Dorcas by Dara Girard Page A

shrugged. “Me too.”
    We looked at Aletta.
    She frowned. “What do we have to lie about?”
    “I don't know yet,” Dorcas said.
    “All right.”
    Dorcas smiled and then her face grew serious and her gaze slowly went around the room as if assessing us. “You have to keep the lie or else.”
    Aletta sniffed. “Or else what?”
    “You’ll die.”
    She was a silly girl, but so were we and very dramatic back then. We’d read several English classics that told of undying loyalty and they added some adventure to our dull, ordinary lives. “We'll keep it,” Terry said. Aletta and I nodded.
    Dorcas' smile returned. Then she took out three marbles and held them in the palm of her hand. “I’ll give one to each of you when I want the promise kept.”
    When I think of it now, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. How silly it was that we’d later do something so dangerous for a promise and a ritual of receiving a marble we'd discussed as children. I quickly forgot about it. I was sure all of us did. I was wrong.
     
    ***
     
    After that rainy day, our thoughts turned to boys and dreams of leaving Jamaica. Well three of us dreamed about it, Aletta never did. She thought it was the height of foolishness and a waste of time. None of us saw her leaving and for years she didn’t. She ended up working in town as a teacher at a private school. However, the rest of us did dream. Terry said a sailor would come and whisk her away. Instead she married a clerk who took her to England and she had two children.
    Dorcas did once say she’d marry a man who’d take her off the island far away to England. And surprise, she did finally meet some man who’d said he’d take her. He was a good worker, simple, but kind and I’ve nothing against that. She was so happy, boasting how he was going to take her to Cambridge and how much she’d learn there. But the Cambridge to which he took her wasn’t the one in England. It wasn’t even close. It was in Massachusetts. Yes, he took her to America. She never did see England. None of us had thought of going to America, a place where they mangled the English language so much so sometimes one wasn't sure they were speaking English at all.
    I married too. A man who took me off the island and settled us in Canada. I was lonely, I admit it, and the gray days settled heavy on my soul, but I loved my husband and our growing family.
    Terry kept in touch with all of us. She was like the glue that tied us together. Her letters were always a welcome sight in the post box. She was so full of life, we didn’t expect the cancer to take her so quickly. Her husband was unable to cope, and her parents were dead and none of her siblings wanted two extra mouths to feed, leaving her two little ones all alone. Dorcas offered to take them in, even though she'd been newly married. Lucky for her, her man didn’t mind.
    In the seventies, my husband's job took him to Virginia where I reconnected with Aletta. She'd married and divorced. She never mentioned her ex-husband and I never asked. Two years later Dorcas and her family moved to Maryland and we had a reunion. We gathered at my house because I still had the best food and the perfect space. I felt as if nothing had changed and half expected Terry to come through the door. And, for one brief moment, I thought she had when Deena, one of her daughters, came to greet me and then the other one, Lois. They both had their mother's beauty and kind, cheery nature.
    Dorcas also had two little girls Michaela and Teresa—not pretty mind you—but sweet. She did dress all four girls as if they were princesses and doted on them. Her husband did too until him up and die on her only twenty-five years into the marriage. Fortunately, he left them enough money, which allowed the girls to educate themselves and find proper men to marry. Terry's two girls had no problem and both married right after college. It took another decade for Dorcas' eldest daughter to do so, but she did at