Stranger's Heart (eBook)

Jacinta's Truth

M. Duke (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024 | 1. Auflage
68 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3509-7745-5 (ISBN)

Infos

Jacinta Raven Dae lives in the Caribbean and has a strong instinct not to trust, an attitude she developed after the death of both parents, as well as a quite challenging life. having lost her mother at age eight and then suffering the emotional and physical abandonment of her father, she is determined to never love and trust. Her attraction/relationship with the opposite sex is problematic and troubling. Hers is a journey from that place to finding her heart and love. She meets Tyrone Ellis Dubois, a businessman from America, on a trip to visit her cousin. He experienced the divorce of his parents due to his father's infidelity, and a broken engagement. because of his experiences in relationships, he too does not trust love but cannot deny his attraction to Jacinta. In a series of encounters, they grow closer together. But are soon torn apart by distance, suspicions, and assumptions. It takes another funeral that transports Jacinta back to the young girl she was after her mother died, and the lessons of strength that she learned, to give her the courage to fight for the love of Tyrone.

I am a practicing Psychologist in the DMV AREA AS WELL AS Florida. I was born on the Caribbean Island of Trinidad & Tobago, grew up in Brooklyn, NY, and began writing as a teenager. I write fiction as well as poetry and I am currently working on fantasy story. M. Duke is my pen name.

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A Stranger's heart shows the journey of a young Jacinta following the death of her mother. Her father----distraught over the death of his wife----never recovered. Shortly after his wife's death, Jacinta's father took her to live with her aunt, an interestingly strange woman, a double-amputee who watched over her own brood of children, but agreed to take in her niece. Jacinta did not suffer great strife at the hands of her cousins, but they always made her know that she was an outsider. It was at her Auntie Bertha's house that Jacinta had a small but significant, frightful experience one night, and out of the desire to not appear cowardly, she rose to the occasion, gathered her courage, and moved on through the frightening moment. Showing her bravery in the face of a challenge gained her trust from her cousins, but most important, it was the first instance in which she trusted her own young self. From that moment on, Jacinta knew herself to be strong and courageous---at least on one level. Later in life, Jacinta befriended an older, wealthy woman who owned property in Blacksfield (Jacinta's Caribbean home). At the woman's death, she learned that she was the beneficiary of a Bed & Breakfast. Some time after that Jacinta meets Tyrone while on a trip to America. Having never dealt with passions of the heart, this possible romance both frightens and intrigues her. This story is about her confronting her attraction, then love, her mistrust and vulnerability, then desire. Jacinta has to choose courage in the face of doubt, or safety without the love of her life. What will she choose?

Textauszug

My name is Jacinta Raven Dae and I lived in a small village in Blacksfield, West Indies. They call my people Carib’s, descendants of the native Indian people of my land. When I was eight years old, I knew LIFE SUCKS! It soaked into my bones and I knew it!

My village sat on the coast of the Caribbean Sea, buffeted on the backside by tall mountains. The people in my village lived in one-story homes made of bricks with galvanized roofs, with the sea as the backdrop. At night the sky was so clear I could look up and count the stars. When it rained, it was like musical instruments playing on galvanized rooftops. Mist would slowly cover the face of the mountains. Rain would come and go without reason. One minute it would rain, and the next minute the sun would come out, sparkling like it was just washed by the rain. The streets had names like Crappo, Benddam, and Whitewall. The main road, Seaman Lane, had no traffic lights. You walked, or you took the bus that ran every hour, and stopped at 6pm, sun down. Mostly the rich villagers had cars; those rich people drove up and down the winding street, looking like the car might fall over into the sea. One year, a bus full of children and adults went over that road, fell right into that water, and was swallowed up by that sea. People said the spirit of the sea took them all.

On Seaman Lane was one post office and one grocery store which sold everything including clothes. When you walked past the store, you got to the hospital. Most folks didn’t go there though, they waited for the Obeah man to come and perform some ritual and prescribe this or that bush tea, or rub for every ailment, and people got better. Women had their babies at home. It’s what everybody did. There was no firehouse; people just used the rain water that sat in big bins behind each house.

People grew their bananas, plantains, potatoes, yams, peas, tomatoes, dasheen, and okra. When mothers were done breast feeding, goats provided milk. Everybody knew everybody and it was said that everybody was related to everybody, so if you met a boy or girl that you liked, you should find out their last name! Better yet, go down to the next village and look for your husband or wife there.

In the summer of 1965, the rainy season started and never ended; it was all day, everyday raining. Hurricane Henrietta came riding in on fast high waves, washing up and flooding Seaman Lane and the businesses and homes nearby. She whipped the wind into a frenzy, blowing off roofs. People said that Madame Jules died that day, a piece of galvanized roof sliced across her neck. Ms. Sandy’s son, Findnam who always came home drunk after a lime, fell over that road into that sea. After hurricane Henrietta left, destruction and death in her wake, the hospital on Seaman Lane was filled to overflowing. The Obeah man had no work that day.

Strong, hardworking, and resilient, my people rebuilt our small village and every year celebrated the end of the rainy season. Women dressed in flowing flowered dresses with their heads tied in bonnets. They performed dances to the rhythm of steel pans played by tall lanky men, some with goatees, and some with full beards. Local foods and drinks were abundant; fried fish, conch, iguana, palau, stew chicken, roti, patties, fried plantain, and doubles; and sorrel, ginger beer, and soursap. People from the surrounding villages also went to the festival; if you kept going up past my village, was Abbots, down right after my village was Yarborough, and further down was Shalamar.

