Here Comes the Sun by Nicole Dennis-Benn Page A

children and tutor them. When Verdene looked closer at the small brown face flanked by a mass of unruly hair like a sunflower, she realized the little girl was none other than Delores’s daughter. Verdene didn’t know the little girl’s name then, but she had seen Delores with her a few times, the both of them walking to town with goods to sell. They lived in a small boarded-up house not too far from Verdene and her mother. Margot’s Uncle Winston—an old classmate of Verdene’s—was a street boy who gambled, smoked weed, and chased after young girls. He was the one who knocked-up Rose, Miss Gracie’s daughter. Ella, out of the kindness of her heart, volunteered to look after Margot when her mother and grandmother weren’t around.
    Verdene was jealous of the girl at first. It had always been Verdene and Ella against the world, when Ella wasn’t too busy working to be in her husband’s good graces. But when he died, Ella grieved as though he were the best man to ever walk the earth. Sometimes the grieving turned to anger directed at Verdene for not respecting the man who helped to bring her into this world. Ella, who was probably lonely after the death of her husband and Verdene’s departure to the university, did not mind Margot keeping her company. Verdene found Margot a little precocious. She followed Verdene around the house when Verdene came home on weekends from school (out of obligation) and asked about everything under the sun. And Verdene, who was then busy juggling exams, the pressures of being away at university and barely passing chemistry (her major), paid the girl no mind. Though Margot was bright, Verdene felt in her heart that she was Delores’s problem. Why should Ella be in charge of this woman’s child? Ella gave the girl extra lessons, since at ten years old she was only reading at a second-grade level.
    â€œ Mama, it’s not your duty to fix someone else’s child ,” Verdene said to her mother. “ Let Delores tek care ah her own child. ”
    But Ella wouldn’t listen. She was taken with the child, calling her Little Margot. Ella gave Little Margot Verdene’s old clothes to wear. They were nice dresses that Ella had to take in, stitching up the sides, adjusting the hems, adding extra buttonholes and buttons, whatever she could do to make the dresses fit Little Margot’s tiny frame.
    Then one day, Verdene saw Margot crouched in a corner, crying in front of Mr. Levy’s shop. Verdene stopped to help her, imagining the girl had lost her money or fallen and bruised some part of her. “ What’s the mattah? ” she asked. Little Margot sniffled and told her that some children in her school were calling her Maggot instead of Margot .
    â€œ Dey say ah dirty an’ smell bad .” The little girl was shaking as she told Verdene this, her bony shoulders shuddering, her chest heaving. Verdene didn’t know what to do. She rested her hand on the girl’s shoulder, and Little Margot looked up into Verdene’s face, her eyes large and watery, the pupils expanding into a well into which Verdene fell. Her fall was deep, endless; one that stirred her womb with a possessiveness, a feral instinct to hunt Little Margot’s bullies down.
    Every time Verdene had to leave for university, Margot cried. Ella would have to appease the girl with promises. “ She’ll be back to see us next week, dear. ” Then, peering at Verdene, Ella’s eyes would hold in them those very questions. “ Right, darling? You’ll be back to see yuh dear mother next week, right? ”
    Verdene turns her attention back inside the kitchen. She switches off the faucet, realizing water has overflowed, spilling to the floor. The dishes are piled in the sink from the breakfast she made Margot this morning—one pot full of her lopsided boiled dumplings and the other with chopped-up onions, tomatoes, and saltfish. Just