These Ghosts Are Family by Maisy Card

Author:Maisy Card
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2020-03-03T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

Vincent was quiet for a moment, thinking about how tightly he’d hugged Claudette that day. How his hands had cramped from clenching the fabric of her dress.

“Me no wan’ the pickney fi see them mother like this,” he remembered Claudette saying.

Mrs. Pitt stepped forward as if to scrutinize the children. She grabbed Irene’s arm without warning.

“No tell me say you cyaan see the bruise ’pon this gal pickney arm. We know who put it there. Or is you put it there?” She let the arm go, and Irene pulled it back and hid it farther behind Claudette.

“Is not yuh mommy who do them singting to you, girl. Is the demon. Is the devil. Yuh wan’ we fi fix yuh mommy, right? Make her treat you nice?” Mrs. Pitt said.

Irene nodded at Mrs. Pitt and began to cry.

“See? Is good fi them fi see that them mother is not one whore or one madwoman. Is jus’ the devil take set ’pon her.”

It was his sister’s fault, Vincent had wanted to explain then, and even now to Ernie. But now he was a grown man, and he realized you could not blame a little girl for provoking a grown woman to beat on her. But still, he had always blamed Irene for everything that happened.

Vincent understood, when he was younger, that when his mother raised her voice suddenly or didn’t smile at him in the morning, he had to go out back and play by himself until it was time for bed. But Irene wouldn’t listen. When his mother slept for days, Irene was insistent that she wake up. She would talk back to her mother when she was clearly not herself, even though she knew what would happen to her.

“It was Claudette, the helper,” Ernie said, watching his daughter who was now on the swings. “She the one who tell them somet’ing nuh right with Vera. She said she start fi beat yuh sister too much. Every day she find reason fi beat that girl. Them never wan’ fi call the police ’pon her. Them try fi help her. Fi help all of you. Them did mean well, you know?”

“Me no believe that,” Vincent said. “Them nuh see how my sister did provoke her. And is true, my mother did get depressed after my father pass away, something did wrong with her, but we never know about them t’ings back then. When she sick, when her mood turn dark, she try fi stay by herself, but Irene always did wan’ fi provoke her and act out.”

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