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The sun in Trinidad is despotic. It oppresses all in its wake. As the arms of the clock stand upright and united, the sun is at its hottest. The island’s inhabitants move as languid and lethargic as an iguana. Even the hummingbird’s flutter seems labored. But each day, from the time even before the original, now dead inhabitants, the sun allows itself to be swallowed up by the horizon. The coolness of the evening laps upon the shore of the land and relieves the descendants of colonialists, slaves, indentured servants and the many entrepreneurial others. The play button is pressed and life happens.
The pre-evening stillness is punctured by the heavy labor of a 12 year-old girl scrubbing against the wooden washboard. Unlike her peers, she has not shot up as a tall as the sugar cane. Her shoulder-length dark hair is plaited on each side and its ends gently brushes her shoulders from time to time. She is wearing a polyester, plaid uniform over a crispy white shirt. She wears white socks up to her ankles and white sneakers. They too are crispy white. In the sun, the whiteness seems to glow.
Daisy’s hands are puckered. The water is sudsy and smells of bleach. She knows she has to be careful so as not to get the water on her uniform. It will ruin it and it is the only uniform she has. She wipes at her sweaty brow with her arm and is displeased by the smell her body releases. Puberty is upon her like a parasite upon its host. She enjoys none of the gifts it has to offer—the budding breasts which give way to her uncle’s unwelcome stares, the monthly visitor which, upon its arrival seemed to tear away at her lower back and soil her underwear--underwear which she herself has to scrub, in secret, “You don’t want the boy children to see that.” Her Aunty had told her.

And so, she had to find a time when the house was empty—a luxury poverty rarely allows.

Daisy had only been at her Aunts for three months. Her grandmother, with whom she and her brother had lived with from birth, had decided to move to America. “Trinidad getting too hard. I have to go and work and I’ll send money down. You and Lucky behave and your mother will send for you as soon as she settle.” Her grandmother busied herself with the rolling of bake as Daisy stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the washing room. Daisy took her big toe and played along the coolness of the edge of the concrete doorway. She looked down; not wanting to see her grandmother’s hunched back. Her grandmother’s usual smooth face was bunched up with concern. She too bunched up her face with concern. How could her grandmother leave them? Daisy felt a panic possess her. Up until then, life was good—Daisy performed well in school, there was a mango tree in the backyard and usually shy, she had finally begun to make friends in her class. Daisy and her brother, although without a mother, lived with doting grandparents.
Daisy had come to accept that her mother would never send for them and she had made peace with it. Truth be told, there was nothing about America that sounded appealing to the pubescent girl. “Those Yankees think they know everything. Concrete everywhere and the way they like to treat the Blacks. I better off here I tell you. You will never get me to leave my country.” And Daisy knew that her Grandfather spoke the truth.
Daisy had seen pictures of her mother. She was pretty but not there. Her grandmother cuddled her and stroked her hair. Her grandmother awoke every morning and made bake. Her grandmother took her to church on Sundays, where she would get dressed up in colorful dresses that her grandmother had made for her. Daisy wore big satin ribbons and sometimes her grandmother would let her borrow her gold earrings. There was nothing that Daisy was in want of. In fact, whenever her mother was mentioned, Daisy found herself swatting away at the name like some annoying fly.
Her grandfather sat silently in his tan leather chair, terra-cotta face held up by a finger on his brow. He stared out into nothing. After her grandmother had covered the kneaded dough with a plaided kitchen towel, Daisy followed her into the living room. Daisy stood at her grandfather’s side. He settled the palm of his hand in the small of her back and she could smell the freshness of his aftershave mingle with the sweat of the day. She rests her head on his head and for the first time, ever in her life, her grandfather refuses her. “Not now Daisy. I have to go and buy the paper.” But he had already bought the paper for the day. He stood and retired to his room. When he reemerges, he is dressed in brown polyester slacks and a cotton Bermuda shirt. “I coming right back, I just going down the road.” His expression is serious.
“Allyah don’t worry about him.” Daisy’s grandmother had assured them as Lucky had pressed himself close to his grandmother’s legs. “Come now, we have to go.” The walk to the main road was made unbearable by the heat. Daisy and Lucky fought hard to keep up with their grandmother. They both carried a bag each. Enough clothes for their short stay. Daisy felt a bit excited. She knew her grandmother would be back and that she would not allow them to stay long at her sister’s, Daisy’s great Aunt’s house. “All ya will be in good hands. And you not staying there for too long. Your mother sending for ya just now.” Daisy looked up at the hills that crowned the valley.
At first Daisy liked Aunty --. She reminded Daisy of her grandmother with her liverspots and long hair. This will not be too bad, she thought, when she saw the way she softly tilted her head when she laughed, just as Mommy Clarisse did. But Aunty -- grew to resent their presence and would admonish her constantly, “I don’t know how your mother could just leave her child like this.” Daisy felt imprisoned. She could not leave the house because it was considered unladylike to sit on the gallery. She could not run to her room, because she had none. Instead, she sat there, on the rocking chair, feeling misery eat away at her insides.
And she would suck her teeth, usually giving Daisy the ends of what little food the woman stretched among her large family.
Daisy attributed her Aunt’s hostility as a response to her own shabbiness. After all, Rose, Daisy’s mother, was so beautiful. Hued the yellow of pollen with salon-red died hair, she was slim and fashionable. Rose’s hair was always perfectly done and her face, unlike her adolescents daughter’s, smooth and flawless. Daisy always knew that others looked at her with surprise when they learned she was Rose’s daughter. It seemed as if God had forsaken her by bequeathing her with the invalid currency of the ancestors her family seemed to strive to forget. Daisy always placed a picture of her mother Rose between the pages of her beaten up bible, in the hopes that some miracle could occur.

