* * *
Sammy went home early that day after waiting awhile with Thomas. He picked up Future Mamee-in-law from her shift at Valsayn Hi-Lo Supermarket, as he did sometimes. He mind still wondering how a man could be good good one day and then next day — he almost gone. “Is not that we can’t get lick down and dead anytime,” he say aloud to Future Mamee, “but the thing is — all kind’a things could be going wrong inside a man, and he have no idea. That’s the part that troubling me.”
Mamee didn’t mind Sammy thoughtful mood as they rolled down Central flat highway. She thought Sam is a good soul even though he black. She didn’t see why Pappee had to get on so — the boy is a hardworking, decent fella even though he have a child already. She could see he is not no runabout. He responsible. He does look after he child and see about he mother. Is so he would look after they own Douli, if he could ever marry she. Mamee secretly wished she had a son so. She didn’t even mind the chats.
Sammy quiet that day, though. He cruised the three o’clock lead-belly road, watching the old rice fields and cane fields. He didn’t need to talk, he just glad for the day and the homebound feeling. Some things he couldn’t understand but that’s all right. Some things is better not to know too much about. Except maybe the physical health. He himself supposed to go for a checkup long now, will go this week coming, for sure. But things like this does make you think … what kind’a man Fraser is anyway? He have that gardener fella living by him — the one he always treating nice, when the man look like a damned criminal — them things Sam don’t want to dig up in too much.
What he do know, is that is two years now he courting this lady daughter. Picking up Mamee from work sometimes to drop her home bound to increase the chances of getting through with Douli. On Saturdays too, if he have time, or sometimes he does make time, he takes Mamee to Chaguanas market and they buy things together — he shopping for he own mother and for the catering, and she taking she time selecting lil’ vegetables for curry and so. Sam know is just a matter of time for Douli father to come around and agree for them to marry. He couldn’t even ask the old tiger too often, due to he temper. Didn’t want to rile him, by being there too much or at the wrong time. He could never understand the man moodiness neither he racialness. And if Future Pappee own wife couldn’t understand him — who is Sam to try?
They passed the mosque, then the Hindu temple, the homes with jhandi flags and Moonan Hardware & Lumber, slowed down with the traffic lining up to go through Chaguanas City. Sammy could never participate in this racism thing. All these roads and fields is home to him. Black people live in Central too, side by side with Indians in some places, and is no big deal. That always been so, as far as Sam know. Don’t mind them fellas in town tease him and say he have a weakness for coolie t’ing — they just kicksing. But Pappee serious as if he still living in Bagvad Gita day. He wife cool and nice, though, just like she sweet daughter. And anyway, is love that is the crux of the matter. One day he will get through with the rest. Sammy could see that wedding day ahead, decent fella that he is, courting all the way, carrying Future Mamee home. Life short, yes. But you have to have patience.
* * *
The glimpse of her partner’s fragility stuck snapshot-clear in Ata’s heart. Pierre bears his pain so different, she thought. More tortured and knotted than the source of pain. Fraser lay calm on the hospital bed between them.
“I think he can hear us, people can hear when they’re in a coma … subconsciously,” Ata said as her eyes traced the saline lines, blood, oxygen, monitoring machines.
Pierre scrunched up his shoulders even more and hugged himself, cringing. He literally crumpled in on himself.
She felt cruel because she wasn’t about to cry then — that she could notice these details about Pierre while faced with her best friend’s brush with death. She had cried. They cried together late last night when they got back home from Saint Lucia. They cried for their friend and maybe for all that was gone, sensing that nothing could be perfect again.
Fraser couldn’t be frightening, he seemed at peace, and the doctors said his signs were stabilizing. As his blood detoxified with the transfusions and saline, he would come out of shock. But his kidneys would never recover. That took its time to sink in.
* * *
Ata looked again at Pierre and, for a second, he almost seemed a stranger in the hospital room. His hunching, worried form, a nuisance to her. She held Fraser’s warm, dry hand, long beautiful fingers heavy and already, his skin relaxed to inactivity. His feet. She touched. How could skin betray its body and look so starved for feeling so quickly? Hospital feet. Even the little bit of soil under a nail, the crack of a heel, no longer seemed dirty. Everything suspended from the function and senses of life, isolated in white sheets and antiseptic air.
She picked up the lotion from the stand and poured some into her hand, rubbing palms together. “You look peaceful,” she said.
“What are you doing?” Pierre asked.
She ignored him and began creaming Fraser’s feet, massaging the slippery lubricant into his soles. He would never have asked her to cream his feet but she thought she would have if he did. They are lovely feet. Toes without corns. Clean, clipped toenails. She had always admired them in his Birkenstock sandals, the ones he was so proud of because they were comfortable, well engineered, German, and expensive. She pulled each toe out, her fingers slipping over knobbly joints, rubbing more cream into the slightly creased sides of his feet, where dark skin meets light sole. Fish-belly camouflage. She smoothed cream on his ankles, calves, rubbed harder on the hairy, rougher skin, and stopped at his knees. The hem of his gown and a private gap between his thighs made her pull the sheet back down a little.
She was still holding Fraser’s feet in her hands when the door opened and his parents entered.
“Oh, it’s … Ata and Pierre, right?” A tall, skinny woman, in front of her squat husband, who was holding a plastic bag. He handed it to his wife, sidestepped in, and shook Ata’s hand, Pierre’s. Ata turned to Fraser’s mother, not knowing if to hug or shake hands with the lady who seemed occupied with the plastic bag.
“We, we’re late ’cause we had to prepare, we brought sandwiches and a flask with some tea ’cause yesterday we were starving. You can’t get anything around here when the cafeteria closes. I’ll just rest it here…”
Dorothy Goodman turned to her son. His broad chest and high belly made her seem even thinner. Her hands fidgeted with the sheet, fixing, patting, tucking. She tapped his chest lightly, scanned the wheezing machine. “They say they should be able to take him off the oxygen soon.” She looked quickly at everyone for approval.
“That’s good,” Ata said.
The two men nodded agreement.
“Yes,” Mrs. Goodman said.
Everyone solemnly nodded again, glad for something to feel better about. Hope as something separate. They looked at Mrs. Goodman’s nervous fingers fluttering around the edge of her son’s body. She uncovered his feet, touched them quickly, noticed the gleam, and darted a look at Ata.
“I creamed them,” Ata said quickly, “they were dry.”
Dorothy looked at her in some sort of surprise, just a little more than when they had entered. Ata moved to the balcony door, to give her room with her son. Her birdlike way made her husband seem very solid and calm but it was unsettling. Ata and Pierre had met them only once, a year ago, at their home for Sunday lunch, and Mrs. Goodman was only slightly less nervous then.
* * *
In her own kitchen, Mrs. Goodman was overwhelmed by the piles of food she was preparing. She spotted Fraser parking outside the yard and hopped out to greet them. “You reach! Oh gosh, I thought youall would never get here. How many times you do me that, eh?” Reaching out for Fraser’s face. “Look at you, what happen?” Taking in his rumpled T-shirt and shorts.