Peeling Back the Top Layer 🇯🇲

2| Dead to me

"Can you imagine mi inna mi clown suit and Robert big ole boot dem wid mi white face a go di people dem yard six o'clock a mawning?!" Miss Jay throws her head back in a fit of laughter. I too am doubled over in tears, hardly able to contain my snickering.

"Mi seh Kelsie! Mi never nervous so yet inna mi life. Mi never know wah did a go happen but mi did affi confront him," she continues as we both try to catch our breath and regain composure.

The house wasn't hard to find, especially because Robert's car was parked just outside the gate. Miss Jay says she mustered up all the confidence she could and walked up to the entrance, coming face to face with her "matey" after knocking on the door a few times.

"Mi know di party was yesterday but mi jus a reach," she blurts out, quickly pushing past the woman and entering the three-bedroom house that had an identical floor plan to hers. The furnishing though, was more lavish and it was evident that money and effort had gone into every detail of the careful layout of the exquisite pieces, each matching or complementing another.

"I'm sorry, I think you have the wrong house," Charmaine admonishes, clearly upset by the early morning intrusion.

"No enuh. Mi sure a di right house. Mi a di clown who fa man yuh have inna yuh bed."

Fear and realization soon replace Charmaine's anger and she scampers backwards in an effort to flee the room.

"Mi never plan fi fight har enuh but when mi see seh di gal a try run I grab har yuh see and I woulda kill har wid lik," Miss Jay stresses.

Charmaine screams for Robert, who awakens on hearing the ruckus and seems out of his element when he enters the room. He runs to his mistress's aide, grabbing her attacker and tossing her to the side.

"Dutty bwoy! Yuh is a piece a shit! How yuh fi have next woman and three other pickney a road?! You is a wikkid dutty bwoy!" Miss Jay yells as she lurches toward him, inflicting several blows to his face before he could fully process the episode unraveling before him.

"Marion? Weh yaw do yah?!" Wide-eyed and still in shock, Robert looks her up and down as if she is a crazy person and that's when she breaks down in tears. She releases the pent up anger, hurt, doubt, and pain she endured for years and surrenders to her emotions.

"Thirty odd years! 35 bloodclaat years Robert! From mi a 15 yuh likkle shithouse and a dis yuh do me?!" Miss Jay cries as she hurls random objects at him.

She pauses and a deathly silence fills the room as she glares at the two people she had attacked. They both look on anxiously, neither knowing how to react. At the entrance of a hallway stand three children huddled together with tears streaming down their faces.

Miss Jay looks at them then back at their father. "Yuh dead to mi," she says, walking out the house and closing the door behind her as the curtains close on a miserable chapter of her life, which was plagued with both physical and emotional abuse.

"Yuh tink a likkle mi do fi di drancro?!" she exclaims. "Den a come tell mi seh him sorry."

She starts dishing out recollections of side hustles she did to ensure her family was housed, clothed and fed while Robert completed his university studies.

He had gotten her pregnant the summer after she completed high school. At the age of 17 and being from a poor family, that meant she had to find her own way from that point forward. It was the same time that Robert had started his bachelor's degree in accounting and he promised he'd help her to attain hers afterwards.

But that never happened. 

Three years later, she was pregnant again and the majority of the household expenses were left to her. There was never a right time afterwards or she just could not afford it. Her dreams of becoming a pharmacist slowly perished.

Eventually, Robert started earning enough to support the family sufficiently but he convinced her that she no longer needed a degree because he was capable of taking care of his family. Added to that, there was the children's schooling, which took priority over hers.

Then, her relationship gradually soured and the abuse started. He never had money anymore and they again struggled to make ends meet. This must have been when he found the other woman.

"I will never understand man," I tell her as she wraps up her story. "No woman shouldn't affi go through dis."

"Dem jus wicked Kelsie. See now him waan mi come outta him house so mi a stay up a mi son till time come fi mi fly out," she says.

Our little morning chat changes tune when she tells me that some of the junior writers in the office are not very fond of me. I don't mind because to my face they're very polite but Miss Jay thinks they are just jealous.

"A true yuh pretty, yuh shape good an yuh bright. Mi love how yuh keep it natural and a it a mad dem," she laughs.

Throughout the day my mind lingers on Miss Jay and her ordeal. She is really strong! If she did not tell me her story I would never have guessed that she struggled and endured so much hurt. She's always so well put together. Looking at her, you'd think she's a manager with the latest phone, designer bags and shoes she wears. Her children did well for themselves and spare no change in taking care of her.

Just when I think I can get through one week without anyone badgering me about a husband and children, my mother calls. I honestly feel like ignoring her but as always, it could be something important so I pick up.

"Hello mother," I breathe out, not bothering to hide my annoyance.

"How yuh sound so? Yuh no glad fi hear from me?"

"Just doing work. What's up?"

"Nutten. Mi jus long fi hear yuh voice," she says. Her version of long is anything outside of 24 hours. She and I have never really gotten along but over the past five years, we managed to build a tolerable relationship.

My mother beats around the bush until she asks the all important question. "So yuh nuh find nuh likkle boyfriend yet? Mi want grand pickney enuh!"

"Yuh can tek yuh mind off dat because I don't think it's going to happen. Wah bout you? Yuh nuh single to?!"

"Inna fi mi old age mi fi tek up crasses?! Mi done wid man!"

"Yuh waa me tek up one though."

"Mi jus a trouble yuh," she jokes. But I know better than to believe that.

She never had any luck with men. I feel like she looks at me as her second chance at love and life in general. While our relationship was strained, she made every effort to ensure that I excelled academically and constantly breathed down my neck about finding a decent husband.

Mother's pestering and Miss Jay's heart rending story aside, my day drones on endlessly. One boring article after another has me nodding off between paragraphs. My head is beginning to pound and I'm about to give up when I notice a paragraph that seems vaguely familiar. A quick Google search confirms that parts of the article were plagiarized.

The blinding headache worsens and I close my eyes to allow the tension to subside. It's after 5:00 pm and the new recruit who authored the piece has already left. I'll have to deal with it tomorrow.