Read Online The Rhythm of the August Rain by Gillian Royes - Free Book Online

Everyone laughed and even Eve cracked a smile.
    After the visitors left, Eric placed the empty glasses in the sink and nudged Shad’s elbow. “You wormed your way nicely into that one.”
    â€œThink of it this way, boss. Shannon need somebody she can trust to go with her. The taxi driver not going to shaft her because I going to be there, and she have two men to protect her. You know it not easy for a foreign woman to move around Jamaica by herself.”
    â€œYou’re probably right.”
    â€œAnd you get to spend time with your daughter.”
    â€œShe didn’t seem too keen, but I hope she liked the tip idea.”
    â€œYou never know with them teenagers. They keep their good feelings for their friends and let the parents see the bad ones—like they want to torment you. When Joella was twelve, she used to suck her teeth so much that Beth had to slap her one time.”
    â€œI couldn’t do that, but I wish Eve was—happier, you know?”
    â€œNext to Casey—”
    â€œThat should be interesting, the two of them together. Casey’s like a debutante waiting to come out.”
    â€œA debu —what?”
    â€œA little beauty queen, all pretty and giggly.”
    Sitting on his verandah later, Eric filled one of his pipes with the Canadian maple tobacco that always reminded him of Shannon. She’d introduced him to it when she brought it down once as a gift. In those days, she’d appear out of the blue and lean on his office door, making his heart jump. He’d tell his secretary not to disturb them, and they’d run up to his suite and start kissing before he’d shut the door. After an hour of frenzy, they’d call room service—she was always famished—so she could devour Solomon’s specialty of the day. It was the affair of affairs, the best of his life, which came to a screeching halt the afternoon his lover made her announcement over dessert.
    â€œYou’re pregnant?” he’d spluttered. “I thought you were on the pill.”
    â€œI must have skipped a day—”
    â€œYou don’t just skip a day with birth control.”
    She’d looked at her spoon, laden with lime sherbet. “Well, I did.”
    â€œAre you sure you’re—”
    â€œYou pee in a cup, the test comes back positive—you’re sure.”
    â€œHave you thought of—you don’t have to have it, you know.”
    She’d dropped the spoon with a clatter. “I’m keeping the baby, Eric. I’m not having an abortion.”
    Everything, everything had changed in that moment, the lusty passion transformed—like ice water falling on fire—by the dull reality of parenthood.
    He lit the pipe, shielding it with his palm, let the wind blow out the match, and settled back in the chair. The verandah faced the ruined hotel, and tonight a quarter moon glittered off the water, the island a black rock in its midst, a stiff northeaster carrying the flapping of the leaves from the almond tree that he’d planted long ago in front of the reception area.
    This was his evening ritual, looking across at his destroyed hotel, watching its ghostlike appearance and disappearance under a waxing or waning moon as each month slipped by, and it had been a comfort knowing that he still owned the isolated piece of land and its mildewed buildings, regardless of Hurricane Albert’s destruction. However, he was no longer the sole owner. The island now belonged to the corporation formed earlier that year to build the new hotel, and there were plans to lease it to Horace MacKenzie for a campsite—Eric’s son Joseph’s idea. Renovations were to begin in a few months. Truth be told, Eric would have preferred the buildings to remain mottled, empty, and his , no one else’s, because they housed not only the past, his glory days as the owner of the inn, but more recently they reminded him of Simone, who had