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The plane’s motion jerked me awake. Clapping broke out as though the pilot did something good. I mean, I guess he did. We weren’t dead. Before the plane came to a full stop, people were already getting up to get their things from the overhead bins making the cylinder smaller than it actually was. I didn’t have my duffel. Ma didn’t have my duffel. So, we didn’t move.
Ma was still upset. She rolled her eyes and shook her head when she looked at me. She was only a seat behind me again and she was watching me like, if it was legal, she’d kill me for real real.
We waited for our turn to stand. We were way in the back - 38A and 39F - so that meant that we were exiting through the back of the plane. Not that I travelled a lot but this was so different from Orlando, even Miami. We’ve never exited a plane in the States from the rear. At the aircraft’s door, Ma stopped for a moment, inhaled, sighed and her entire body relaxed. It really did smell better here without cars backfiring. Ma told me a story once about when I was younger, and we were flying into St. Kitts. She said it wasn’t my first time flying in but it must’ve been the first time when I was able to talk. She said I was about three and she used to always give me the window seat so that I could see the island as we landed, an experience that she enjoyed herself. She said as we were getting closer to the ground, I blurted out “Ain’t no cars here Ma.” She said she was so embarrassed that I said that because I acted like her country wasn’t modern enough to have cars. I wondered if she remembered.
She continued down the stairs and I followed. We walked from the runway to the building that was encased in large glass windows like a fish bowl with people inside. Red, bold letters spelling Robert L Bradshaw International Airport were sprawled across the building where anyone could see, even in the night. Unlike Orlando, there wasn’t anything that the plane could attach itself to in order to get us directly into the building. We had to walk on that pavement.
The heat hit my face instantly reminded me that most buildings on the island didn’t have AC. Did houses have AC? What were we doing here? I wanted to ask. But I didn’t dare say a thing. I followed Ma up the stairs to Customs cause here she could hit me and nobody gonna say nothing to her like they would in Orlando. Home, somebody would call the police real quick if she ever hit me. She’s told me that before, threatened me, I guessed. But the truth was that she ain’t never really hit me, not for real real anyway.
“Ma, is Grandad okay?” I asked because I thought that was the only family she had left here and I couldn’t imagine any other reason why we’d fly out like we were running from the Mafia or something. This really would be a good place for witness protection. It was so small, you’d see anyone coming in from the time they stepped off the plane, either from the back or the front of the plane. Home, everybody looked different anyway so we kinda fit in. Here? It was obvious who were natives and who weren’t. Clearly, the people who were sweating like they’d just ran a marathon, including me and Ma, were not natives. Our bodies were not used to this heat and it was showing. For the natives, the heat didn’t seem to be an issue. They weren’t suffering the way we were. Ma still didn’t answer me but I followed her anyway. She walked up the stairs from the runway with the rest of the passengers. I followed silently.
Two different lines in the airport announced “Welcome Vistors” and “Welcome Home, Natives.” Ma went in the “Welcome Home, Natives” line like she actually lived here. She hadn’t lived here since she was a teenager as far as I knew but every time we visited, she went in that same line, refusing to acknowledge that this was in fact no longer her home. I followed her anyway. Even though my passport was green and was stamped “born in the United States of America,” I followed her because I still didn’t know what was going on. It was dark outside but the large room was lit up like the sun was still out.
It was our turn next and Ma moved to the glass window. That was another thing about the Native line; it seemed to move more quickly than the other line. The woman behind a glass partition didn’t look up. “How long were you out?” She asked while she shuffled her papers. Her accent was deep, the same way Ma sounded when she was mad.
“Just a couple of weeks,” Ma lied.
The lady looked up. Maybe Ma’s accent wasn’t as deep as hers after all.
“Your address?” she asked suspiciously.
“Upper Lodge Project,” Ma said confidently.
“Welcome home!” The lady begrudgingly said and let us by.
I followed Ma down the stairs to Luggage - well, my rolling duffle bag anyway. The large ceiling fans didn’t provide enough breeze to lift my sticky t-shirt from my body. I had to remove my hoodie and tie it around my waist or I was going to die of a heatstroke. Ma fanned herself with her hand. The airport was as I remembered: three carousels, only one moved, though empty, but, I guessed ready to spit out my bag. People already lined up by the door. Guys in uniforms and brown hard hats ran up to us and asked to help with our bags. We only had one bag so bruh wasn’t gonna get a dime from Ma. Surprisingly, Ma pointed at the duffle bag and the guy dragged it off of the carousel and placed it on his cart thing. I ain’t never seen her do that - pay somebody to help her.
“How many more?” He asked. He looked like he was about my age, 17. I wondered how much money he made for doing this.
“That’s it,” Ma said.
“Ma,” I said, “I could handle that one bag.” She rolled her eyes and shook her head all in the same motion. The baggage dude seemed to sense that me and Ma were warring.
We waited in another line, different from the one upstairs. People were searching your bags, for what, I didn’t know. I thought they already did that in the airport in Orlando. It was our turn and baggage dude lifted my duffle off the ground and onto the metal flat table.
“Open it!” The man ordered. Like an official, he wore a collared white shirt and black stiffly ironed pants, what Custom’s officers wore. Ma unzipped the bag and with his stick, he dug through the bag. “Did you bring anything for anyone?” he asked.
“No,” Ma replied.
“Where is his bag?” He lifted his head in my direction.
“We are sharing a bag,” Ma said confidently. The man looked suspiciously at Ma cause he knew he didn’t see anything in that bag that could possibly be mistaken as something that belonged to Ma. He opened his mouth as though he was about to say something else but decided otherwise. He zipped up the bag. The bag dude took it and we left the hot room to the outside where the heat seemed to have risen to another degree or ten.
