Imagining Us

Chapter 27 - Keep Extending...

Esi pushed a branch of the fig tree out of her face as she walked at the side of the house. She kept hearing things skitter across the dried leaves on the ground so she had her phone light shining just in case she needed to run.

There was a dim light ahead and she saw a figure sitting alone on the steps that led from the laundry room.

"Hello...?" She asked, trying to identify the person.

They looked up.

"Hey, chick chick," her Uncle Sammy said wearily. It was an endearment that he'd called her ever since she was younger because she would follow her mum everywhere she went. Like a baby chick behind a mother hen.

How things had changed!

As she peered down at her uncle, she realized how much he'd aged in such a short time. His normally soot black curls were now peppered with grey.

Esi could've continued on her walk, but his isolation from the others was a concern.

"How are you?" She asked him.

"I'm here," was his reply. It was a loaded one. He made it seem like the summation of his whole life was in that single moment—him just sitting here doing nothing.

She moved to sit next to him on the steps—not in a hurry to go anywhere.

"Granny's still ignoring you?" She inquired.

He sighed. "You know how she is."

Esi hummed in agreement. She knew that her grandmother could be seen as a little overbearing, but that was just how she loved them. It was even worse for her Uncle Sammy with him being the only son that she had. To make it worse, he was the splitting image of her grandfather George, and her grandmother had an even harder time letting go. Still, Esi didn't think that she deserved not to know that her son was getting married.

She and her uncle always had a special relationship, probably founded on their mutual stubbornness, and the fact that sometimes within this large family, they both sometimes felt like outsiders. Plus, he was a contributing factor to her being back in Connecticut to complete her Masters. Esi had been mostly prepared to move back in with her parents and do the commute back and forth, but her Uncle insisted that there was no way that she would be able to concentrate with her parents fussing over her.

So, he offered to pay for room and board, to which she vehemently refused.
Then he guilt tripped her into the fact that he and Wendy didn't have or want kids so he had to put his money somewhere.

And she eventually conceded.

"Can I ask...," she started hesitantly. "I guess you're entitled to whoever you want to have at your wedding, but to not tell her at all..." Esi cringed.
"Hindsight..." her uncle mused. "But I did what I felt was right for me at that moment..as stupid as it seems to everybody."

Her uncle balanced his beer bottle on his thigh and ran a hand through his hair.

"I ever tell you how I met Wendy?" He asked.

She shook her head.

"It was after Dad died. I was just going through the motions...hardly talking, hardly anything," he took a sip of his beer. "Everything just seemed the same, you know. Like my whole life was gray."

Esi could understand about going through the motions—like you were still trying to live but nothing made sense.

"Mom sent me to the store for...for something. I don't even remember what it was," Uncle Sammy chuckled. "But I somehow made it to the poultry section, and I didn't realize that I was so lost in thought that I was staring...like a crazy person."

She remembered observing her mother after her grandfather's death. Her mum had hardly cried, not that it was a requirement of grief. It was as if she felt that she had to be strong for everyone else, as if she had to carry everything herself when she didn't have to.

Maybe her uncle felt that he too had to be the epitome of a Trini man—unable to show emotion or grieve openly. It hurt her to think that none of them had realized how much he was suffering.

"I heard someone clear their throat behind me," he smiled as he recalled. "And in the most sarcastic voice...one to even rival you chick chick—Esi didn't think she was that sarcastic—she informed me that no matter how long I looked at the chicken that it would never move."

It did sound just like Wendy with her dry expressions.

"I just stared at her Esi, like she had two heads. Then she asked me a question, one that nobody ever asked me," her uncle clutched at his chest. "She asked me if I was okay...people don't ask that—they just expect me to be."

Esi reached out to lay her hand on his shoulder.

"And she keeps asking...whether or not I am...she's relentless in how she loves me. In how she pursues me. I didn't want love. Didn't think it was for me," He looked Esi in the eye. "And I know some backward people might think that she's too forward..you know those people who are still rooted in tradition, but I love her for it."

There was passion now blazing in his eyes—passion that she'd never seen in them before. If Esi really thought about it, she could see the truth in what he said. She recalled how her uncle was before—how he just seemed to drift. To be passive doing whatever was expected of him. But now he was making moves—doing things that maybe seemed out of character for him. Perhaps that was his way of finally living.

"Her patience, Esi...it's incomparable. Who wouldn't get tired of loving a broken person?" He asked rhetorically.

That question struck her, and it wouldn't be her last time hearing it. The fact that her uncle thought that he was unworthy of love.
She thought of Porte, of whatever it was going on with him right now—his lack of response. If Wendy, being in love with her uncle, could continue to ask questions—continue to be there—then she could be there for Porte as his friend. She could continue to try to reach out to him.

"I know that I didn't do things how other people wanted it," Uncle Sammy continued. "But we did things right for us, and sometimes chick chick, it's okay to put yourself first. And even more so, it's okay to accept love."

~~~
Early the next morning, after Esi had successfully avoided the interrogation from her brother and her cousin, she lay on an air mattress in a corner of her granny's living room. She felt like she couldn't move her body, and her head was pounding.
Because the party went into the wee hours of the morning, everyone just decided to crash there. She could hear some of her cousins snoring around her.

Esi got up and tiptoed to the bathroom, grabbing her weekender bag that her mum had preemptively suggested that she bring, knowing how late into the morning the party would have gone.
She cringed at the state of her haggard face in the mirror and set about to brush her teeth and wash her face. Luckily, Bri had braided her hair two days ago, so that was one less headache for her.

Vivid flashes of last night ran through her mind—the commotion of the party and what her uncle had told her. At the end of the conversation, she'd encouraged him to speak his truth to his mother and his sisters. Even if they wouldn't understand, at least they would know how he was feeling and why he did what he did.

For so long society has had expectations that men like her uncle weren't supposed to show or feel emotions, and they were drowning under the weight of it.
Of course the parts of their conversation about Wendy reaching out had prompted her to message Porte again. She had wished him a 'Merry Christmas' and told him that she wasn't giving up on their friendship and that she would be there when he was ready to talk.

Still, she wondered how long she would be able to extend herself without teetering over the edge of heartbreak.
Because friends could get heartbroken too.