Foreign Soil

Millie Lucas in almost 14. She was born and raised in Cidar Valley, Saint Thomas, in a small cabin at the base of the Blue Mountains. Most people who live in Cidar Valley work in the coffee industry: in a field, a factory, or a processing plant. Millie loves her home’s natural beauty. Her family’s cabin is small—Millie shares a bed with her 12-year-old sister, and there are other siblings, too.

The Pentecostal church runs Cidar Valley’s one-room school. It’s a fine school, though it only offers the basic, mandatory classes. Kids often skip class to help with work around home, so attendance is a big problem. But to these kids, “loosening hardened ground soil to dig a yam bed” is far more important than “Learning the King’s English.”

Mr. Lucas knows Millie is special. He’s watched her do math problems and pluck feathers from freshly killed chickens. And ever since she turned eight, Millie has been responsible for all the sewing. For a year, Millie’s dad anguishes over what to do with beautiful, special Millie. Then he figures it out: he will send her to Kingston. He proposes this to his wife (Mrs. Lucas) as they lie in bed one night, but she pretends to be asleep. Mr. Lucas trusts the Lord to guide him in the right direction. After all, he knows that using what little you have to make something of yourself “was the legacy of the city[.]”

To afford to send Millie to Kingston, Mr. Lucas plants extra bananas in his garden. They grow beautifully. Millie’s siblings know the plants are meant to pay for her future, so they nickname her “Banana Girl.” Soon, the other children of Cidar Valley call her this too. The village’s young men and women are more skeptical and believe that Millie won’t leave—she’ll end up working at a coffee factory like everyone else. Yet Millie still dreams of the life she could have in the big city. 

Millie has been accompanying Mr. Lucas to Kingston to buy tools and other goods since she was nine. On each visit, they go to Willemina’s sewing shop. Willemina is 65 years old. Though she was skeptical of Millie at first, thinking she was just a child, she soon came to respect Millie for her courteousness and sewing knowledge. The year Millie turns 14, Willemina watches Millie as she shops for sewing supplies and thinks about all the grueling domestic labor—caring for her siblings, cooking, and cleaning—that awaits Millie back home. When Mr. Lucas comes by to get Millie, Willemina explains that she’s getting older and is looking for a girl to help around the shop; she asks Mr. Lucas if Millie could apprentice for her, explaining that she’d cover Millie’s room and board, food, and teach her to use a sewing machine. Mr. Lucas agrees.    

At first, the bananas Mr. Lucas planted grow full and fat. But that October brings an especially severe wet season, and a bad fungus attacks the banana crops. Soon, it’s clear to Mr. Lucas that “his daughter’s dreams [are] in trouble.” But Mr. Lucas is a resourceful man. He fetches a ride to Kingston and purchases as much pig meat and marshmallow as he can. Then, back home, Millie’s family makes a giant bonfire out of the ruined banana crops; Millie and Mrs. Lucas sell sticks of skewered marshmallows and meat to the other villagers.

It’s not long before Millie moves to Kingston to work in Willemina’s shop. Millie works hard and impresses Willemina. Willemina runs the only sewing store in Kingston, so it’s always busy. Millie attends Willemina’s sewing class on weeknights. There are five local girls in the class; the youngest is 10, and the oldest is 18. Dressmakers are in high demand in Kingston, so it’s a big deal to be enrolled in the class, and enrollment goes to the highest bidder. The local girls don’t seem to understand how lucky they are, though, and they often complain about the tediousness of the class. Millie feels lucky to be there, but she feels homesick for Cidar Valley.

Millie spends her free mornings walking along Kingston Beach.  She’s lived in the mountains her whole life, and so the beach is unfamiliar and exciting to her. On one of her early morning walks, she meets Winston Gray, a young man from a rural town called Montego Bay. He cuts cane, the only work available to a 17-year-old with no education. Winston meets Millie near the end of this off-season in 1949. He falls in love with her the moment he sees her walking along the beach. They eventually have sex; it’s full of passion and longing, and Millie trusts Winston. Winston tells her he has to leave for Montego Bay in two days, but he promises to write her at the shop.

