Imagining Us

Ch. 78- A Bit of Warmth in the Cold

It would have to be Trinidad next year. After more than a quarter of a century, her body was tired of the cold.
She would have to opt for the tropics next Christmas. Granted, she had sequestered herself outside in the freezing cold for just five minutes of peace and quiet.
It was nearly pointless as she heard the shouts through the door. Truthfully, she was hiding from her grandmother who was visiting from Ghana. She pestered Esi until she'd shown her a picture of Porte. Then, she proceeded to purse her lips and inform Esi that she had a friend whose grandson played the piano at church. He would make a good husband. Because apparently, that was all it took for someone to be a good husband.

As she leaned against the brick wall, Esi reached into her coat for her lip balm because the English air was demolishing her lips, but there was something about the briskness of the air–about the sharpness of it as it hit her lungs–that was refreshing.

A loud shout had her whirling around to peer through the door. She could make out her brother dramatically holding his head in his hands as some of their cousins and friends ran around him in laughter. A giggle burst through her lips—she warned him not to play dominoes with them, but of course he didn't listen. Hence, his current predicament.

Esi knew that his overly dramatic reaction was just pretense. Kofi enjoyed every minute of his loss, and she knew that he was happy to have gotten a shift off to spend Christmas Day with their family.

She remembered her fears about coming back to England, especially about her decision to go with Afia to Sabine's house. Firstly, they had to trash out her cousin's unfair characterization of her. Esi didn't know where she'd found the extra strength to stand up for herself, but she was glad that she did. It also allowed her to hear Afi's side of things because her cousin always made it seem like she was living life. Working in a job that she loved and dating unattached. Just enjoying every aspect of her life.

Sometimes, it used to irritate Esi and make her feel envious of how Afi seemed to be able to live and move on from Sabine's death. Turns out that it wasn't quite the case, but Afia always had to be the one to seem stronger than anyone else. Esi knew that it was a by-product of being a part of their Ghanaian family.

Esi had always prided herself on being able to read someone. On being the listener. On allowing people to pour out themselves to her. But here was one of her best friends– struggling, and she didn't realize. If it wasn't for Porte, maybe she would've never known how much it affected her cousin when she left England to go back to Connecticut. She would have never known how lonely Afia felt. Esi supposed that she could justify her ignorance by claiming that it was the distance between them that caused her not to realize these things, but there wasn't any excuse.
And if Afi felt this way, how did Bri feel?

She made a mental note to give her a call.

Esi was the one that brought them all together, and here she was essentially failing them. It was just a tiny taste, but she began to understand the smallest bit of the guilt that Porte felt around his family. Granted, his issue was much more loaded.

This trip had brought Esi more peace than she realized she needed. Even when she went to Sabine's home in Reading. There was no passing of guilt from her friend's parents. Her mum, Helena draped her arms around Esi in a tearful embrace, while Sabine's dad nodded to her with a ciggy hanging out the side of his mouth. He'd been "quitting" for as long as Esi had known the family.
Neither of them judged her or wondered why she never visited, and an apology was already on the tip of her tongue when a slew of broken Italian including the words "tutto bene" were whispered to her, and a breath that she didn't realize that she was holding was released.

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