Read The Girl With the Golden Shoes for Free Online Page B

then— bam! —my basket gone. I ain’t even know if what I think I might remember is true. As I think about it now, I ain’t even sure if Big Tuck even have a younger brother in this place, or if this is even the place where I come that time. I was only four or five. But what happen already happen. If I lose that basket I lose everything except my money and my knife. My only toy. My best books. My blanket. My only change o’ clothes. If I lose them things what I going do? ’Cause I can’t go back. Knowing them, they wouldn’t even take me. And to go back to let them put me out again would be a disgrace.
    As she often did when she found herself in situations where she’d lost control, Estrella felt the absence of her mother.
    Her name was Edwina. Estrella didn’t know that she’d died.
    What she look like? How old she be? What kind o’ work she do? What kind o’ mood she have? Quiet…bossy…jokey…tough? She have a husband? Other children? Or is me alone?
    Whenever she’d asked these questions, her grandmother would answer with evasion or a grunt. Some things were not discussed.
    Like why she move from Trinidad to Cuba. Or if she had a trade when she was young. Or why she move from Cuba to San Carlos. Or who her husband was before she meet Big Tuck.
    The absence of her mother, in and of itself, didn’t make Estrella feel alone. Relations in the cove were so close. All children more or less belonged to all adults—which didn’t mean they were bathed in love. They were supervised and overseen, disciplined and watched, but when it came to close attention, children were ignored. They had no special place. There was no myth of them as warm, big-hearted beings. They were simply small adults. They worked.
    The communal role of parents was encouraged by the fact that certain kinds of incest were allowed. It wasn’t uncommon for cousins or half-siblings to marry, mate—or even fall in love. And marriage was a matter of the common law.
    If you cooked a man’s food and washed his clothes, and if he slept with you and didn’t try to leave in secret in the morning, and this went on for what was understood to be awhile, then you were known as man and wife.
    This idea also ruled the ownership of land. If you found a beach and built a shack on it, and went to sea from it, and fixed your nets on it, and beached your boat on it, there was a common understanding that the beach belonged to you.
    However, people didn’t move, didn’t branch away to live alone—for in the deepest part of their collective understanding, they could only see themselves as part of something vaguely known as “one.”
    To be a fragment or a fraction was the greatest fear. So exile was the harshest form of retribution—the punishment reserved for those whose thoughts and actions undermined the fundamental meaning of their lives.
    When she’d thought of all these things, Estrella rolled away from underneath the skirting and began to move with purpose down the aisles. Her steps were heavy. From a distance, even with the sound of other voices, you could hear the thudding of her heels against the floor.
    Her face was blank, but tight with concentration, like a gambler who’s taken full account of what he’s lost and what he’s going to lose unless he sinks this ball or draws this card; who can’t quit, because quitting means it’s over; who can’t just walk away, because walking is what losers do.
    When you lose like that it’s not the same as losing fair and square. Losing fair and square will sharpen you, will give you edge, will make you the kind of person who’ll win again. But when you walk away you don’t just lose the game, you lose a little bit of nerve; and when that starts to happen, then your gambling days are done; they’ll look at you and call your bluff and you’ll look at them and worry, then you’ll always lose; and winning is for winners, and losing isn’t nice.
    As she walked, Estrella slipped a hand into the pocket