doors, and the moment passes. She's holding an envelope in front of her, away from her body, as if it contains bad news.

She reaches out to Mother. “The postman just came. I signed for a letter.”

Signing for a letter is not always good, not even here, where every aspect of life is more formal than at home. After Dad died, Mother complained about all the letters she had to sign for. How she had to get dozens of copies of the death certificate. I still have a copy in my room, hidden inside
The History of Language.
The original document was written in Dutch, with a certified English translation attached. I read and reread the English version so many times I memorized it.

It said so little to be so important.

Mother takes the envelope. “They let you sign for it?”

“
Sí,
” Martia says. Martia is local, trusted. I'm sure the postman knows her better than anyone else who stays in
Blauwe Huis,
probably even better than the owner.

A smaller envelope is tucked inside the larger one, like a wedding invitation. It is stamped with a seal, protecting the contents, like one of the medieval parchments written in old Italian that Dad would sometimes translate for a history scholar.

Mother's fingers slide under the flap and break the seal. She opens it, peeks in, almost as if she's seeing if it will bite. She tugs out a page.

“What is it?” I ask.

“I can't read it.” Mother turns the paper over, as if she expects a translation on the back. “It's all in Dutch.”

“Martia can translate,” I say.

Martia shrugs. “
Sí.
”

Mother doesn't hand the paper over. Instead, she beckons Martia to come read over her shoulder.

Martia mouths the words silently before she starts speaking. “It is from the lawyer here. Just closing out the files, passing along a copy of the commissioner's final report on Mr. Walters's death, that the incident was wholly accidental.”

Mother shifts in her chair. “Well, this is ridiculous. They concluded all of this last year. Why would the lawyer send out another letter?”

Kammi looks at me. Maybe she thinks I can answer the riddle.

Martia says, “This is what the lawyer says, just closing the file. Formal.” She shrugs, as if to apologize for the bureaucracy that sends a letter a year after the fact.

“Why does he have to stir things up again?” Mother takes another swig of her blue drink. “I paid his fees.”

“He's not even right,” I say.

“What?” Mother asks.

“It wasn't wholly an accident. Was it?”

Mother blanches. She let down her guard and asked a question she didn't want the answer to. “Cyan, please stop. We've been over this before.”

Yes, we've been over it before. Mother says what happened was an accident. The articles published in the local paper after it happened said it was an “incident.” An incident is not the same as an accident. An accident is a mistake. I don't know if what happened was a mistake. No matter what the commissioner's report says.

Martia steps between Mother and me. “Miss Kammi, please come in, we will have dinner now. You, too, Cyan.” Martia touches Kammi on the shoulder and Kammi follows.

“I'm not really hungry,” she says. She slides her straw bag onto her arm and slips into the house. “The gelato...”

Martia follows her like a mother hen. I don't move.

Mother snaps her head in my direction. “What are you doing? Are you trying to make things hard? After everything that's happened, why can't you just be nice?” Mother keeps talking, not waiting for—not wanting—an answer from me.

“You know all about it, do you?” Mother's voice turns as icy as the drink she's guzzling. “We'll talk about this later.” With trembling hands she struggles to force the paper back into the envelope. After a moment, she closes it as if it contains some evil spell.

Mother stalks inside and up the stairs to her studio. Even from out here, I can hear her footsteps clang on the metal staircase.

Martia flutters between the kitchen and the dining table, where I go to sit, alone. Dinner is ruined. The fish, cooked too long, has turned to rubber. The fried cornbread congeals in my mouth. It doesn't want to go down, but I swallow it anyway, piece after piece, until it's all gone. Every crumb.

J
UST AFTER DAWN
the next morning, when I slip in from the beach, my pockets weighted down with shells and sea glass, I hear Mother's footsteps going up the metal staircase. I catch her glance as she's closing the door to her studio. I can't tell what she's thinking and I don't care. The damp hem of my skirt drags on the floor and my flip-flops squish as I walk through the kitchen, leaving a trail of sand. Martia doesn't scold, though. She lets me squeeze past her and into Mother's still-warm chair. Without speaking, she hands me a plate of pancakes topped with coconut syrup. My favorite breakfast.

Mother paces upstairs. No matter how softly she walks, I always know when she's up there. If she's aware of my ventures into her studio, she hasn't let on. She hasn't mentioned the missing tubes of oil paint. Maybe she hasn't noticed yet.