Breath, Eyes, Memory - Edwidge Danticat [14]
She motioned for me to walk over and sit on her lap. I was not sure that her thin legs would hold me without snapping. I walked over and sat on her lap anyway.
"You're not going to be alone," she said. "I'm never going to be farther than a few feet away. Do you understand that?"
She gently helped me down from her lap. Her knees seemed to be weakening under my weight.
"Do you want to eat something? We can sit and talk. Or do you want to go to bed?"
"Bed."
She reached over to unbutton the back of my dress.
"I can do that," I said.
"Do you want me to show you where I sleep, in case you need me during the night?"
We went back to the living room. She unfolded the sofa and turned it into a bed.
"This is where I'll be. You see, I'm not far away at all."
When we went back to the bedroom, I turned my back to her as I undressed. She took the dress from me, opened the closet door, and squeezed it in between some of her own.
The rumpled Mother's Day card was sticking out from my dress pocket.
"What is that?" she asked, pulling it out.
She unfolded the card and began to read it. I lay down on the bed and tried to slip under the yellow sheets. There was not enough room for both me and the doll on the bed. I picked her up and laid her down sideways. She still left little room for me.
My mother looked up from the card, walked over, and took the doll out of the bed. She put her down carefully in a corner.
"Was that for me?" she asked looking down at the card.
"Tante Atie said I should give it to you."
"Did you know how much I loved daffodils when I was a girl?"
"Tante Atie told me."
She ran her fingers along the cardboard, over the empty space where the daffodil had been.
"I haven't gone out and looked for daffodils since I've been here. For all I know, they might not even have them here."
She ran the card along her cheek, then pressed it against her chest.
"Are there still lots of daffodils?"
"Oui," I said. "There are a lot of them."
Her face beamed even more than when she first saw me at the airport. She bent down and kissed my forehead.
"Thank God for that," she said.
I couldn't fall asleep. At home, when I couldn't sleep, Tante Atie would stay up with me. The two of us would sit by the window and Tante Atie would tell me stories about our lives, about the way things had been in the family, even before I was born. One time I asked her how it was that I was born with a mother and no father. She told me the story of a little girl who was born out of the petals of roses, water from the stream, and a chunk of the sky. That little girl, she said was me.
As I lay in the dark, I heard my mother talking on the phone.
"Yes," she said in Creole. "She is very much here. In bone and flesh. I cannot believe it myself."
Later that night, I heard that same voice screaming as though someone was trying to kill her. I rushed over, but my mother was alone thrashing against the sheets. I shook her and finally woke her up. When she saw me, she quickly covered her face with her hands and turned away.
"Ou byen? Are you all right?" I asked her.
She shook her head yes.
"It is the night," she said. "Sometimes, I see horrible visions in my sleep."
"Do you have any tea you can boil?" I asked.
Tante Atie would have known all the right herbs.
"Don't worry, it will pass," she said, avoiding my eyes. "I will be fine. I always am. The nightmares, they come and go"
There were sirens and loud radios blaring outside the building.
I climbed on the bed and tried to soothe her. She grabbed my face and squeezed it between her palms.
"What is it? Are you scared too?" she asked. "Don't worry." She pulled me down into the bed with her. "You can sleep here tonight if you want. It's okay. I'm here."
. She pulled the sheet over both our bodies. Her voice began to fade as she drifted off to sleep.
I leaned back in the bed, listening to her snoring.
Soon, the