Timothy (The Cay) Quotes

“Wanting to hear it from Timothy, I asked him why there were different colors of skin, white and black, brown and red, and he laughed back, “Why b’feesh different color, or flower b’different color? I true don’ know, Phill-eep, but I true tink beneath d’skin is all d’same.”

“Yet I could not help worrying. The thought of losing either of them was unbearable. If something bad happened on the cay, I wanted it to happen to all of us.”

“My mother was right, I thought. They had their place and we had ours. He did not really like me, or he would have taken me along. He was different.”

“Something happened to me that day on the cay. I’m not quite sure what it was even now, but I had begun to change. I said to Timothy, ‘I want to be your friend.’ He said softly, ‘Young bahss, you’ave always been my friend.’ I said, ‘Can you call me Phillip instead of young boss?’ ‘Phill-eep,’ he said warmly.”

“I had now been with him every moment of the day and night for two months, but I had not seen him. I remember that ugly welted face. But now, in my memory, it did not seem ugly at all. It seemed only kind and strong.”

“Soon I felt water around my ankles. Then it washed to my knees. It would go back and then crash against us again. Timothy was taking the full blows of the storm, sheltering me with his body. When the water receded, it would tug at us, and Timothy’s strength would fight against it. I could feel the steel in his arms as the water tried to suck us away.”