CHARLES HAS AGREED TO RETURN TO HELP OUT AROUND THE yard, uprooting weeds and washing the discolored walls and walkway. All morning long he has been working. He never pauses for a break, and declines Verdene’s offers for food and water. Finally she convinces him to come inside for tea.
“Don’t worry, it’s not poison.” Verdene lowers a tray with the teacups and saucers her mother once reserved for special guests. Charles watches her pour the peppermint tea. Her hand shakes a little as the liquid fills his cup, a plume of steam rising from its surface. He doesn’t drink until she puts her cup to her mouth.
“You’re not a talker,” she says, sitting across from him at the dining table.
“Not when I’m working.” He lowers his cup into the saucer. She notices that he doesn’t look anywhere else like people tend to do when they are inside a place for the first time.
“So you’re a hard worker.” She regrets this statement as soon as she says it. She sounds pompous, condescending. She wishes she could take it back.
“I get di job done,” he says. “My father always used to seh dat how ah man work is ah reflection of his character.”
“Who is your father? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“Asafa.”
“Lobsterman?” Verdene asks, remembering the fisherman. How could she not have known that this is his son? They look exactly alike—same sepia-colored eyes, same nose, same chin with the slight dimple. Asafa was just a youth when Verdene left. A youth her age who, like his father before him—a man people called One Eye Barry—started fishing from an early age. “Lobsterman is your father.” This is a statement, a declaration, as the image of Asafa appears across from her like a blueprint. “You say used to? Where is your father now?”
Charles puts the cup to his face again, completely burying his nose. She watches the rhythm of his throat as he swallows. When he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand he says, “Gone.”
Verdene plays with the rim of her cup. “I’m sorry.”
Charles shrugs. “It is what it is.”
Verdene picks up her cup and holds it to warm her hands.
“I’m still getting over my mother passing. So I can just imagine how you feel.”
“He didn’t die. He left.”
“Oh.”
A slick of blue sky frames his head. Usually when Verdene sits at the table this time of day she sees nothing but the sky. This only makes her want to do everything in her power to keep him there, her first real company besides Margot. “More tea?” she asks, hoping to change the mood. He nods. She pours more tea into his cup and rests the teapot at the center of the table. Charles inspects it. “Dis remind me of something I would see at Buckingham Palace,” he says.
Verdene chuckles. “Have you ever been?”
“No, but dat’s di kinda teapot ah imagine di queen would have in har cupboard.”
“It was a gift my aunt sent my mother when she first moved to London.”
“What is it like ovah dere?”
Verdene pauses. Her time in Brixton is a period she doesn’t talk about.
“It was all right,” she says.
“Jus’ all right?”
“I didn’t exactly move there by choice.”
“Did you evah meet di queen?”
“No. In fact, I didn’t go out much. Just work, home, and church. Every now and again I’d go dancing. My job as an editorial assistant for my uncle’s small press was too demanding anyway.”
Charles’s eyes widen. “Yuh went to church?”
“Why is that surprising?”
“Well . . .” His voice trails off.
“I’m not a heathen. I’m just like you.”
“You’re nothing like me.” He says this too quickly. Verdene must have looked hurt, because he corrects himself with, “Ah don’t do church.”
“Do you go to school?” she asks, glad to change the subject. “You seem smart.”
“Don’t do that either. Not since my ole man left. Ah had to take care of my mother.”
“That’s very responsible of you.”
“If ah continued school ah woulda be ah architect. Yuh know, design buildings an’ big hotels like di ones here on di North Coast. Ah woulda mek sure not to move people outta dem homes.”
“It’s not too late, you know.”
Charles shakes his head. “For me it is. People like me can’t afford all dat schooling.”
“There are scholarships. I can help you apply.”
“Wid all due respec’, miss, me is not yuh charity. Me come here fi work. Chop yuh grass an’ wash yuh walkway. I’ve always made my own way wid nobody to help me.”
“Fine. All I’m saying is you can do so much. You’re still very young. You wouldn’t want to wake up one day and realize that you’ve wasted your whole life. It’s not a good feeling, trust me.”
“Yuh t’ink yuh waste yuh life?” he asks, cocking his head to one side.
“There are many things I would’ve done differently.”
“Gimme one t’ing you woulda done different.”
“I wouldn’t have gotten married so young.”
“Yuh married?”