CHAPTER SIX

 

“This is fine weather,” Diana said as she sat and watched her aunt prepare breakfast.

Floyd sat beside her, sulking, because he was relegated to being an observer and not the cook. The khaki uniform he was wearing today was practically bursting at the seams as he breathed deeply and hunched over his place at the table. There was a strong breeze blowing, and Phillipa’s housedress billowed around her.

“I love it as well,” Phillipa said, glancing behind her. “You should take advantage of the weather and spend some time at the beach. You carried your bathing suits, didn’t you?”

Diana nodded. “That I did, but I thought I would start looking for my brothers and sisters today so that I’ll have as much time to spend with them as possible while I am in Jamaica.”

“Piffle,” Phillipa replied, putting out orange juice and tea on the table. “Enjoy the week first and then you can look for them. Consider this week your holiday, and then I will allow Floyd to take you anywhere on the island your heart desires.”

“Thanks, Aunt P,” Diana said, smiling. “It's a relief to know I won’t be traversing the hills and valleys alone. I can’t even remember where exactly I used to live. Ain’t that a shame?”

“It was seventeen years ago; you were a child; that is understandable. You used to live in Hanover. There was a big landowner in the district called McTaggert. Your father met your mother there when he was doing a stint with the Public Works Department.”

Diana nodded eagerly. “Yes, McTaggert. That name sounds familiar.”

“Why your father got involved with a woman who had such loose values, I do not know.”

“I don’t remember much about her except that she was pretty,” Diana said, trying to bring to mind the slim petite frame of her mother. “She always did her hair in braids. I remember thinking that I rarely saw her not pregnant.”

“She had one every year,” Phillipa snorted as she placed the breakfast of yam, banana, and callaloo in front of them. “No wonder she died giving birth to the last one—too many, too frequently.”

“The last one was a boy,” Diana said, memories flooding back. “My Aunt Catherine and my grandmother were trying to figure out who was the father.”

“Promiscuity and irresponsibility,” Phillipa muttered.

Floyd rolled his eyes. He had not contributed to the conversation so far, but he was listening intently. “How did she support you all?” he asked curiously. The story was fascinating to him, despite his attempt to appear aloof.

“She gave us away to the highest bidder.” Tears came to Diana’s eyes. “One by one, relatives of the fathers or people who wanted children would come to the one-room shack and choose the best.”

Phillipa shuddered. “Thank God every day, child, that your father was a responsible man or else who knows what you’d turn out to be.”