A Simple Distance by K. E. Silva Page A

soft call never leaving her ears.
    She passed from my sight.
    I turned to Godwyn, unlocked first the top, then the bottom of my mother’s locks. The entrance more shutter than door, I twisted the long wooden arm that acted as a knob, pointed it straight up, and pushed through to the dining room. Yesterday’s doors. Bright green against a whitewash of walls.
    Like the door, the shutters throughout the house had been closed tight from people, animals, and wind, but it was getting dark, and no sign yet of the dogs, so I only opened the window with glass, the one in my mom’s room. From her bed I saw the sun setting over the rough Atlantic, out past the guava trees, the baobabs, and the graves. I had never known Godwyn to hold more than one body. But it wasn’t just Grampy anymore. Uncle George was out there, too.
    In my head, I could almost hear my grandmother weeks before, how she would have been the day they buried her son, such an important son, next to the body of her husband in this little place.
    I could almost hear the wind. The ocean. And it was as if I were there, squatting at the side of the house, digging my fingers into the ground to pull up ginger my mom would boil and sweeten for beer.
    I heard Granny, still in my thoughts, from the house: These girls are so stupid. They can’t do anything right. I told them to put the paper serviettes out on the table, and look, they’ve put out the cloth napkins! Here, take these back to the kitchen and bring me the stack of paper serviettes. People will be coming soon. Look at the table! Oh my God, that dog is in the house … People will be coming!
    I pulled a slow, full breath to the bottom of my lungs, held it until it was no longer needed, let it seep out on its own. Wrestled for control. With the next inhalation, not as deep and more metered, my thoughts plunged my head, wet, toward the bottom of the ocean, and the rest of me followed. The slick of the water against my arms and legs and pushing hands oiled my descent into the coral at Tours Beach, masking depths I could not fathom. Coming to the surface, the ripples of the water licked my face with their tiny tongues.
    I could hear Susan, too, the night before Uncle Martin—small banana—and Mr. Williams followed us out through the bush, waited, watched until they’d had their fill. I could almost hear her whisper softly in my ear, We don’t have much time. Please. No one is watching. We’d been right there. On my mother’s bed. I kept thinking I’d seen someone outside the shutters, kept thinking I’d heard something just outside the door as she lay on top of me, removed her clothes and mine under the white cotton sheet I kept pulling back up every time her movements pushed it off. Her long fingers grabbing at the back of my arched neck, claiming me hers with each quick breath. Her mouth on mine; her hands gripping, pushing, pulling. Our bodies pressed so tight together I could feel the blood in her veins. Yet my eyes never leaving that window. Distracted.
    * * *
    Lightning pulsed outside the bedroom window and I was not myself—eyes wide and open; subsided, and I was back—closed. I sat at the edge of the bed, lay back.
    In the streets of Bato above my uncle’s law practice, my youngest cousins yelled out from their second-floor balcony to men who lived on the streets— Buller! Buller! —ducked back inside before they were seen. Bullers are poor male prostitutes; my cousins, respectable children among the island’s elite.
    * * *
    My mind drifted toward fatigue. I remembered the man with the bad eye from Sommerset I’d seen during my last visit, saw him slip through the open window, felt his hands closing in around my neck, closing in between my legs. He slipped through while my guard was down, tore off my costume—my heterosexual façade—left me bare and exposed in front of my whole family, all of whom just stood there laughing, letting him grab me, place his one good eye and two strong hands on my