The Cotton Tree Diary

The wind whips by, singing in my ears as I race through the clumpy grass. A fidgety mongoose beats a hasty retreat as he scampers out of my way, my bare feet echoing his path as they trip lightly over the prickly dry grass that covers the land. The parched air should have dried out my eyes as I flittered across the field but the tears that flow counter the dryness that could have assuaged them. 

The big field spreads out like eternity: tall, dry wheat-coloured grass swaying in the wind, dotted only with the small thorny plants that somehow managed to stay green in the dry weather that has stricken Barbados.

My dress catches on their thorns as I run, ripping tiny holes in it and leaving traces of me behind. I want to stop and take them with me but I can’t; somehow I don’t feel that I want to leave anything else behind me. I already feel less than whole.

With their long, scratchy branches they tear at my skin and clothes as I go, leaving smears of blood and cloth. I keep running.

The trees sway lightly in the wind; the shadowy branches look like fingers as they trail their way down my body. The day was coming to a close, the shadows of the shak shak trees stretch long and lean across the plain as the sun hangs low in the sky.

The small black shak shak seeds shimmy inside the golden shells and make soothing sounds, much like small maracas. They taunt me; the quiet rustling sounds contrast jarringly with the turmoil that rages within me.

My heart beats quickly; my breath comes in harsh gasps as I force myself to keep running, knowing that I am nearly there. I can’t stop even though my mouth is dry and my chest burns; I push myself harder. The shallow copse of trees thins out, emptying out into a circular patch of land that rings the massive silk cotton tree in the middle of it like soldiers surrounding enemy troops.

This was my refuge.

It may not look like anything special with its knobby, elephantine bark but it holds a deep connection for me. The wide sweeping branches are sparsely covered with bright green leaves. At other times of the year the tree provides a wonderful canopy that shades and protects me from the harsh Barbadian sun.

But at present, the silk cotton tree is shedding its pods. On the ground, they go from green to a crisp brown shell, breaking open and showering everything with wispy ivory-coloured fibres, blanketing the ground with their downy clusters. The long banana shaped husks litter the ground under the tree, some of the pods already opened and exposing their fluffy innards through the cracks.

I can be at peace here. It has always been so.

When I was little, my mother used to work at the nearby plantation and I had always sought out the silk cotton tree to play while she worked. My sisters preferred to stay in the plantation yard, skipping rope and playing jacks while our mother dug sweet potatoes and cassava in the fields, the harsh sun singeing their fair skin as they worked and played. But I liked the solace and shade of the cotton tree.

If my mother had ever found out that I used to come here she would have had a heart attack. The silk cotton tree had long been rumoured to be the home of duppies. These spectral creatures haunt dreams and are said to carry out all sorts of malicious deeds. Mummy told stories of duppies that lead people to their death, ruined lives and destroyed friendships, but I never gave much credence to those old wives tales. The tree had always been the opposite for me.

I had stumbled across it one day when I had run away to avoid getting lashes for breaking the plantation owner’s china dish. I had run past the plantation fields and through a small gully until I came to the big empty field and there it stood. I felt like I had been transported; the silk cotton tree stood majestic in the middle of the field like something out of the poetry books I had read at school. The tree and everything around it were serene and comforting. The only problem with escaping is that at some point we have to rejoin the world and, truth be told, there was no sense in outrunning those lashes that day. I got them anyway, but I continued to come back to the silk cotton tree.

Initially I kept coming back because I liked playing with the cotton; I remember gathering up the spongy clusters and taking them home to make pillows for my dolls.

As the years went on whatever attracted me to the silk cotton tree cemented itself inside me.

I buried my dead pets there and hid my sister’s skipping rope between the knotty roots after she had cut off my doll’s hair with a sickle.

After my first boyfriend had upgraded to a big bosomed girl with looser morals than mine, I had returned to weep, the gentle rhythm of the wind-blown leaves comforting me as twilight drew close. I had rejoined the world, filled with a new resolve to never again date boys with wandering eyes and lust coursing through their veins.

Years later, I had sat beneath the thrashing branches as a savage wind and torrential rain beat down on me after my mother’s funeral, numb with the grief that filled the chasm in my chest. The rain had picked up the rotting stench of the pods that decayed on the ground, magnifying the fetid smell and filling the air around me with the stench of death that I had gone there to escape. I realized that day that I couldn’t run away from everything.

My memories faded and brought me back to reality. I pondered what to do; it was growing dark now.

Where should I go tonight, because home wasn’t safe anymore. Michael had told me last month that he had cheated on me. His cagey silence and shifty looks should have been enough warning but I had ignored the signs; waiting and hoping that his job or another facet of life could be blamed for his behaviour.

Ironically, we had come here the day he proposed to me. We made love under the tree for the first time after I told him that there was nothing more I wanted than to be his wife. I had thought he was perfect at the time. I thought now that I had stupidly tainted my sanctuary with his essence. I had learned the hard way that he had his secrets and it wasn’t wrong for me to have mine.

I remember that we had initially spent almost a year blissfully happy. Then everything changed. Just before he cheated, we had spent months in a constant state of friction. It was like being married to someone with a split personality. When he told me what he had done I left, hoping that the pain I felt in my chest wouldn’t split me in two.

I had gone back to the family house, the thirty-two days since then going by with unfathomable sluggishness. I was like a well-oiled machine, going to work and doing what I should have done as usual, but with a mechanical efficiency. Devoid of emotion I had trudged through life until an hour ago.

When he called saying that we had to talk panic had enveloped me, my breath catching in my lungs as I slammed down the phone. All of the emotion that I had struggled to avoid had returned with a vengeance.

