The Heart Does Not Bend Read Free Page A

high off the ground, squeezed me tight against his big chest. “Ah going to miss yuh, Moll.” He kissed me from ear to ear, then whispered, “Ah won’t feget yuh, yuh my special girl.”
    Uncle Mikey hadn’t come to see him off.
    My grandmother was still sitting on the verandah when we got back. Inside the house the air was thick with the smell of roasted yellow-heart breadfruit and yam, ackee and saltfish and golden-brown flour dumplings.
    The grand-aunts took their plates to the verandah, while the rest of us sat around the table eating, drinking and talking about the good times we shared with Freddie. Monica was all teary-eyed. Cousin Ivan and Dennis and Freddie’s other friends said they would miss him for his skilled kite-flying, the soccer matches at the end of the street, crab season and street dances.
    Punsie said she’d miss the Chinese sweeties and the paradise plums Freddie bought for her. And me, I was losing the best and kindest uncle in the world.
    I couldn’t begin to think what life would be like without Uncle Freddie. He was the heart of the street. All the guys liked and respected him, even the older ones, for his easy manner and his contagious laughter. He took me to my only cockfight, in Dennis’s backyard.
    When everyone left the table, I went out to the verandah to join my grandmother and grand-aunts.
    “Ah going to miss mi little nephew. No more Mr. Freddie. He was such a sharp dresser, and a ladies’ man,” Aunt Joyce said, a faraway smile gracing her face.
    Aunt Joyce was the youngest of the sisters and the most fun. She laughed at everything, said whatever came into her head without thinking. She seemed to live only for the moment, so carefree. Joyce was three times divorced and had a string of suitors at her beck and call, but they never came close to her passion for clothes and shoes and gold jewellery.
    “If dressing was all dere was to life and having whole heap of ‘oman, him would be king,” my grandmother replied sourly, dragging on her Craven A. “Ah only hope him remember poor Monica and de baby,” she added.
    “Nuh talk like dat, Maria, him love de girl,” Aunt Joyce protested.
    “Yuh mark my word, when him reach foreign all will be forgotten.”
    “Nuh mind, Maria. Him will change. Remember the Lord is within all of we,” Grand-aunt Ruth added.
    My grandmother didn’t answer, but the tightening of her mouth and the steel in her brown eyes was enough. Nobody said anything for a while. I stared at the comic strip in the newspaper. Dennis’s mother’s voice travelled from several houses down the street, reaching our verandah. “Dennis, come water de yard.”
    Then my grandmother spoke. “Well, put bad and bad aside, ah will miss Freddie. Him really use to help me wid de garden,” she said, softening slightly.
    I decided it was safe for me to speak.
    “Mama, yuh won’t miss him for de crab season?”
    She nodded. “Ah suppose so. Mm-hmm.”
    “Nuh bother even talk ’bout crab,” Grand-aunt Ruth said. “Mi restaurant will really miss him, de crab soup and de crab fritter.”
    “Ivan can go wid Dennis and de rest a boys fi catch crab, him old enough,” Mama said.
    Ivan and Icie lived with Grand-aunt Ruth; they were cousins four times removed. Their mother was my grandmother and the grand-aunts’ second cousin, who lived in Port Maria; she had several children and not enough food to go around. Icie was thirteen and Ivan fourteen.
    “Dennis!” Aunt Joyce shouted across the three yards.
    “Yes m’am?” he shouted back.
    “Ah putting in mi order now fi next crab season, since mi favourite nephew gone.”
    “Don’t worry, Miss Joyce, you and Miss Ruth and Miss Maria covered.”
    “All right, don’t forget,” Aunt Joyce shouted back.
    “No m’am.”
    I remembered crab season. Uncle Freddie and his friends dragged crocus bags full of crabs into the backyard and threw them in huge drums. Punsie and I would watch them trying to climb out. Everyone on the