Mary’s Reflections on Amarte’s letter
Mary was ecstatic to receive Amarte’s response, she read it again and again, she understood it all, but the ending made her uncomfortable.
She wondered if it was Amarte’s polite way of saying goodbye to her.
“Do not come to me because your body yearns for mine as I know mine will always yearn for yours, even as I write to you now I long to hold you in my arms, still though I yearn for you as I am sure you are yearning for me, feel free my Mary, to pursue your dreams, strive to discover that which I cannot satisfy in you even if that will mean our paths may never cross again.
No matter what may unfold along the paths we tread, you will always be my Mary, and I hope that I will always be your
Amarte”
In her heart, she knew everything he said was right, but she did not want to believe that their relationship would end, that was too high a price to pay for she was not even sure what.
Since the death of her parents which she only found out about two years after they died, she never really thought of herself as an orphan, maybe that was because she never really thought of her mother and her father as her parents.
Except for Aggie, she did not have any friends, growing up in Jamaica, most of her life was spent on the estate, only Aggie was allowed to come and visit her.
She could not go to the river or any event unless Aggie was going with her, she would lie to her father that she and Aggie were going somewhere, then she would secretly meet Amarte at an agreed to location.
One of the best times for her to leave the estate was when her father had just finished smoking ganja in “the big room” and was what the workers would say “Misa Aris Chaage”.
She was allowed to go riding on her horse “white face” if Ned who took care of the horses went riding with her, she loved riding, and Ned would allow her to sneak off and meet Amarte, she knew that even though he never said it, Ned hated her father and he would never “tell on her” if they were out for a long time because she spent too much time with Amarte, Ned was very good at making up stories about where they went and what took them so long.
After she turned 18, she started to “put her foot down” and openly defied her father, one day she overheard him telling her mother “I am going to send her to school in America, if she stays here I am going to end up shooting that boy or pay somebody to kill him” that was what made up Mary’s mind, she agreed to go to America, money was not an issue, her father had lots of money.
When she was leaving for America, the only three people she missed were Amarte, Ned, and Aggie.
In California, she did not make any friends; she did not want to make friends, especially after she was called a nigger the first time.
Mary was carrying so much pain and hurt inside her; she wanted no close contact with anyone, she did everything alone, she had lots of money from her father to live in a beautiful apartment, eat out if she chose to, go to theatres and plays.
There were heartrending secrets buried so deep inside her which she could not let go of; she lived with an emptiness she could not overcome. Mary wrote poems and essays, read Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Gibran, Neitzche, and Kierkegaard. She was an outstanding student with an undivided focus on her subjects.
The only time she felt happy was when she received letters from Amarte and Aggie, all the money that her father kept sending her did not make her feel loved or appreciated, what he cared about was to keep her away from Amarte, and maybe to ease his conscience if he had a conscience.
The more money he sent her, the more she despised him, her mother never wrote to her or called her, but she understood because, like her, her mother was just another pawn in her father’s hands.