Salt

Brooklyn, 1988

Gem Lee emptied the box of kosher salt onto the portrait of her mother. Kneeling on the cool linoleum of her bedroom floor, she looked at the white mound in the center of the aluminum pan and smiled. In fourteen days, Snowdrop's precious creamy skin would look like Swiss cheese and she would melt from the life of the family. Gem walked a few feet to her bed, where she picked up her Nana's special book. Opening the worn brown leather cover, she invoked the magic of the yellowed parchment pages:

As heaven is separated from earth,
As day is separated from night,
As life is separated from death,
As mountain from valley,
As land from sea, as sun from moon,
So separate and divide Snowdrop from Leroy Lee.

Gem closed the book, meditating on her grandmother's spell, recorded in thick ink from a time before ballpoint pens. The old woman had passed her the gift the night before the family left their home.

"I'm so glad to be leaving this shit hole," said Leroy. "Jamaica has never done a thing for me!" He paced the living room floor, while Snowdrop, Nana and Gem sat watching on the couch. Snowdrop was between the other two, sipping a glass of iced tea.

"Things will be different in the United States," Leroy continued.

"Different from what?" asked Nana.

"I think you know, Mother." He narrowed his eyes. "Here, I'm the rich Chinaman's bastard son." He stopped pacing and stood in the center of the floor, looking at the three women. "In the United States, I can be whoever I want to be."

Nana forced air through her nose. "Mr. Lee provided for you," she said.

"Yes," replied Leroy. He ran his hand over his curly, black hair. "And I'm tired of being grateful."

Snowdrop swallowed the last of her tea, along with a cube of ice, which she crunched with her teeth.

Nana had been frowning, but now she smiled and nodded, as though the disagreement no longer mattered. Later that night, when Snowdrop and Leroy were sleeping, she walked into her granddaughter's room and stood quietly over the bed. Gem felt Nana's eyes on her, so she opened her own, making out the old woman's silhouette in the darkness. She sat up as her grandmother put something on her lap. She touched it, recognizing the feel of the soft brown leather cover of Nana's special book. The old woman had shown it to her once before, telling Gem that she would one day inherit it. Now, Gem wouldn't have to wait until the old woman passed on to receive the gift. She touched the small volume, no thicker than an address book.

"You'll need this in your new life," said Nana, and then she left the room.

The following morning on the airplane, Gem studied her parents seated across the aisle. Her father bit his nails and grinned compulsively. Snowdrop, on the other hand, reclined in her seat. The sun from the window lit up her creamy skin and wavy brown hair. Her plump pink lips formed a slight smile. Gem knew what it meant when her mother smiled that way; her stomach tightened.

"Funny what you said last night." Snowdrop looked at her husband.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"You said you were tired of being grateful to your father. But now, I guess you should be grateful to me." She shrugged, as though what she said was of no consequence. "After all, my aunt's sponsoring us. Without me, you wouldn't be going to New York."

Leroy nodded, the color draining from his yellow-brown face.

Gem reached inside the breast of her school uniform's navy blue blazer. She touched her grandmother's book and knew that she would be prepared.

A week later in Brooklyn, Gem met her father's old friend, Nigel. The two had attended the same British-style prep school back in Jamaica. Leroy said...