Page 258 of The Sun Sister
‘Why not?’
‘At first it was for all the right reasons; it was obvious from the moment Cecily got back to Kenya that she was as happy as I’d ever heard her. And that she and Bill had finally managed to find the moment in time when they could actually enjoy each other. Sadly, like anything, it didn’t last forever.’
‘Did Bill die from his heart condition?’
‘Eventually, yes, but it was my beloved Kuyia I lost first. They extended their stay to six months and went travelling through Africa. They were on their way up through the Sudan towards Egypt – Cecily had always wanted to see the pyramids – when she began to feel unwell. Their medical boxes and other supplies were stolen and they were in the middle of nowhere. By the time Bill managed to get her to a hospital, it was too late. She died a few days later.’
‘Oh no.’ I winced as I watched my grandmother’s eyes fill with tears. ‘What was it?’
‘Malaria. If they’d have gotten her treated sooner, there’s no doubt she would have lived, but...’ Stella swallowed hard. ‘She died in Bill’s arms...She asked him to tell me how much she loved me...I...sorry.’
I sat there watching the grief that, even after all these years, was obviously still so raw for my grandmother.
‘When I heard the news, all I could think was that I wanted to die too,’ Stella continued. ‘I can’t explain to you what that woman was to me. What she did for me, everything she sacrificed for me...The only thing that comforted me was that she was with Bill and that they’d at least had six wonderful months together. She died where she wanted to be, with the man she loved.’
Even though I’d never known this remarkable woman who had affected both of our lives so dramatically, I felt a lump in my throat too.
‘Bill came back to the States for a while and we took her ashes and spread them out by the Statue of Liberty. Because she was born in Manhattan and had done so much to give me my own liberty, I thought it was fitting. He stayed with us for a while; he’d aged so much in those few months, but he couldn’t make urban Brooklyn his home, so he went back to Kenya, sold Paradise Farm and bought a cottage near Lake Naivasha. Five years later, I got a telegram to tell me he’d died too. And that he’d left me everything he had. The will said it was what Cecily would have wanted.’
‘I think he was right,’ I agreed. ‘Can I get you another cup of tea maybe?’
‘No, I’ll be fine, thanks, honey.’
I sat quietly while Stella composed herself. And as I watched her, I understood the lesson her grief was teaching me: that motherly love did not necessarily have to be biological. So many times I’d railed against Ma – I remembered once when I was in a rage screaming at her that she had no right to tell me I had to go up to my room, because she wasn’t my real mother anyway. Yet I understood now that any ‘real’ mother would have reacted in exactly the same way to my unacceptable behaviour. I felt a sudden huge burst of love for Ma, who had only ever shown me endless patience and compassion.
‘Forgive me, Electra, I’m ready to go on now, if you are.’
‘Sure, but only if you feel up to it. I can always come back.’
‘I think I’d prefer to keep going, if it’s okay with you. We’re very close to the end of the story now.’ Stella took a deep breath. ‘Nothing much changed in my life during those five years after Cecily died. Rosa had a succession of nannies, all of whom left after a few months. They were unable to deal with such a difficult child. Then when Bill left me his legacy, it meant that I had the choice to stay home and care for Rosa myself. To my shame, I knew that I just couldn’t do that. Coffee mornings and PTA meetings...after the kind of stuff I was used to dealing with every day, I knew I couldn’t cope with all that. The truth is, Electra, I just wasn’t born maternal. Not that I’m using it as an excuse or anything; lots of women aren’t, they just have to get on with it, and I did my best to do that.’
As Stella paused, I wondered whetherIwas maternal; it was a question I’d never considered up to this very second. I’d certainly never felt the urge to have a baby, but then I thought of my nephew, Bear, and how I’d enjoyed the smell of him and the weight of his body in my arms, and thought that I just might be.
‘Electra? Are you okay?’
‘Yeah, sorry, you lost me for a few seconds then.’
‘Anytime you just want to stop, please say the word.’
‘No, I’m good,’ I said.
‘The situation got especially bad when Rosalind told me that they could no longer keep Rosa at the school. She was a disruptive influence, unable to settle and concentrate on anything. That really burnt me. Rosalind was Rosa’s godmother, and if she’d lost faith in her, then I knew I had a serious problem on my hands.’
