Angel bursts into sobs.
Jomon and Hi get him off the play structure. He drops to his knees.
“I’m sorry,” Angel cries. “I’m so sorry.”
“Pops, Pops, no,” says Barnby, kneeling beside him. “It’s all right. Don’t cry! I can’t stand to see you sad.”
“I let you down.”
“Pops, this is a happy day. It’s so good to see you. I need you to be happy to see me. Damn it, why can’t you ever be happy?”
Barnby turns his back on his father and stomps away. He turns around after a few steps and shouts over his shoulder.
“Well, come on!”
Jomon helps Angel to his feet. Barnby slows down so they can catch up, but his back is stiff.
They walk through one village, then the next. They reach the mouth of the Berbice River and rest on its shaded bank.
Finally, Angel speaks.
“I am happy,” he says to Barnby. “I am really, really happy to see you.”
“Then show me,” Barnby says. “Show me that you feel more than just misery about things you think you’ve done.”
“I do!” says Angel.
“No, you don’t,” says Barnby. “But right now, I’m here for Jomon.”
“We’re all here for Jomon,” says Hi.
“You’re my grandfather?” Barnby asks Hi.
Hi grins and holds out his hand. Barnby doesn’t take it.
“You’re the reason my pops is the way he is. Well, part of the reason. So, thanks a lot.”
“Who are you to talk to me that way?” Hi demands. “Who do you think you are? You don’t even know me.”
“And whose fault is that?” asks Barnby. “You decided to take yourself out of my father’s life, and that made him so sad, he took himself out of mine.”
Angel drops to the ground and hides his face in his hands. Hi and Barnby stand over him, chests puffed out, feet planted, arms tight. They glare at each other.
“You can’t blame his suicide on me!” Hi shouts. “I wasn’t even there!”
“That’s right,” Barnby yells back. “You weren’t there.”
“How’d you do with your son?” Hi snarls at Barnby. “How good a father were you?”
Barnby flies at Hi and Hi flies at Barnby and the pair of them hit the dirt.
Jomon walks away. He’s done with all of them. They are just ignorant kids, not wise men or ghosts from another world.
Jomon is on his own.
His mother’s grave is somewhere on the west bank of the Berbice River. He is going to find where she is buried, tell her goodbye, then put this whole damn life behind him.
He walks and walks and walks, leaving the fighting and crying behind.
The rhythm of the walk calms him. There is something soothing about his feet hitting the ground, one in front of the other, again and again and again. He has no one to bug him, the sky is blue above, and the world is spread out in front of him.
He sees a church steeple and heads for it. Next to the church is a cemetery.
“Wait!”
Jomon turns around. The new boy, Barnby, runs up to him.
“She’s not there.”
“I’ll check it out for myself,” says Jomon. “By myself.”
“I’ll go with you,” says Barnby.
“By myself means without you.”
“You are never without me,” Barnby says. “You’re never without any of us.”
Jomon walks on his own through the cemetery, looking at all the grave markers, searching for his mother’s name. He goes through the whole cemetery.
His mother is not here.
“I know where she is,” says Barnby. He is leaning against a tall headstone with the other two grandfathers. They seem to have declared a truce.
“So tell me,” says Jomon.
“I’ll take you there,” says Barnby. “And on the way, I’ll tell you my story.”