Killing Moons

It was Easter Sunday, Mama’s birthday. The yard was still, so quiet you could hear the tide coming in. There was no sea breeze, not a cloud in the sky, only a bright, blue sea above my head. All my brothers and sisters were at the beach helping the fishermen pull in the nets. If the catch was big, the fishermen would reward us with slippery, silver Jacks. Nana, Mama’s sister, was sitting on our front steps shelling pigeon peas; she broke their spines and dropped the little green pebbles in a coal pot. The shells fell on yesterday’s Guardian. Nana did this every morning when pigeon peas were in season, so we could eat rice and peas, fried fish, and if we were lucky, a piece of fried plantain for lunch.

The midday sun made the hot, sandy earth sting my bare knees. I had been kneeling in the yard for an hour but that was my punishment. Nana would never let me stand. Kneeling, she said, would remind me that I was before God. On Judgement Day I would have to answer to Him for all my sins.

“You think I’m a mind reader or what?” Nana suddenly said, looking up from her coal pot and waking up from the trance she had been in for what felt like a year. She wiped the sweat off her forehead, but in a second, little silver balls lined her temple again. She wanted to know how it all happened, she wanted me to tell her God’s truth.

I never looked at Nana eye to eye; in our yard that was a sign of rudeness. Instead, I focused on an army of red ants attacking clumps of burnt rice in the gutter.

“It was really brother Samuel’s idea,” I said.

Nana cleared her throat and spat into the gutter. “Doh think yuh blamin’ dis on yuh brother,” she said.

“No, Nana,” I said, “I not blaming this on brother Samuel. But two days before Mama’s birthday, brother Samuel pulled me to the back of the house and told me that this year we were going to give Mama the best birthday gift. He said that what we were going to give Mama melted on your tongue like coconut bake and butter, like ten sugar cakes from Mr. Frank’s parlor. Then brother Samuel came so close to my face I could smell his sour breath, ‘Duck meat,’ he whispered. Now I knew that only one person in Cumana had ducks besides Mr. Frank, but I knew brother Samuel wouldn’t steal from him, so it had to be Miss Mc Shine. I told brother Samuel that stealing was not a Christian thing, that it wasn’t even a neighborly thing. But brother Samuel said that Miss Mc Shine couldn’t even count the five teeth in her mouth, far less miss a duck or two. And he said that once everybody’s belly was full and their eyes were heavy with sleep, no one would even care about where the ducks came from.”

Nana looked up and smiled, not a nice smile but one that we all knew in the yard. A wide pink and gold smile that showed off gums and two gold teeth.

Earlier that morning Miss Mc Shine had run into the yard shouting, “rape,” and “murder.” Brother Samuel, the minute he heard the cries, crawled from beneath the bed where we both slept and jumped out the window. Nana and Mama woke up; the weight of them both sitting-up on the mattress, pressed the bedsprings against my body. Miss Mc Shine moaned, “Hate, envy, jealousy, always follow me, from town to Toco from Toco back to Cumana. Is not my fault my father left me a little money or that I take after my half Scottish mother.” We had heard about her mother’s “good” hair and fair complexion since birth.

Nana and Mama drew the curtains and looked through the window. It wasn’t really a window but a big square hole that Mr. Frank had promised to fill...