Taxis, taxi drivers and their buses lined up in front of the airport ready to take people elsewhere. Surely Ma had someone picking us up but, no, because she looked out into the sea of taxi drivers as if she was trying to figure out which one to take.
“Where you want this bag, Miss?” The bagger dude asked impatiently. I guessed time was money so he likely wanted to head back inside for another customer’s bags.
“I need a taxi!” Ma said. No one was picking us up because probably no one knew we were there. Shoot, I didn’t even know.
Bagger Dude dragged the bag to a taxi and Ma followed him so I followed Ma. Bagger Dude threw the bag in the bus and I was glad there were no glasses in the bag cause they’d all be broken. Ma tipped him. He said thank you and hustled back into that room for someone else’s bags. Ma said something to the taxi driver so low that I couldn’t even hear her. Ma jumped in, so I did too. We rode in silence exiting the airport. Unlike Orlando, it was one lane in and one lane out. There was no multi-level parking garage like in Orlando, no side A or side B, just one way in and one way out. The driver swung the bus carelessly around the roundabout and I was reminded of the reasons why I hated riding in vehicles here. Not only did they drive on the wrong side of the road but the driver was also on the wrong side of the vehicle. It felt so awkward seeing him where the passenger really should be.
“You here on vacation?” the driver asked.
“No,” Ma responded, “I live here.” No, she didn’t live here. She just didn’t like giving people more information than they needed. The driver glanced suspiciously in his rearview mirror but he didn’t ask any more questions cause the look on Ma’s face told everybody that she didn’t want to talk. I knew better. I knew not to ask any questions. I knew not to say anything.
The road narrowed which made the lane we were in seem too narrow for even this bus. Even so, vehicles whizzed by in the other direction. Other vehicles passed by us, narrowly escaping the oncoming lights to do so. I didn’t have my licenses yet but I was pretty sure you couldn’t cross double lines to pass a vehicle. Were the driving rules different here? The driver continued through these near-death experiences as though our lives didn’t matter, or his. At each corner, both me and Ma held on to our seats to keep from falling. It must have been legal to speed here cause by now, a police officer or state trooper would’ve stopped this speeding taxi already. But, nothing. No sirens. Not one police officer was visible.
Though it was night, the streets were still busy. There were several people on the streets as we passed by. Some leaned against the walls of buildings while others just sat on the side of the street sipping from glass bottles. Clearly, they were hanging out and no one was bothering them and telling them that they were loitering. Lights were still shining through the windows of some of the houses and shadows moved about in them. I guessed everyone didn’t go to bed early. The driver turned his left blinker on and waited for an upcoming car. The car passed and our driver turned up a steep hill where only a few houses were lit up. Guess the other people knew that it was time to go to sleep. It was already after midnight according to my phone which meant that it was after eleven here. Something that I knew Ma paid attention to when she called Grandad. There were times when she’d remind me that St. Kitts didn’t have day light savings time. Time was time here, she’d say, no need to change it. My phone was not going to update to their time until I got WiFi.
Maybe something was wrong with Grandad. It’s not like I knew him that well but being my mom’s only family left, I knew she’d be devastated if he was sick or something. She tapped her fingers on the seat like they were little men marching to nowhere. She sucked in deep breaths then let them out again like she was trying to keep from blowing up or reacting in a way that she didn’t want to, something she taught me to do before I made a bad decision. I had never actually tried it though. It looked like it was working for her cause she hadn’t strangled me yet. Over and over her fingers loudly marched in place on the seat and she breathed in an out. I looked at her from the side, careful not to stare because that was not going to do me any good. I really hoped Grandad was okay.
“Which house, Miss?” The driver asked.
“The green one on the top of the hill,” Ma responded. She pointed ahead to an unlit house. “The one on the right,” She continued.
The driver didn’t stop despite her instructions. She didn’t speak, so, I didn’t either. The driver turned around at the top of the hill so that his bus faced the direction we came from. As Ma opened the door, I tried to help her but she shrugged me off. “Struggle then.” I wanted to say but I didn’t dare. Ma dragged the bag out of the taxi. The driver made no attempt to leave his wrong driver’s side seat to help. He just sat there as though his job was finished.
I stood taller than the bright green wall fence that surrounded the house, but the iron bars towered over me. The lights were off inside the house as though no one was expecting us. I looked at Ma, she was still practicing her breathing exercises, but slower than before. It was pitch dark, a kind of dark that didn’t seem safe in any kind of movie. Plus, the driver didn’t even wait for us to get inside before he bolted. Though it was night, the grass shone.
“Daddy!” Ma yelled out and a dog barked loudly. Once that dog started, it was like an alarm for the others because barks and howling started to come from everywhere. I just hoped that there wasn’t a dog inside the yard that we were going in to.
“Ma,” I said. “Maybe he’s not home.”
She ignored me and continued to yell. “Daaaahdaaay.” She screamed, lengthening the sound of daddy. It was like when she called me from her bedroom to bring her something and added all these eee’s to my name, Kadeeeeeem. She wouldn’t stop calling me until I stood in front of her. I didn’t know if she thought that made it louder or what but a light came on outside. The light revealed two steps that lead up to the door. The door slowly opened and an older Grandad than I remembered peaked out.
“Gwendolyn?” he asked. Only Grandad called Ma by her full name like that. Everyone else called her Gwen.
“Yes, Daddy,” Ma responded. “It’s me, me and Kadeem.”