Tara's Family Secrets

By Dr Cherrell Shelley Robinson

Young Adult Novel | English
Tara has waited patiently to become a teenager and eagerly wants to be included in family matters. At her age, she believes she should be privy to the world of adults. When her parents are not forthcoming in including her in family matters, Tara embarks on a course of action with near-disastrous results. Not able to fully comprehend the magnitude or repercussions of a long-held family secret she overhears while eavesdropping on her parent's private conversation, it sets in motion one calamity after the other, causing Tara's world to spin out of control. What will happen to her plans to be an ace player on her school's netball team when Tara is busted?

This beautifully written coming-of-age story, Tara's Family Secrets, hits all the right marks needed for an engaging, engrossing, and timeless tale. This YA novel's strength is in the cast of vividly drawn, relatable, and unforgettable characters.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wordeee
• Release date: Dec 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781946274755

Dr Cherrell Shelley Robinson

Dr. Cherrell Shelley-Robinson is a Jamaican and a former Senior Lecturer specializing in young people’s literature at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica. She is a leading expert on indigenous literature for Caribbean youths as well as being a creative writer. She has won several local awards for her children's stories and this is her first full-length novel for adolescents. Dr. Shelley-Robinson sets out to make her stories universally appealing while at the same time communicating a strong sense of the Caribbean culture from which they come.

Book preview

GROWING PAINS

Unseen, Tara watched as her mother and father disappeared into their room. Something was up, and she was going to find out what. Quickly looking to the right and left, she quietly slipped out of her room. Ma Bea, her grandmother, had gone down the road to visit with Mrs. Green. The way the two women loved to talk, she’d be gone for quite some time, so there was little chance of her being caught.

Tara knew what she was about to do was wrong and that if she got caught, she would be in a lot of trouble. However, she kept telling herself that circumstances of the past left her no choice. She recalled what had happened with Ma Bea recently. It turned out her grandmother had more than one illness nobody had told her about. When Ma Bea got dizzy and fell one day, Tara thought it must be from her asthma, but that hadn’t been it. Frightened, she’d called her mother at work.

Her mother proceeded to tell her what medicine to give her grandmother and where it was kept. She wondered what would’ve happened if her grandmother had gone into a coma or something like that while she was trying to get her mother on the phone. Tara felt she should’ve known all that was wrong with her grandma and what medicine to give for each illness, not having to wait to find out in an emergency. Worse, after being scared out of her wits, her grandmother and her mother had said it was no big thing, just a little vertigo some old people get. That was another reason why Tara vowed she’d be sure to know what was happening in her home from then on.

Tara continued tiptoeing along the old wooden verandah, making her way around to the other side of the house in the direction of her parents’ bedroom. Still glancing from side to side to make sure no one saw her, she tried not to make the old floorboards creak as she walked along. As she got closer to her intended destination, Tara stood still for a moment and listened.

She could hear the soft murmur of her parents’ voices talking and laughing with each other, as usual. Although she could not hear what they were saying, she was quite happy just listening to the sound of her mother’s soft sing-song voice and her father’s deep, resounding, baritone boom coming from way down inside his chest.

Hearing them like this always filled Tara with a nice warm feeling. The sound of their alternating voices was like having a cozy blanket wrapped around her. She revelled in the fact that her parents loved each other and that they both loved her very much. This made her feel safe. In turn, she loved her mother and father dearly, and, at this moment, life for her was just perfect. Well, almost.

As Tara crept closer, she heard her mother say, "Tchu, man, don’t say that!" There was playful laughter in her voice.

Her father let out one of his deep rumbling belly laughs and said, But you know it’s true.

Tara inched forward until she was right up against the side of the half-open jalousie window through which her parents’ voices floated.

She heard when her mother said, Now remember you promised to tell me why your two sisters didn’t come to visit us at Christmas.

Tara was all ears. She, too, had been wondering why her aunts, Joan and Grace, had not come. Every year, as far back as she could remember, they visited during the holidays. While Tara enjoyed the food and presents, most of all, she looked forward to playing and chatting with her cousins. When her aunts didn’t come last Christmas, she was worried that someone in her family, including herself, might have said or done something to offend them.

