"Have a safe night at work, sweetie," Carol Melvin-Brown texted her husband, family law attorney Devon Brown, as she started her shift at Victoria General Hospital. Outside the hospital, it was super cold, even by Halifax standards. Carol for once was glad to be inside. The six-foot-tall, curvy and sexy, short-haired and big-bottomed, caramel-hued and brown-eyed sister strode down the hospital hallways, blue scrubs on, ready to work.
Born in the City of Preston, Nova Scotia, to a white Canadian mother and a Jamaican immigrant father, Carol was definitely no stranger to hardship. Although Canada as a nation enjoys a reputation for friendliness and humanitarian deeds, the province of Nova Scotia has a complex history when it comes to Canadians of African descent. Carol grew up within a short distance from Africville, the first black community in Canada, which was destroyed by the provincial government to make way for 'progress.'
"I bet you Devon's ass is already asleep," Carol muttered to herself, as she checked her cell phone and saw that her husband hadn't replied to her text message. Carol knew that being a nurse and being a lawyer were two different professions with different demands on their practitioners, but she couldn't help resent Devon's aloofness sometimes. After all, Carol was pregnant, and working hard, and she still had more energy than her erstwhile husband...
Quietly fuming, Carol went by the hospital cafeteria, intent on getting a drink from one of the vending machines. With so much to do as head nurse and so few able hands to help her, Carol needed a little pick-me-up. It was late, so Carol was surprised to hear voices coming from the cafeteria. She saw one of her underlings engaging in idle chit-chat with a tall, dark-skinned young man in a security uniform.
"Get to work," Carol said to one of the nurses-in-training, a plump, blonde-haired young White woman named Stephanie. The newcomer, Stephanie somebody, had a bad habit of flirting with hospital security guards and chatting on her cell phone whenever her immediate supervisors weren't around. Having gotten caught flirting with Salim, the only minority among the hospital security staff, Stephanie flashed her boss Carol a wan smile, excused herself and went back to work...
"Sorry, ma'am, I was just saying hey to Salim," Stephanie mumbled, and she shot her future fuck buddy, Salim the Ethiopian, a sheepish smile before hightailing it out of the lunch room. Carol watched Stephanie return to her duties and shook her head. So hard to find good help these days, Carol thought grimly. She wondered how a floozy like Stephanie could have graduated at the top of her class at the University of Dalhousie. Carol remembered her halcyon days at Dalhousie, and how competitive the nursing programme was in those days. A shame that they were letting the ditzy types in these days. Without further ado, Carol started working. At home and at the office, a woman's work is never done...
Carol Melvin-Brown had always been a no-nonsense woman. Tall, lovely and sturdy, with a sharp mind and a bevy of ambition, Carol endured all manner of hell as the mixed-race daughter of an interracial couple while growing up in Halifax, Nova Scotia. People from the United States of America and the U.K. thought of Canadians as nice people. Obviously they didn't know how White folks in the province of Nova Scotia treated anyone who wasn't Caucasian. If they did, they might indeed rethink that whole 'nice Canadian myth...
Back in the day, a lot of people in the City of Halifax would stare at Carol and her parents, Jason Melvin and Melanie Silverman-Melvin, as they went about their daily lives. Nova Scotia is, in many ways, the Mississippi of Canada. As in it's not the sort of place where families made up of Black fathers, White mothers and mixed-race daughters were considered welcome. As a result of what her family had to go through, the hostile stares, the unkind words, and the like, Carol grew up to be smart, ambitious and pitiless toward those she considered weak. At home and at work, Carol was B.O.S.S.Y.
Night fell over the City of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Attorney Devon Brown came home, and went straight to bed. It had been a long, rough day at the office for the family law attorney. His wife Carol wasn't around, thank heaven, since she worked the overnight shift as a nurse at Victoria General. She wouldn't be home until the wee hours of the morning. Such was life for Devon Brown and Carol Melvin-Brown. Owning a nice townhouse in the secluded Haliburton Hills area didn't come cheap, and the hard-working Black Canadian couple did what they had to in order to make ends meet...
