Chapter Four of my work in progress presents the second portrait of a woman in my life. Auntie Katie was an inextricable part of my childhood. She lived in the adjacent flat in the tenement yard, where we shared the same toilet and bathroom. Unlike other neighbors in the yard, she did not complain if we were too noisy. Perhaps, she considered that we already had our fair share of corporal punishment.

For some reason, she tolerated my curiosity and treated me with kindness. I liked and respected her. In her simple and quiet manner, she taught me that the color of our skin did not matter. What was in our heart mattered. How we treated others, even the little ones, mattered. Though she has been long gone from the world of the living, she remains close to my heart.

In Chapter One of my debut novel, Under the Tamarind Tree, she makes a small appearance as herself. More importantly, she became the inspiration for my most beloved character, Mama Chips, the protagonist’s surrogate mother following his mother’s death when he was thirteen years old.

The period described in Chapter Four is the 1950s and 1960s in then British Guiana.