Letting Loose. Joanne Skerrett

sorry about yesterday.”

      Huh??? Was that Grace Wilson? Apologizing?

      “Ma? Is that you?”

      “Yes, it’s me. I wanted to tell you I’m sorry for calling you ungrateful yesterday.”

      Okay, she must really want some cash.

      “Uh-huh,” was all I could think to say.

      She sighed.

      “Amelia, I want to…I want things to be better between us.”

      Was this some kind of joke? Was I in the Twilight Zone?

      “You want to what?”

      “You heard me, okay? I just been thinking. All this fussin’ and fightin’s not doing me any good. I’m not getting any younger.”

      “Ma, you’re only fifty years old, and you look forty.” It was true. My mother was a beauty, a red-boned, voluptuous beauty with thick black hair she wore proud and natural once my father died. She got hit on all the time by men who were much younger than her. It bothered me much more than I was willing to admit. And, no, I didn’t think it was the source of the tension between us. She was a madwoman. That was enough.

      “I don’t feel fifty, Amelia,” she said. I put my coffee down. I hadn’t heard her sound this down in a long, long time. The last time had been when Gerard had gone to prison for two years for armed robbery. Then she had almost hit rock bottom.

      “Ma, what’s wrong?”

      She sighed. “I just want us to be friends, okay? Don’t let me get into how I feel and all that jive. Let’s just be mother and daughter. Like old times. When your daddy was around.”

      Like old times when my daddy was around? I don’t think I wanted to remember that far back. But she sounded sincere.

      “All right, Ma. No more fighting then.”

      “Okay, Amelia.” She paused. “You heard from Gerard?”

      Here we go. “No, why?”

      She sighed again and my antennae started chirping wildly.

      “Well, Ms. Parker and them found him passed out off Columbia Road last night. If they hadn’t found him he probably would have froze to death.”

      I grit my teeth. Gerard!!!

      “Where is he?”

      “He’s here. He’s fine. He’s laying down. Says he don’t want to go to the hospital.”

      I didn’t want to go over there. I wouldn’t go over there, I told myself. I left all of that behind. If she and Gerard wanted to go on living like this let them, but I would not be dragged into it.

      “Ma, Gerard is twenty-five years old….”

      “Don’t start with me, Amelia. What am I supposed to do, kick him out when he’s down? He needs to go see a doctor, but he won’t listen to me.”

      “He’s not down. He’s a grown man. If he doesn’t want to go to the hospital tell him to go stay with D’Andrea!” D’Andrea was Gerard’s longtime off and on, long-suffering girlfriend.

      She ignored me. “Are you gonna come talk to him or what?” Her furtive tone told me that she knew full well what my answer would be.

      “No, Ma. As long as you say he’s fine, then I’m not coming over there just to get dragged into another fight. Gerard doesn’t need me to tell him he shouldn’t be drinking.”

      “All right then, Amelia. I love you, okay?”

      I rolled my eyes. She knew how to lay the guilt trip nice and thick. “I love you, too, Ma. Take care of you.”

      I felt awful after I hung up, but that was the way of things. I had to leave it, them, behind. They were not me and I was not them. If I really knew what was good for me I would have applied to Berkeley’s grad program and moved to California, far away where none of this could touch me. I don’t know why I stayed. No, I knew. I was afraid that something catastrophic and awful would happen and they would have no one else to save them. This sucked. Why couldn’t I have a nice, adorably abnormal family? Kelly’s folks were bad, but they weren’t this bad. At least they didn’t call her at all. They knew they didn’t get along and didn’t pretend to with a bunch of perfunctory, useless communication.

      I was getting depressed and I refused to get sucked into it. It was another phobia of mine. I saw what that did to my mother and my brother and I didn’t want it to happen to me. First, the depression comes and then the drinking, or was it the other way around. Either way, it wouldn’t happen to me. Better to lose myself in a good book or gourmet chocolate, or even better, a nice juicy fantasy.

      I went online.

      No mail from the islands yet. I browsed the New York Times Web site, lingering on the Sunday book review.

      I checked my e-mail again; nothing but the usual junk. So, where was this Dominica place and what was up with it? And why would Drew give up America for a speck of a place in the Third World few people have heard of?

      According to the CIA World Factbook’s Web site, which I would take as an authority on the subject since its powers extend so far beyond that of most mortals, Dominica sounded like a pretty nice place: Last of the Caribbean islands to be colonized by the Europeans, mostly because the Carib Indians seemed to put up a really good fight. The island changed hands between the British and French a few times until 1805…. Oh, wait a minute! Dominica! Jean Rhys. How could I have been so dense? One of my favorite authors was Jean Rhys, a Dominican. But somehow I just couldn’t put white Jean Rhys in my fantasy of me and Ramses on our deserted little island. She just seemed so white and French. But I still made a mental note to reread Wide Sargasso Sea.

      The CIA had some great facts and some not so great ones, including the fact that the island was basically a huge volcano waiting to erupt. And that the unemployment rate was as high as, as, well, as my family’s unemployment rate. One thing that really got me all excited was the fact that Dominica in 1980 had the first female prime minister in all of the Caribbean. Dame Eugenia Charles. This got me thinking that the title Dame was so outdated, especially for a woman who’d accomplished so much. Would anyone call Condi Rice a dame, even if she had been given the title by the Crown? But back to Dominica, whose population was a little bit under seventy thousand. That wasn’t even half the population of Dorchester! And for a country four times the size of Washington, DC, that seemed to leave everyone enough space to move around and have a nice uncluttered life. I want to go now!

      Oh! New mail. I took a deep breath before I clicked on it.

      “Hi Amelia. Wish I’d known you’d written sooner. I’ve been busy all day working with an architect on the school we’re breaking ground on in a few weeks, so I haven’t had time to check my e-mail. I didn’t know about that algorithm fella—thanks for that bit of info. (Was he being sarcastic here?) I’ll have to remember not to lay any complex mathematical concepts on you as long as you don’t force me to read any Shakespeare. (Done!) So, tell me more about you. What makes you laugh out loud? What makes you angry? Do you have siblings? Are you close to your family? What’s important in your life right now?

      Now that I’ve given you the third degree, I’ll answer your questions: I moved back to Dominica because I felt a sort of responsibility to my homeland. The migration rate here is unbelievably high—understandably, most of the young people want to be in the UK or US, where there is more opportunity. But I guess the way I see it there are never going to be any opportunities here if our best and brightest never return. This may sound a bit egotistical, but I’m hoping to start a trend, a mass homecoming, if you will. I think if we can just get some more talented folks here, then the country would be a better place for future generations. (Awww…)

      OK, I’m done with my political speech. As you can tell I’m passionate about this stuff. I enjoyed living in the US, but I got bored with making and spending money and not making any real difference. So,