When Audrie Matthews finally agrees to meet the adult son she left behind as an infant in Jamaica, she opens a Pandora's Box of trouble. She learns that her son, who is now a young Baptist minister, has left troubles of his own behind. She returns to Jamaica with him to shield him from the consequences of his actions and is taken back on a journey to the past that is as complex as it is revealing. In this novel, The Road to Timnath, which is told in the first and third person voice, Audrie Matthews meets her son, James John Whitehead, the third, and is forced to once again experience the horror of his father's murder. This young man, who is known as Jimmy, looks and sounds so much like his dead father that at first Audrie struggles with sexual attraction to him. When he introduces his fiancée to her and suggests that they get married in front of her, he is trying to make up for their years of separation. Audrie leaps at the opportunity, believing that her involvement in the wedding plans will wipe away her inappropriate responses to her son. She and her best friend Myrna pay for a small intimate ceremony and send the couple off for a week in the Bahamas. While they are gone, Audrie receives a call from Jimmy's great Uncle. He reveals that Jimmy's childhood best friend, who is the granddaughter of the family's housekeeper, has given birth to a baby girl and named Jimmy as the father. The journey home is a journey back to the turn of the twentieth century when the family patriarch, Rev. James John Whitehead, the first, was conceived as a result of the rape of a local teenager by the middle-aged Scottish pastor of the local Moravian church. The Road to Timnath Di Ruod Tu Timnat By Sylvia Gilfillian AuthorHouse Copyright © 2016 Sylvia Gilfillian All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-5246-0822-4 CHAPTER 1 Audrie Agette Matthews 2003 When chobl tek yu, pikni shot fit yu When you get into serious trouble, a child's shirt will fit you When trouble arrives, you will make all possible adjustments, even if they appear ridiculous; we are humbled by misfortune Fren kill fren and doti waata out faiya It is possible for a friend to kill a friend and for dirty water to put out a fire A friend may betray a friend and an enemy may do something good (Jamaican Proverbs) Yu ever have so much tings happen to yu wan time dat yu feel like yu head gwaihn buss ? Dat is how me feel dese days. On mi insides, me feel like a run-weh train. Me glad, me bex and me sad all at di same time. Muos days, A feel like sombadi put a stick up mi behain and A kyan niida si-dong nor tan-up straight. In June, Jimmy kaal me and him was soundin tired and despondent. Him ask me if him kyan come to me fi a while. Now, A been waitin well over twenty years fi dis kaal but it still tek me like a staam . Me staat fi cry but me swala mi yai-waata , quick-quick, and try fi soun real casual and doubtful. "If yu sure is somting yu waahn fi do," me tell him. "A duohn waahn no problems wid Miss Birdie and yu granfaada, because dem might feel dat me wait fi dem to raise yu from yu was a biebi and as soon as yu ton man, me tek yu weh from dem." "This is not about Mama or Daddy," di bwai tell me, soundin forceful and mannish and so much like him faada dat mi belly feel like it was gwaihn jrap-out. "This is about me and something that I need to do, but, if you don't want me to come ..." Me cut him aaf before him kuda finish and tell him dat A will send di airline ticket to Uncle Nathan, mi husband uncle, and him shud not even argue wid me, because him jos finish university and me know him no have no money. Him grii wid me quick-quick bout di money and me get aaf a di phone and get out mi phone book and staat fi look in a di yellow pages fi travel agencies. In di two weeks before Jimmy come, me go chuu so much confusion dat me had to taak to mi supervisor at di hospital. She is di director of nursing and she is a Trinidad uman. Like me, she know bout sufferin. She run weh from medical school in a 1976, because her faada wanted was to force her fi married to wahn uol man in aada fi annex di man prapati. Every time me hear her tell it, me laugh. She seh di dyam man was so uol, him aredi a piss pahn himself, and her faada and mada plan big wedn behain her back. She was on di next flight to Miami and stayin in a di Y before her parents know what time it was. Myrna is wan tough uman and choswordi, too. She no tek no crap from nobadi and yu kyan chos her wid yu very life. Dat quality haad fi find in a any workplace, because eniweh tu-moch uman a wok is always hell to pay. Yu know how we kyan run wi mout. Anyhow, Myrna is not ongl mi supervisor but she is mi bes fren in di wol wide worl . Well, as me was sayin, di bwai tek me like a staam but me fight mi way chuu di downpour and come out victorious, or so A did tink at di time. Me ask Myrna fi go wid me to di airport because me rea