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Authors: Tamara Valentine
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passenger door open for her to slip in.
âFine by me.â Remy slapped the trunk shut. âThe smell of that hell pipe gives me a headache anyway.â
We drove through the village of Tillings quietly, Mr. OâMalleyâs taxi bumping along over the cobblestones. Outside the car, a frenzy of activity seemed to be exploding along the streets and inside the shops, which were preparing for the festival. Two men curled over a walkway popping cobbles from their bracings and hammering new ones in their place. A tall heavyset woman balanced on a ladder as she stitched up the corner of an awning in front of a sweets shop. Four people with rags and small tins polished the brass trappings of a small white church while the pastor plopped clumps of pink mums along the brick walk. The sign read:
T HE B LESSING OF Y EMAYA
S UN. 10:00 AM . V ISITORS W ELCOME.
T HE G REAT M OTHERâS C HILDRENâS B LESSING
TO FOLLOW AT 11:00 AM .
âMost summer vacationers leave after Labor Day,â Remy said, eyeing the bustling street. âThen we all go a little crazy preparing for the crowd that comes over for the festival. After the Great Feast is over, Tillings will be dead as a beached whale until next Memorial Day.â
I didnât know if I would be there to see that. My mother hadnât said how long we were staying, but I had the feeling that my voice wasnât the only reason we were on the island. Over the last few years, my mother had worked primarily from home as a consultant for estate liquidators assessing fine art and pricing it for auction. At least, that was what she did when she wasnât busy scribbling down assignments for me from the room in the back of our house, which she had designated as a home classroom. I was the only kid I knew who had to live with their teacher, and while every kid in the universe got to go out and play for recess, I got to go and make my bed. Over the last three weeks, my mother had packed up her office to work from Tillings and every last pencil from my home-school kit was in my trunk. If she knew how long she intended us to be gone, she didnât say. It wasnât like there was really anything to leave behind, or anyone who would miss us.
Other than Grandma Jo, my mother had frozen the world out so thoroughly there were times she didnât even open the door for the UPS man. A month earlier, I had found her sitting on the living room floor with a bottle of Kendall Jackson, crying in a sea of loose photographs like some sort of rogue planet trying to hold its universe in orbit. Or maybe it was a black hole and she was willing it to swallow her upâI canât be sure. But this is what I do know . . . sometimes the only place left to hide is in the shadows of your own mind. Mr. OâMalley wove up and down a labyrinth of streets dotted with people repairing pickets and toting rakes. Behind them, small children dragged yard bags and jumped in leaf piles before stuffing them full. Finally, the taxi headed out of town on a road skirting the ocean until only a few homes speckledthe fields. We drove past the jetties, where a small boy in rolled-up jeans hopped up and down splashing the water from a tidal pool with bare feet. A starfish dangled between his fingers, its tentacles so orange in the sunlight that it appeared rusted. The girl behind him scrunched her face up, trying to force a small shovel into the sand beside a clam hole, working it with such force she kicked the tin pail at her toes, toppling it onto its side. Their parents sat on the rocks along the dunes, laughing.
We drove for another five minutes before Mr. OâMalley flicked on his blinker and a small green arrow winked to the left. I had just remembered to add the drips of water cascading into pearls off Yemayaâs arm when the taxi passed a sign marked K NOCKBERRY L ANE , which turned out to be about a mile of crushed oyster shells sparkling like pink snow in the dying sun.
The
âFine by me.â Remy slapped the trunk shut. âThe smell of that hell pipe gives me a headache anyway.â
We drove through the village of Tillings quietly, Mr. OâMalleyâs taxi bumping along over the cobblestones. Outside the car, a frenzy of activity seemed to be exploding along the streets and inside the shops, which were preparing for the festival. Two men curled over a walkway popping cobbles from their bracings and hammering new ones in their place. A tall heavyset woman balanced on a ladder as she stitched up the corner of an awning in front of a sweets shop. Four people with rags and small tins polished the brass trappings of a small white church while the pastor plopped clumps of pink mums along the brick walk. The sign read:
T HE B LESSING OF Y EMAYA
S UN. 10:00 AM . V ISITORS W ELCOME.
T HE G REAT M OTHERâS C HILDRENâS B LESSING
TO FOLLOW AT 11:00 AM .
âMost summer vacationers leave after Labor Day,â Remy said, eyeing the bustling street. âThen we all go a little crazy preparing for the crowd that comes over for the festival. After the Great Feast is over, Tillings will be dead as a beached whale until next Memorial Day.â
I didnât know if I would be there to see that. My mother hadnât said how long we were staying, but I had the feeling that my voice wasnât the only reason we were on the island. Over the last few years, my mother had worked primarily from home as a consultant for estate liquidators assessing fine art and pricing it for auction. At least, that was what she did when she wasnât busy scribbling down assignments for me from the room in the back of our house, which she had designated as a home classroom. I was the only kid I knew who had to live with their teacher, and while every kid in the universe got to go out and play for recess, I got to go and make my bed. Over the last three weeks, my mother had packed up her office to work from Tillings and every last pencil from my home-school kit was in my trunk. If she knew how long she intended us to be gone, she didnât say. It wasnât like there was really anything to leave behind, or anyone who would miss us.
Other than Grandma Jo, my mother had frozen the world out so thoroughly there were times she didnât even open the door for the UPS man. A month earlier, I had found her sitting on the living room floor with a bottle of Kendall Jackson, crying in a sea of loose photographs like some sort of rogue planet trying to hold its universe in orbit. Or maybe it was a black hole and she was willing it to swallow her upâI canât be sure. But this is what I do know . . . sometimes the only place left to hide is in the shadows of your own mind. Mr. OâMalley wove up and down a labyrinth of streets dotted with people repairing pickets and toting rakes. Behind them, small children dragged yard bags and jumped in leaf piles before stuffing them full. Finally, the taxi headed out of town on a road skirting the ocean until only a few homes speckledthe fields. We drove past the jetties, where a small boy in rolled-up jeans hopped up and down splashing the water from a tidal pool with bare feet. A starfish dangled between his fingers, its tentacles so orange in the sunlight that it appeared rusted. The girl behind him scrunched her face up, trying to force a small shovel into the sand beside a clam hole, working it with such force she kicked the tin pail at her toes, toppling it onto its side. Their parents sat on the rocks along the dunes, laughing.
We drove for another five minutes before Mr. OâMalley flicked on his blinker and a small green arrow winked to the left. I had just remembered to add the drips of water cascading into pearls off Yemayaâs arm when the taxi passed a sign marked K NOCKBERRY L ANE , which turned out to be about a mile of crushed oyster shells sparkling like pink snow in the dying sun.
The
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