Was Aunt Joan mad at her because she’d put on her wig and dress and was imitating her when she walked into the room? Or was Aunt Grace upset with her because she’d yelled at her when she overheard her gossiping with Aunt Joan about her mother?

Tara had not only shouted at her to stop it, but she’d gone and told her mother. This caused quite a ruckus for a while, but soon everything seemed to have been put right again. Tara loved her parents fiercely, and she would not let anyone say or do anything to harm them, not as long as she could do something about it. Well, now, at last, she was going to learn the truth she wanted so much to know. She held her breath and waited.

Alright, her father began, clearing his throat as if he was about to make a big announcement. My other sister Maizy told me that the two of them had one big quarrel over some money Grace had asked Joan to lend Frank….

Tara let out a sigh of relief. Thank God it was not her fault why her aunts had stopped coming.

Her parents continued to talk freely to each other, unsuspecting that a third party was listening in on their conversation.

You mean Grace’s drunk-already husband? her mother asked, and without waiting for an answer, added, and I can bet you he never paid her back. Right?

That’s it, and I was told that my two sisters nearly came to blows over it. Imagine that!

How can they be so silly? Don’t they know that getting into a fight never solves anything?

For women, maybe, her father rather smugly said. But sometimes it does for a man.

Like when and for what? her mother asked.

You don’t worry about that. As a man, you just know, her father said, sounding as if this was something her mother would never understand.

Offended by the put-down, her mother tried to get back at him by asking directly, You’d fight someone because of me, Simon?

What kind of question is that?

You don’t have to know, she said, just answer.

Tara wanted to know too. That would surely be something because her father had been known as a good fighter when he was young. At least, that’s what she’d heard his friends say when they came by to visit. But her father skillfully avoided answering the question and said instead,

So now you know why Grace and Joan won’t come by here any time soon. They don’t want to have anything to do with each other right now.

Her mother sighed deeply. She was thinking it was just like Simon to deprive her of the pleasure of hearing him say he would fight for her. She turned back to the conversation about his two sisters.

Well, I think it’s just plain silly that your sisters allow another person to cause the two of them to stop talking to each other. So why can’t Grace just get her husband to pay back the money?

Easier said than done, her father replied. Frank is a very stubborn man who never does anything until he’s ready.

Sounds like someone I know, her mother said.

There was silence as her father refused to swallow the bait, knowing that he, too, had a stubborn streak.

Since she was not getting any response, her mother continued. Sometimes, if we only knew how bad things were going to turn out, we’d never do them in the first place.

I couldn’t agree with you more, and that is one lesson you, me and everybody else should learn, her father asserted.

There was another brief lull in the conversation. Tara wondered what next, they were going to talk about. She did not have to wait long to find out.

Her father then asked, By the way, how are things going with your nephew, Jason?

Well, my brother got him into a boarding school in St. Elizabeth, and he seems to be doing alright.

That was a good move, her father said. One can’t be too careful with boys these days, especially when they begin to get mixed up with gangs.

Oh, so that’s why even before last school year was over, her uncle had suddenly sent him all the way from St. Ann to the faraway parish of St. Elizabeth, Tara said to herself. She thought this was another instance of her needing to be told what was happening.

Now that she knew this, she no longer had to keep wondering about Jason’s sudden departure from school. Adults certainly kept a lot of things from children. They did not seem to understand how puzzling and frustrating it was for a child to see all these mysterious things going on around them and not being told why.

Tara drew even closer to hear more. Her parents, for some reason, had lowered their voices. She was crouching with her ear right up against the window as she strained to catch every word. Suddenly, she heard her grandmother’s voice coming from nearby.

Tara! Where are you?

She jumped up in alarm. She couldn’t answer immediately because her parents would know that she was right outside their bedroom window. So, with a thumping heart and trembling feet, she hurriedly moved away to a bit further down the verandah just before her grandmother came around the corner of the house.

You didn’t hear me calling you, child? her grandmother asked. And what are you doing around here?

