Margot raises her hand to slap Thandi, but it stops midair when Thandi says, “Go ahead.” Thandi knows she has spoken the truth. She sees her words wrap themselves lovingly around her sister’s neck. She steps closer to Margot. They are the same height. Thandi always thought her sister was a few inches taller. That too was an illusion.
Margot shudders. She loves nothing in this world except Thandi. She wants her to be successful, but she has wanted so much more for herself too. Now she feels as though she’s been emptied. “No compassion, no conscience, no heart.” That’s what Verdene said to her when Margot confessed that she knew her precious pink house would be worth nothing, that River Bank would be sacrificed. Verdene’s love turned to ash before Margot’s eyes. Margot looks at Thandi now, all that’s left. “You owe me. For all I have done for you, sacrificed for you. You. Owe. Me.”
Thandi, whom she clothed, sheltered, fed, gave every bit of herself to. With her body she shielded her sister from Delores’s wrath. Gave her an opportunity to get away. To be better than them so she wouldn’t have to sacrifice anything. But instead of gratitude in Thandi’s eyes, Margot sees the looming resentment.
“You don’t even know yuhself. My childhood was spent like a hundred-dollar bill on you. Everything you needed was put on me. If yuh needed formula, I had to sleep wid yuh father to get it. If yuh cry fah hunger, I had to feed you. If yuh wanted a special toy, I had to get down on my knees an’ do more than play. I had to play wid yuh daddy too. ”
Thandi doesn’t say a word. Her eyes are a pair of dark round circles, empty of understanding, struggle.
“When yuh got into that school, I had to work overtime so that you could go. But not even that was helping, so I asked Alphonso to write that check. You talk about being used? Walk a day in my shoes an’ you’ll know what dat mean. I stayed in dat shack when I could have moved on with my life, because I was afraid Delores would have done to you what she did to me. So where yuh get the right to judge me? Now tell me, Thandi, once and for all: if it’s not to be the doctor we prayed you were going to be, then, What. Do. You. Want?” Margot stretches this question between her teeth.
Thandi glances over at Alphonso as though seeking his permission.
“I want Charles to be free. I want the charges dropped against him, and the reward. I want us to be together.”
Margot chuckles at this. “Really? Is that it?” A lump of pity rises in Margot’s throat, seeing her sister’s rounded shoulders, her young, pretty face bleached and sullied with confusion and defeat. How many girls has Margot seen this way? How many girls has she told to work for what they want? Girls her sister’s age and younger. “Mek me proud,” she tells them. They bring business to the island that shuns them, lumps them like logs to be eaten away by the elements. Or rather, leaves them to sink at sea. Margot collects them one by one and gives them a new life. A new way to claim the freedom they were denied. Terrified of what the experience might bring, these girls cling to Margot for guidance. And very methodically, she turns them out, daring them to either sink or swim. Never in a million years had she thought it possible to let go of Thandi this way. She thought she would always be the ship on which Thandi sails. The buoy that keeps her afloat. But it occurs to her that maybe her sister will only learn how to swim when she, like Margot, is pushed into the deepest parts of the ocean—that she’ll be able to manage out of sheer will for survival. Not even Pregnant Heidi’s waves will be able to deter her. So Margot leans in and kisses her sister gently on the forehead for what will be the last time. And, very gently, she pushes her toward Alphonso. “Mek me proud.”
40
MARGOT WAKES UP IN THE BEACHFRONT VILLA—HER VILLA—surrounded by damp, rumpled sheets. She sweated through the sheets again, though the overhead fan spins and spins above her king-sized canopy bed with its dark wood frame and its white netting. She cannot remember her dream, not even the tail end of it that still wraps itself around her neck and chokes her. It’s the fourth time in a row this week that this has happened. She looks around the large bedroom, where daylight has crept through the shutters, and touches her neck. Earlier she had clawed at hands that were not there. Her skin is raw, bruised.