I left home and rushed through the village and the cane fields that flanked the plantation house running and running until my chest had threatened to explode. I hadn’t run like that in years. Now, as the sun set and the sandflies bite at my skin, I resent the power he has over me. The moon rose, full and bright in the sky as the sound of crickets pervaded the stillness that I am here to revel in. The resentment grows inside me, feeding the other emotions that dwell within until they join together to become an angry beast.

The beast rises up in my chest, quelling the anxiety that I felt before, silencing it with defiance.

I stand up, resolute on facing Michael when I get home. I dust the twigs and soil from the skirts of my floral dress, my back sore from sitting on the packed dirt. I hear the sound of muted footsteps just behind. They startle me – I jump to my feet and turn swiftly bumping into his solid body. He holds me in his strong arms, pulling me close to him.

“I know dis is where you would be,” he says softly.

He still smells the same; like coconut oil and nut butter. Unnerved by his nearness I step backwards. The moonlight reflects in his eyes, illuminating the sadness and guilt.

“Leah…,” he whispers, “…please. I’m sorry.”

“No!” I scream. “You aint sorry. You know what you did doing all along. And now you want to beg back?”

“Leah…I didn’t thinking. It’s just dat from the time the baby dead, it was like I was in dat house by myself. You stop talking to me and I ain’t mek love to you in more than eight months. I got feelings too and I did lonely.”

I turn on my heel, stomping off into the thickets of knee-high grass, anger propelling me forward.

“See wha’ I mean? Leah, it happen already and I feel bad ‘bout it too. But you keeping eva’ thing inside. It hard but we still hey…I keep telling you let we try again and eva time I tell you so, you does start crying.”

The rock I throw whizzes past his ear barely missing him as he walks behind me. He stares at me, surprised, before he springs into action.

He takes two huge strides, catches me and tosses me down into the grass. He holds my hands tightly and pleads with me to listen to him. I squeeze my eyes shut, but the tears still slip past my eyelashes, streaming down my face and pooling into my ears.

My heaving chest is racked with sobs and, from above, more tears fall on the torn bodice of my dress.

It is the first time I have ever seen him cry. Something inside me stirs and my heart softens to see him so overcome with emotion. I can almost literally feel the fight leave him. He lays limp on top of me as the angst inside him breaks free and consumes him as nothing else ever can. He wails like a child as he presses his head against my chest.

For the first time I feel as though we were truly connected in our grief. For the first time in months I felt like Michael was my husband again.

Michael’s tears stream down his face onto my chest and shoulders like a gentle drizzle of rain, washing away most of the heat and pain that had oppressed me for months.

But, I shake my head vehemently. Somehow I still cling to the vestiges of doubt that remain in spite of Michael’s tears. “Why you keep sayin’ we could have annudah one? It ain’t gine be the same,” I say angrily. “You just keep acting like it ain’t mean nuttin’. I bound to think that you was glad it happen. That way you coulda do wha’ you want. ”

That did it. It was as though I had physically hit him, the way he looks at me. He raises his head like a cobra about to attack its prey. Raw anger reverberates off of him as his eyes bore into mine, the threat of an explosion imminent.  

“If you think that, then you really ain’t know me, “Michael says breathlessly. “Lemme tell you somethin’. I am a man and it is my job to be strong for the two uh we. I got my pain and just because I don’ show it the same way don’ mean I ain’t feeling nuttin’. It brek my heart to see you so all dem months; it nearly kill me. I thought that if I act normal that you woulda see that we coulda get past dis.”

Fear and shame mingle in my chest, pressing down on me with such force that I feel powerless. It stayed there, choking me and silencing me swiftly and easily.

I turn away humiliated as my emotions riot inside me, the tears coming unbidden again.

“Baby…” Michael whispers softly. “…I was wrong. No two ways ‘bout that. I din’ know how to deal with losing the l’il girl. Then I had to deal with losing you too. Leah…please don’ cry.”

My cries rent the air, sending the fruit bats in the nearby almond tree into a frenzy as they fluttered away in the cool night air.

“I wan’ we to try again…for real this time. We gonna fix me and you first and then we could work on a baby. Please.”

I look up at him, the gentle moonlight shining behind him, the aureole of light softening the strong planes of his face. Somehow, in that moment, I knew that we could make it work. Hearing Michael’s confession was the balm that I needed to help my soul begin its healing. I had been drowning in sadness and grief for months; this moment felt like I had finally clawed my way up and had gulped a breath of fresh air.

Finally, I am not alone. Hope seeps into my body and even though it is miniscule in comparison to the other feelings that had resided inside me for so long it burned brightly, dimming the strength of everything else.

A brisk wind races across the plain, bringing with it the promise of rain. Chilly and foreboding, it rattles the pods of the silk cotton tree, shaking some of them loose. The others that lay cracked on the ground give up their silky bounty, sending the downy fibres drifting across the moonlit field. They float around us, shrouding us with the soft, filmy cotton.

Michael stares back at me; he can sense the crack in my armour and it gives him the strength to continue. He leans forward, touching his lips to mine gently, his kiss telling me everything I need to know. He doesn’t have to say it but his kiss does; he makes me a promise to be a good husband and forgives me for shutting him out. In turn I resolve to open my heart to him again, knowing that my love should mean sharing the good and the bad with him.

He sits up slowly, pulling me to him in a gentle but firm embrace. The moon shines brightly lighting our way as we slowly walk home, past the silk cotton tree and back through the grove of shak shak trees, the air still filled with the soft puffs of silk cotton that glide on the breeze. We held hands as we walked, the silk cotton floating along next us keeping our company until we got home.