Tara had to find an answer quickly and one that her grandmother would believe. Her heart was racing wildly, and her mouth was feeling very dry. Looking around, she saw one of her books lying on the verandah chair. She quickly snatched it up. She also heard the window crack open behind her as her parents looked out to see what was going on.

I was looking for my book, Ma Bea, she said, holding up the junior romance novel in her hand. I left it on the verandah chair.

This was only a half-truth, but it would keep her dear grandmother from even beginning to guess the real reason, which Tara was desperate for her not to find out. Ma Bea knew that Tara loved to read, and while she might not be too sure this was what Tara was actually doing, she accepted her explanation.

Alright. Come and help me shell some red peas I bought out at the village square, Ma Bea said as they walked back around to the kitchen together.

Phew! That was very close, Tara thought as she tried to quiet her thudding heart and to stop trembling. Suppose Ma Bea and Mama and Daddy found out the real truth? That would be terrible! It would be more than bangarang. This was her grandmother’s word for a whole lot of trouble.

Tara knew that eavesdropping on adults was not right, but how else would she know exactly what was going on in her family? No one bothered to tell her anything, although she could see the results of various things, she knew nothing about. For instance, take her cousin suddenly being sent across the island to a new school. If she’d not started eavesdropping a few days earlier, she would never have found this out now

Before her last birthday, Tara thought the reason why the adults didn’t tell her anything about things taking place in the family, was because she was a child and not yet considered old enough to know about them. She’d felt sure that once she became a teenager, things would change because everyone would see that she was old enough to be included in family matters. So she’d eagerly awaited the arrival of her thirteenth birthday to be initiated into the affairs of the family.

Her birthday was on November 1st last year, but right now, she was thirteen years, two months and five days old and, as yet, they had not told her anything more than they had before. She remembered how excited she was about achieving her long-desired milestone of becoming a teenager. She no longer thought of herself as a child to be shushed or made to leave the room when certain matters were being discussed. Instead, she saw herself as a young grown-up who was ready to hear all about the real facts of life.

To mark her grand entrance into her teen years, Tara had gone around to her best friend, Jolene, and they’d had quite a ball. Jolene’s aunt was a dressmaker and very fashion conscious. They celebrated by trying on some of her fancy clothes paired with her high-heel shoes and applied her newest make-up, including her reddest lipstick. To top it off, they had an array of wigs from which to choose. Of course, Jolene’s aunt was not around when all this was going on.

Despite achieving what she thought of as the landmark age signaling her arrival into young adulthood, unfortunately, nothing seemed to have changed at home. Yes, her parents had each given her a nice present, and Ma Bea had whipped up a delicious chocolate cake. But that fell short of her expectations.

For a while, after her birthday, she’d wake up every morning anticipating that this would be the day her mother would call her into her room, sit her down and tell her the things she wanted to know. However, she was still waiting, and her disappointment and impatience had kept growing each day. So much so she’d crossed through the date of her birthday on the calendar with a big red X instead of drawing her usual smiling face around it. Tara wasn’t quite sure what she wanted to know specifically but was certain there were family matters she should be told about regardless.

She wondered what she could do to bring her parents’ attention to this gross neglect on their part.

TARA FINDS A WAY

The answer was not long in coming. Not being one to sit still and accept things as they were, Tara had grown tired of waiting. She decided that something had to be done to get her the recognition she felt was her due. If her parents did not make a move, she was going to have to do something herself.

She was now a teenager and had her own ideas about how things should go. No longer would she accept being left out of family conversations and waiting to learn about things long after they’d happened, especially when they had to do with her.

For instance, last year, when her mother got the job as a cashier at a supermarket in Midway Town and had to work on shift until nine o’clock some nights. To be with Tara during her mother’s absence was the reason her grandmother had come to live with them. It was deemed necessary, especially since her father sometimes stayed away for days on his job.

Nobody had told her about this until a few days before Ma Bea’s arrival. Tara was very upset because she felt old enough to stay by herself at nights until her mother came home from work and because Ma Bea had taken charge of the household, which included keeping track of her every move.

