Chapter 29
Marcus came home to Kingston for good on a Thursday in August, two weeks after his university graduation, with a degree in education and a duffel bag and a heart full of things he was ready to put to work.
The flight descended over the island in the afternoon, and Marcus pressed his face to the oval window the way he had as a nine-year-old going in the other direction. The Blue Mountains were catching the last of the afternoon sun, that particular gold and violet that was only and entirely Jamaica. He felt his chest expand with something that had no name he knew, or rather had too many names homecoming, recognition, the specific joy of things finally aligning.
Leroy was at the airport with his mother.
Marcus had not expected Leroy. He had told no one except Diane. Leroy had come anyway, because of course he had.
They embraced in the arrivals hall the way they always embraced — with the complete unselfconsciousness of men who have been brothers since before they knew what brotherhood meant.
'Look at you,' Leroy said, holding him at arm's length. 'University man. Educated.'
'You could have gone to university too,' Marcus said.
'I built a business,' Leroy said, without defensiveness. 'Different path. Same direction.'
His mother stood slightly back, watching. When Marcus turned to her she was already moving toward him and they held each other for a long time, longer than necessary by any standard except the standard of twelve years of Sunday phone calls and letters and distance finally, completely, ended.
'You're too thin,' she said.
'You always say that.'
'It's always true.'
The yard was smaller than he remembered and exactly as he remembered simultaneously. The concrete still cracked in the familiar places. The mango tree still stood, wilder, higher, but recognizably the same tree. Different families in some of the rooms, the same sounds in the evenings cooking, music, children's voices, a dog somewhere.
He sat on the back wall with Leroy that first evening, the warm dark around them, the sounds of the city, and felt the world settle into itself in the way it does when you are exactly where you are supposed to be.
'You going to be all right here?' Leroy asked. 'After England?'
'I was all right in England,' Marcus said. 'But this is where I belong.'
'Different things,' Leroy said.
'Different things,' Marcus agreed.
They sat until late. His mother came out with food and then went back inside. The stars came out. The city made its city sounds.
Marcus thought about Mr. Okafor telling him not to be polite. About Dr. Whitfield's marginal notes. About the Year 9 girl who said it was good. About his mother at the small table by the window writing in her notebook toward a future.
He was twenty-one years old and he was home and he had everything he needed to begin.