Gossip about Millie’s courtship spreads around town, and Willemina isn’t surprised when she hears it. Before, only women entered her shop. But now, their husbands accompany them, eager to catch a glimpse of Millie’s curvy, maturing body. Afraid for Millie, Willemina sits her down and tells her to focus on her studies and work—if she gets pregnant, she’ll be stuck in the valley forever. Willemina finishes her talk, which Millie brushes off, and watches as Millie leaves the shop. The girl reminds Willemina of herself at that age: she, too, met a man who made lots of promises but kept none of them. The man was Haitian. He was wealthy and married, and he bought Willemina the sewing shop to keep her on the island.

Millie has seen Mrs. Lucas pregnant and knows exactly what’s going on when her breasts begin to swell and she feels nauseous all the time. She waits for Winston to call for five months, but he never does. Willemina pretends not to notice at first, but Millie can tell that she knows. Millie doesn’t know anyone in Kingston and has nobody to confide in; the other girls in her sewing class think she’s “a hick from the hills” and want nothing to do with her. Millie writes home often, but she can’t bring herself to tell her family about her pregnancy. Anyway, they have no money to visit her since losing her sewing income.

Unbeknownst to Millie, Winston’s first letter arrived just five weeks after he left Kingston. Willemina received it. But, deciding that Millie had enough to deal with, she hid the unopened letter from Millie—and she hid all the ones that came after it, too. Willemina continues not to mention Millie’s pregnancy. But by the time Millie is six months pregnant, customers are gossiping all the time, and so Willemina gently suggests that Millie work on alterations in the back room instead of running things up front. Millie is grateful to be out of the spotlight. She apologizes to Willemina for getting herself into trouble and starts to cry, believing that Willemina will fire her now. But Willemina promises Millie that she’ll keep her on; Millie is grateful.

Millie is nearing the end of her pregnancy when a white man enters the store looking for Millie. Willemina recognizes the man as the goods driver who delivers her sewing supplies when they arrive at the port. Willemina lies and says Millie isn’t there, and eventually the man leaves. Meanwhile, Millie is practicing backstitching out in the back shed but can’t focus due to the oppressive heat. Suddenly, the goods driver sneaks up behind her squeezes her breast. Millie is terrified and confused. Just then, Millie  groans and slumps forward. Willemina appears in the doorway and barks at the man to leave. Angrily, he insinuates that he’ll bribe the police to take away Willemina’s shop’s license if Willemina doesn’t leave him alone with Millie. Willemina grabs a meter stick and strikes the man over the head with it, and the man falls forward onto Millie. 

Millie screams at Willemina that the baby is going to come. Summoning a strength she didn’t know she still had, Willemina drags the goods driver’s body out of the shed. Then she returns to Millie. The birth is over in 15 minutes. Millie falls in love with her baby instantly and names him Eddison William; she decides that “no-good Winston” doesn’t matter anymore—all that matters is her beautiful baby.  

Things go back to normal after Millie gives birth. Mr. Lucas finds out about the baby and offers to bring it back and have Mrs. Lucas raise it as their own, but Willemina tells him that if Millie is old enough to make a baby, she’s old enough to raise one. Willemina’s health is declining rapidly now, and it’s clear that she’s training Millie to take over the shop when Willemina can no longer run it. Millie feels immensely grateful, and she works all day with Eddison strapped to her chest. She never pauses to think whether running the shop is what she wants in life—but that changes the day Winston returns.

Millie is upstairs when she hears shouting coming from the shop. She rushes downstairs, Eddison strapped to her chest, and sees Willemina hitting Winston with a carboard meter roll. Millie runs to him and starts hitting him herself, screaming that he’s a liar.  

Winston walks to the shop’s front steps and screams that it’s really Millie who has wronged him: she made him think she wanted to be with him, and he sent her letters and money every month, and then she never even responded. At first, Millie doesn’t believe him. Realizing that Millie will soon learn the truth, Willemina slowly retreats to the register and removes a stack of unopened envelopes from a locked cupboard. She hands them to Millie, who angrily takes them and then sits down beside Winston on the shop’s front steps. Slowly, she reads through all the letters. Winston smiles at her, explaining that he wrote the letters to lay out his hopes for the better life they’d build together. He asks her to marry him.

Millie is touched and begins to cry. Then she pauses and tells Winston she has something to confess. It’s only then that Winston sees the baby strapped to Millie’s nightgown. He freezes—can it be his? Millie tells Winston, “tentatively,” that the baby is Eddison.