It was terrible! It was now more difficult to have phone conversations late into the night with Jolene and her other friends or to read her favourite stories until the wee hours of the morning. Once Ma Bea saw the light under her door or heard her voice, she usually came over to find out if something was the matter. This was very annoying. Not to be mentioned was the way her grandmother insisted that she must always keep her room as neat as that of a soldier living in an army barrack.

Tara wondered how her parents could not see that she was growing up and stop treating her like a little girl.

There was no shortage of talk about studying hard, being truthful, not speaking to strangers, and making sure to cross the street safely. All of which she already knew. She wished they’d spend more time talking to her about the really important things happening in the family. Even more irksome these days, too, was that sometimes when she was present, they’d whisper, or if she walked into the room, they’d suddenly stopped talking. Right away, she knew that something really serious had already happened or was about to do so.

During those times, Tara would try to find out what was going on by piecing together scraps of conversation heard at the dining table and elsewhere or by daring to ask innocent-sounding questions whenever the opportunity arose. Nevertheless, she wished things were different and that she could freely talk to her parents about this annoying matter.

Since her birthday, she’d spent many hours in her bed thinking about what she could do to make them see the reality of her situation. However, every time she tried to talk to her mother about it, she told her it was not yet time for her to get concerned with such adult matters. Such an answer only served to increase Tara’s frustration and made her more determined than ever to find out all she could about family matters on her own. Then quite unexpectedly, about a week before, she’d come across what she thought was the perfect answer to her problem.

The house where her family lived was an older one that used to belong to her father’s parents. As was the style then, the house was built with a verandah that went all around it. One afternoon, sitting on the verandah near her parent’s bedroom enjoying the cool breeze, she was reading one of her favourite junior romance novels. She’d stumbled across the series in the school library, and from then, had been hooked on them.

She liked the idea of boy meeting girl, their falling in love and having everything turn out right in the end, no matter what troubles they had. What could be simpler and more wonderful? Tara longed to grow up, fall in love, get married and live happily ever after like her parents. That is, except for one thing, her mother and father were not married. But they were happy, and that was all that mattered to her.

As she sat reading, she suddenly realized she could hear her parents talking, their voices clearly floating through the half-shut jalousie window of their bedroom. Tara’s first response was to move away as she could hear every word they were saying. But then, she heard them mention her name, and she instinctively drew nearer.

This was how she’d found out they were thinking of taking away her cell phone at night because they suspected she was spending too much time talking to her friends after bedtime. Immediately, Tara decided to cut down on her nightly jabbering because she couldn’t afford not to have her phone. It was the centre of her social world. So from that day on, she tried talking to no one after nine o’clock. Tara figured her parents had noted the difference because, until now, they hadn’t taken away her phone. It was a good thing she had heard them talking.

From the day of her unintentional eavesdropping, it suddenly dawned on Tara that she could hang out in her reading chair and listen to whenever her parents were talking about. This was one of the surest ways to know all that was going on in the family and if and when they were planning to do something to her—good or bad. Tara could hardly contain her excitement at this discovery, although everything within her was screaming that it was not a good thing to do. Deep within, Tara knew that eavesdropping on her parents was not right. But, to ease her conscience, she kept telling herself it was their fault in the first place why she had to do this. She also remembered the incident of her grandmother being sick and her not knowing what it was or what to do. If only they, especially her mother, would realize that she was old enough to know all that was going on in the family.

Well, since they were not about to tell her, they’d left her no choice but to find her own way of keeping informed about what she considered important matters. Tara had once heard her English teacher say something about desperate situations calling for drastic measures, and she considered her circumstances fit that saying very well.

After a few sleepless nights tossing and turning, struggling with what she’d been thinking of doing, Tara’s need-to-know feelings overpowered her conscience, and the decision was made. From that day on, her parent’s bedroom window became her listening post. From the verandah chair, she would be able to find out things she needed to know whenever she thought something was going on that no one was telling her.

Of course, she was very careful that neither her parents nor her grandmother suspected what she was scheming. To prevent this from happening, Tara placed the chair a little distance from the corner of the verandah and sat there many times just reading a book, cleaning her shoes or doing some other regular chore. This she did whether or not her parents were in their bedroom so no one would think it strange for