The Long Rain
- This chapter begins with a one-year long draught and Annie's illness, which is like "a black thing lodged inside [her] head" (7.10).
- Suddenly, there are three months of heavy rain coinciding with Annie's illness. She must go on bed rest in the "pitch-pine" bed her father made for her (7.3).
- Annie's mother calls Ma Jolie, the obeah woman from Dominica now living in Antigua, to check on Annie and give her some of some natural remedies. Annie's parents also take her to Dr. Stephens, the English doctor who prescribes Western medicine.
- Like Rachel Ray, Annie's mom believes in making miracles happen in the kitchen. She tells herself she will "redouble her efforts at making me eat properly, feeding me more beef tea, more barley water, more vitamins, more eggs and milk, along with keeping me in bed until whatever it was that had come over me went away" (7.4).
- Annie loses her memory of all that has happened to her up until this point and has dreams of walking toward the sea and drinks all the seawater until she bursts.
- Her mother and father shower her with kindness and treat her like a little baby. Her mother speaks to her gently and prepares her favorite foods to eat.
- Story-within-a-story alert! Her favorite snack of bread with cheese spread and chocolate milk reminds Annie of her days as a Brownie and her leader, Miss Herbert. Miss Herbert didn't fawn over Annie like most of her other teachers. She recalls the meetings: "We began our meetings with the whole troop standing in the yard of the Methodist church, forming a circle around the flagpole, our eyes following the Union Jack as it was raised up; then we swore allegiance to our country, by which was meant England" (7.10).
- Annie's parents eventually attempt to assume a more regular schedule and leave Annie alone in her bed to rest. One day she notices the framed family photographs in her room and imagines they are jumping up and down.
- She decides to "wash" them in water and then falls asleep in a haze. When her mother discovers her, the photos were "completely ruined" and she had erased the faces from most of the pictures. "In the picture of me wearing my confirmation dress, I had erased all of myself except for the shoes" (7.16).
- After this incident, Annie's parents never leave her alone. The fisherman, Mr. Nigel, comes to deliver their fish one day and he brings Annie's favorite fish and goes into Annie's room to speak to her. He reminds her of her father and she says to him, "You are just like Mr. John" (7.18). Mr. Nigel laughs so hard at this that Annie leaps out of bed and knocks him over. We never learn what illness Annie has, but she is having some serious hallucinations.
- Story-in-a-story alert! Annie gives the backstory on Mr. Nigel. He lives with fellow fisherman Mr. Earl and they share everything: a house, a boat, fish… even a wife. Miss Catherine, their shared wife, comes by and cooks for them both, but she keeps her own house too. Talk about bosom buddies.
- Soon after, Ma Chess, Annie's grandmother, appears on a day they aren't expecting the Jetty. She takes over the caretaking responsibilities from her daughter. She comes to tend to and heal her granddaughter with her obeah. During this point, we also learn more about John, Ma Chess's son with died from an illness after ailing for two years. "I would like on my side, curled up like a little comma, and Ma Chess would lie next to me, curled up like a bigger comma, into which I fit" (7.24).
- For the three and a half months of the rainstorm, Annie is sick in bed. When the rain finally stopped, so did Annie's illness. She went outside for the first time in a long time and decided that she wanted to leave because "the whole world into which [she] was born had become an unbearable burden and I wished I could reduce it to some small thing that I could hold underwater until it died" (7.26).
- Annie grows taller than her mother, "to a considerable height" (7.26) and had to buy new uniforms and shoes before she could return to school. Removed from her best friend position, Gwen, "formerly the love of my life, [is] now reduced to an annoying acquaintance" (7.27) who tells Annie that people talk about her new posture, height, fake accent, slow way of walking to school, and braggy way of speaking. Apparently the girls at her school like new post-illness swag as Annie "made all the other girls wish that they would get sick also" (7.27).