I lived with my mother and father up a long winding path to a tiny house sitting up on a hill. Every year we went to the festival. I went from being held in my mother’s arms to having the best view in the whole village, on top of my father’s shoulders and then swinging between my parents. My mother would make homemade bread in the dirt oven out back of the house, and the most delicious foods in the kitchen next to the dining room with a table with four chairs where we ate. When it was storming I would run into mommy and daddy’s bedroom and crawl into their bed. The bathroom was next to their bedroom, with a galvanized tub that I would bathe in and mommy would have a big towel waiting for me when I got out. The drawing room was beside the dining room with mommy’s favorite chair with the high back and soft cushion seat.

I used to curl up next to Mommy in her chair and she would tell stories about the year hurricane Henrietta came, the Obeah man, and the Succiunta that would crawl up into any open window and suck out all your blood. One evening she told a story about Ms. Zaneka’s son, Jackson. “He was such a nice young man but he must have gotten into something hanging out there with them men. After that he started talking about the Succiunta stalking him and seeing Jombi wherever he went. It got so bad they had to take him to the crazy house. Then he started to get better so he came home, but it wasn’t long before Thelma’s baby went missing, right from her crib, and they found Jackson rocking the baby and singing lullaby’s to her like she was his. He’s been in and out the crazy house since then.” I hoped I never saw that crazy man ever. I was sure he would try to take me too.

Even though our house was small, I had my own bedroom with a closet where I hung up all my clothes like mommy showed me; my pretty blue frilly dress that I wore on Sundays to church. I had a white hat and white shoes that I would wear with it. I had a long mirror leaned up against the closet; I would spin around looking at myself from all views, especially in my Sunday dress. On my bed was the patchwork quilt that Mommy had made from pieces of old clothes. I always propped my doll Priscilla, a talking and walking doll, on my pillow. Across from my bed was a window that mommy would prop open every morning, let in the sun and the breeze she would always say. Every night when I said my prayers, I wished I had a brother or sister to play with.

The year that I turned 8 years old my mommy went to heaven and my life was never the same again. What I remember the most begins with the details of the morning when I heard, “Jacinta! Jacinta! Jacinta! Wake up child, it’s time.” I couldn’t open my eyes. “Jacinta! Child you not ready yet? Get up child, get up. Get dressed, it’s time.” I slowly turned my head towards the sound. I felt so groggy. I couldn’t seem to get up. Slowly my eyes opened and fixed on the spot where that sound came from. My eyes focused, moved up and down the figure dressed in a long black dress that covered the top of her shoes. My eyes moved upwards and rested on her face, hair pulled tightly back in a bun. Oh, Madam Staples. My confusion leapt off my mind and ran from me like wild dogs were chasing it. I jumped off the bed, pulled on my frilly blue Sunday dress, my white socks and white shoes, and pulled my Sunday school hat down over my head. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror; tall and skinny, long legs with big knees like my daddy, and skinny ankles. My hat covered the two braids with blue ribbons on each end. I walked out the bedroom looking for Daddy.

He was standing beside the window in the drawing room, starring out, a faraway look on his face. I walked over and stood beside him, reaching for his hand, but he didn’t notice and didn’t take my hand. My eyes closed against the sun glaring through the open window and my mind drifted;

Mommy’s dancing to calypso music, hips moving from side to side. She was making Ovaltine tea with milk on the stove. The warm bread that was made in the dirt oven out back of the house, cut up in slices, sat on a white plate on the round table in the dining room covered with a crisp, white table cloth with fringes at the ends. The butter dish seated beside it. Three plates sat around the table. Mommy smiled at me as I walked into the room, sat at the table, and reached for a slice of bread…..

I was pulled out of my daydreaming by Madame Staples who touched me on my shoulders. “Let’s go child.”

All these people stood around the church with the long thin steeple in the background. Pushing through all those people, I saw a long box sitting beside a hole in the ground. I fought my way up to the box. Mommy was lying there like she was sleeping, wearing a long blue dress. She looked so pretty. I ran, shaking, weeping to daddy, holding his hand tight.

After they put my mommy in the ground and covered her up with dirt, till there was nothing left, daddy and I walked up the long, winding path to our house on the hill. He walked in front of me, his stooped back towards me, like he had lost some tallness somewhere on our way home. As he pushed the front door open, the sunlight disappeared, even though the window was open and just this morning, the sun was glaring through it. His shuffling footsteps sounded loud, filling my ears. It seemed to take him an extra-long time; I remember it used to take him two steps to get into the drawing room. He shuffled in, placed his hands on both sides of mommy’s favorite chair, and dropped down into the soft cushion seat. I followed him into the room. You know like when the sun moves across the sky and casts a shadow, well it looked like the shadow on his face would never move away to come to rest someplace else. His face never smiled again, hazel eyes crinkled up like when he laughed with me and mommy. His eyes never saw me again.

Everything was different now; daddy with his empty eyes, no wonderful smells coming from the kitchen, no calypso music playing and mommy moving her hips from side to side, no laughing. I watched my daddy with his far away eyes; he didn’t know I was there. He didn’t see me. There...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 1.12.2024
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3509-7745-5 / 9798350977455