‘Hey, from what you’ve said, this was a very academic school. Maybe it just didn’t suit my mom,’ I said, suddenly feeling defensive of Rosa. ‘I know because I’ve been there too.’
‘That’s pretty much what Rosalind said, so I found her another school, one that was run on more holistic, relaxed lines.’ Stella gave a little chuckle. ‘Rosa took the lack of rules to an extreme. I remember arriving home one weekend with her new nanny waiting for me in her coat, with her suitcase ready by the door. Apparently, Rosa had spent the entire week at home, watching TV and eating cereal. She’d told the nanny she didn’t have to go to school that week and when the school had called to see where she was, Rosa had recited one of their own guidelines: that the students were there of their own free will to learn and that no penalties were enforced if the child didn’t attend class.’
‘My mom sure is sounding more and more like me. I would have done the same,’ I grinned.
‘The difference is, Electra, that you had a family structure around you, and from what I’ve heard, a loving mother figure and a father who caught you when you fell. Rosa didn’t have that, which was partly to do with circumstances, but also a lot to do with me. When Cecily died, I felt even more fire in my belly to become the success she’d always dreamt I’d be. And then when Bill left me the legacy, I was on a trajectory I just couldn’t’ – Stella checked herself – ‘or didn’t want to halt. Rosa was ten by then. She had gone through I don’t even know how many nannies and four or five schools. To give myself some credit, I did take a month’s leave and stayed home with her to organise her tutoring, but I nearly lost my mind, and Rosa was completely out of control. I spoke to Rosalind and she suggested that maybe the best thing to do was to send Rosa away to boarding school. We found a great place up in Boston that was used to dealing with kids like Rosa.’
‘You mean, like, rejects?’
‘No, Electra, the way they phrased it was “challenging behaviour”. Rosa seemed to like the idea at first – I was going stir-crazy but she had also had enough of being stuck at home with only a tutor and her momma for company. While she was there for her interview, they tested her for all kinds of things, including her IQ. And, of course, it was off the scale. The school told me that often went hand in hand with disruptive children. They developed a programme of accelerated learning for her and off she went to Boston. She seemed happy there for the first three years; the school gave her the stability and security that she needed and she made some friends. At the same time, I received a call out of the blue from the United Nations. They’d read a paper I’d written on apartheid in South Africa while I’d been at Columbia. They were developing something called the United Nations Centre Against Apartheid. I was called in for an interview – you can imagine my excitement, Electra; the thought of being at the hub of the most powerful human rights organisation in the world was the stuff that my dreams were made of. This new department would be collating statistics and factual evidence of the effects of apartheid. They were looking for a team who would write up what they had found into a paper, which would then be published. In one sense, it was a sidestep from what I’d been doing, but in another, I knew it would open up a whole new world to me. And it sure did. Those years were relatively calm; the UN was based in Manhattan, which meant that when Rosa was home for vacations, I was there every night to cook her supper. All finally felt calmer, until, of course, puberty hit.’
‘Yeah, that old thing; your cute little girl turns into a bunch of raging hormones,’ I nodded, remembering how my own had not only rebooted, but surpassed any temper tantrums I’d had when I was very young.
‘Put it this way, the entire apartment used to shake under the weight of Rosa’s stamping and hollering and the slamming of her bedroom door. Next thing I know, I get a call from her school to tell me she’s disappeared – a friend of hers said there was a boy in town whom she’d met on an outing. She was found eventually, smoking and drinking bourbon in a park. The boy was almost twenty years old, but your mom was probably even more beautiful than you, if I dare say so. She had these incredible eyes that were simply mesmerising, and obviously contained the kind of witchcraft needed to attract any alley cat in the neighbourhood. She looked – and dressed – as if she was eighteen instead of fourteen. It wasn’t long until the school wrote me to say they could no longer contain her, so she was sent back home to New York. None of the good day schools would take her because of her track record, so I was reduced to sending her to the local high school. Of course, she got in with the wrong crowd – she always did love bad boys...’