One day she and Lucky had found a patch of dirt to play with in the yard. The dirt here was red and extremely muddy, for a rain had just passed. Aunty --’s yard had all sorts of junk strewn about it—rusting bikes, a pink baby doll limb, and a worn out skipping rope. A clothes line hung over a shell of a car, and every now and then, the breeze of freshly sunned clothes would hit the two stooping, children. It was an extremely hot day, but that was not unusual in Trinidad. What was unusual was that today Daisy’s mother was coming to visit.

In Trinidad they had lived with their grandmother’s sister, Aunty -- and her daughter Debbie. “Your mother doesn’t love you.” Was the usual taunt she and her little brother Lucky was subjected to. Debbie was the same age as Daisy, and unlike Daisy, always well-dressed. Worse still, Debbie was pretty. Tall and thin, with a mother who doted on her. Debbie spent her days in bed reading old Mills and Boons romances, and when she felt moved to, would join her mother on the gallery. Together they would watch the two orphans with distaste and little patience. Daisy had to wear Debbie’s hand-me-downs, and whenever she offended her cousin, was subjected frequently with, “Don’t let me take my clothes off your back, here?”
But Daisy was content as long as Lucky was by her side and her Aunty’s husband was not at home. He had less patience for their presence, and lately, he looked at the young Daisy with a look she did not recognize and did not like.
Although Daisy and her brother played apart from the other children, it was not because they were teased or shunned as was the usual case. Rather, today, Daisy chose to stay away from them, proud to have them proven wrong. Lucky followed her, as he was wont to do. Although he was only eight months younger than she, Daisy was, she supposed, his mother.
“Your mother never coming for you,” Debbie would hiss. Daisy’s insides would tighten up with fear. What if it were true? But Lucky’s desperate eyes would calm her—surely life could never be so cruel. She prayed every night that her mother would come to rescue them, and she knew that today would be the day. It was hard enough to hear Aunty -- complain that their mother didn’t send any money, complaints that were always articulated while the food was dished out or a new school uniform had to be made. But Daisy knew there had to be an explanation—and a good one at that. No mother would abandon her two children just like that.
But anyway, as she sat cross legged on the dirt, she eyed the grass as it gently tickled her toes and as her brother lay on his back and commented on how the clouds looked like animals, she smiled a rare smile. Her mother was coming to save them.
A car horn sounded and the usual lazy pace of a quiet Caribbean day picked up like a hurricane, as adults came out on galleries and swatted at flies with flour drenched fingers and wiped at sweat laden brows. “She coming! She coming!” Daisy didn’t know what to do, she was planted on the patch of grass. Should she go and personally greet her mother or behave like a child, and wait to be spoken to? Her brother’s eyes seemed to ask her the same. In a rare gesture, she reached out to him. He took her hand in his.

