stood at the top of the slope and looked out at my inheritance, our rented house, old and filled with mice. There, my father and his cruel tongue slept. Outside, the darkness spread for miles, pregnant with what was unseen in the Jamaican countryside. The trees surrounding me loomed tall and quiet, and I thought of the one big knife in the kitchen, the one my mother used to chop her almonds, its rickety handle, the steel stained almond-red.
