Marisa Forbes, Contributor

Lamar should be here by now, but I know him, him have to stop at the crossroad to talk with him friends, and then again at Mas Ray rum shop to knock back a few whites and laugh with everybody before him come here. Everybody had to know him coming from foreign today, as if him brother Ray nuh done tell the whole community. Is me last go see him tonight.

I know him well; him go come from America where him was on farm work well trash, looking good from head to toe, wit a lot of suitcases that the little boys go help him pull from out the cross road. Is the same way him come the last two times. Him go walk up in the yard cool, cool, as if is the first him seeing me sitting on the verandah, with half the community behind him. Him go smile and show him gold teeth and tek off him felt hat and skank over to me, still smiling and say something like, 'So baby, why you not running to meet me?' or, 'I know you bex how me just a' come home but you know me have to save the bes' for las'.'

Well, Lamar should be here by now. The plane arrive in Montego Bay from this morning at 11:30. I know it will take some time to get through customs and them airport people, but is now five o'clock. Sam go pick up Lamar from the airport, and Sandy Bay not that far from Montego Bay, after is not Kingston him coming from.

When Lamar just move to Sandy Bay to live with me, him curse the place every day. First him say as him come off the bus out the road, the first thing that greet him is a cemetery. 'Is first me a see people bury right a' the roadside and no church or wall no de deh, just them and the road. The living and the dead must not fraternize.' The cemetery is on one side of the main road and the sea on the other side. Lamar never go in that water because him say the death-wash gone over in it and the living and the dead must not mix.

I sit on the verandah looking at the golden sun close to the sea, it so pretty, and the sky pink and purple and orange and the sea same colour. And likkle by likkle I watch the sun sink down behind the water and wonder how Lamar manage to live in a place so long where you couldn't see the sun disappear behind the sea.

As it turn dark, I shut the screen door on the verandah and turn on the lights so Lamar could see me sitting there in the rocking chair when him come. As I sit there rocking and listening to the JBC News in my new tie head and the nice frock Lamar did bring for me the last time, I watch mosquitoes and needle-case and gingy fly stuck to the screen door one after the other. I get up, kinda like in a trance, and walk over to the screen door to look at the catch. Everything on it dead, some falling to the ground that I sweep not so long ago, and as I look on the mesh, the only thing I can see is fear.

I see fear in the needle-case big bulby eyes, I see fear in the stiff body of the mosquito and in the gingy flies crowding around, mourning the loss of their dead friends. Same time I feel like I should be in mourning too, for what, me not sure, but a sinking feeling come over me. I not sorry for the insects, so it must be something else.

Sam drive up same time in him beat-up pickup truck and hand me a letter, then turn and leave. No Lamar, no word, not even so much as a 'Evening'. The letter say:

Dearest Mildred,

I regret to inform you that I will not be coming to your dwelling tonight. My wife Rachel and I are staying at the Tryall Golfing Resort with her son Simon. I will try to stop by and look for you before we leave again in two weeks' time. I have enclosed ten dollars US. In case I don't get to see you, take care of yourself.

Yours Truly,

Lamar

I ease out of the rocking chair and open the screen door, go inside and allow it to slam behind me. I walk all the way to the kitchen out back to put the pot of stew peas and Ox tail with the white rice I cooked earlier in the day for Lamar in the fridge. And then I walk to the bedroom to take off the clothes that Lamar give me the last time him was here and put on one of my ole house frock and my ole red tie head. Then I walk back to the screen door with the cobweb broom and start clean the mesh. I don't want to see their fear and their mourning and their deaths on my screen door.