She was beautiful--as yellow as a banana and her hair red and straight. Her lips and nails were matching frosted orange. Despite the heat she wore white patent leather go go boots. She had the slimmest and longest legs and wore a white mini-dress. What struck Daisy was that she seemed a mere girl.
As Daisy looked at her mother, she realized at that moment, that beauty was that which made all else invisible. Daisy felt self-conscious. She chastised herself as she stood there, alongside her brother, under her mother’s stare. She chastised her darkness, her unkempt hair, her ashy knees. Is this what it feels like to be under her mother’s stare? There was no love, just an awkward, remote recognition that was beyond embarrassing, made even more so because of the audience who looked on as one imagined the Romans at an arena of death.
“Is this how you greet your mother?” The beautiful woman bent her knees and stuck her arms out. Aunty -- pushed Daisy and her brother into their mother’s arms. Daisy’s smooth skin hit the rough from starch material of her mother’s dress. Lucky said nothing. On impact, her mother straightened up, neatened her dress and released the children in one, smooth movement. Not quick enough for Daisy not to have noticed the headache inducing smell of cheap perfume. “Go and play children. We have to talk.” Like that the grown ups disappeared into the house. Like that Daisy and her brother had met their mother and had been dismissed. When was the last time Daisy had seen her mother?
“Come Lucky, the guava tree is laden.”
“She pretty eh?” Lucky asked as if he needed reassurance. She looked down at her brother’s tamarind colored face and eyes that told of China. She wanted to lash out at him for his stupidity. Instead, she gently led his thumb away from his mouth and smoothed his straight hair. Why did people have babies, when they didn’t want to take care of them? She wondered.
Daisy led her brother quietly up the wooden steps that led to the empty gallery. They stood atop bricks and peaked. Aunty -- served cold sorrel in old jars. Ice clanked and the house’s one fan coughed dry, dusty air. Flies terrorized treats dared left uncovered.
“They no problem, no problem at all. As long as you send me the things they need and money.” Daisy felt herself growing angry.
“It will only be for a few more months, until we get settle. Then we’ll send for them.” Daisy could not believe it. Lucky looked at her. He had a piece of hair that always stuck up in the middle of his head.
“And the little one?” Aunty -- had asked their mother.
“She fine.”
“How old she is now?”
“Six months.” She had another baby? Daisy could not believe her ears. “Come on Lucky, let us go pick the guava.” She led her brother to the back yard. The tree, like she had said, was laden. They began the job of collecting and picking the soft green fruit with the seedy, pink flesh.
“Come and tell your mommy good-bye.” She was already leaving.
“Be good little children, you hear? I sending for all you soon.” We? Daisy wished that people would fill them in on their fates. It was bad enough that God didn’t, so why couldn’t her family just help a little?
Their mother gave them both artificial hugs and was soon driven away by the strange man who had driven her there. No one had taken the time to tell Daisy that that man was her father.
Now this beauty lay huddled in an apartment floor. They were now all in Brooklyn, her mother had sent for them. It would end up being the only promise her mother would ever keep.
The cops were on their way. It wasn’t the first time. Daisy’s father was roaming the building, and soon the neighborhood, stark naked. Lucky lay in his bed, throwing and catching a football as if in some trance.
Daisy wanted to hug her mother and tell her that she would be ok. But for some reason she didn’t. All she could remember were the guavas. How ripe they were that day. How soft they were to touch and how despite the pain in her heart she was still moved to bite into one and taste the tangy sweetness of it. She remembers, even to this day, as the cops, their faces white and foreign, stood in her home and complained about the incessant calls. She wondered if they had ever tasted the tanginess of guavas? But like everything else she felt moved to do at that moment, she didn’t. Instead, she made her way to the bathroom, to clean up her lip that was bloodied by her father’s fists earlier that day.