Breath, Eyes, Memory - Edwidge Danticat [60]
"What kinds of emotions?"
"Maybe emotions is not the word. It's brought back images of the rape."
"Like you did."
"Yes," I said. "Like I did."
"What about your father? Have you given him more thought?"
"I would rather not call him my father."
"We will have to address him soon. When we do address him, I'll have to ask you to confront your feelings about him in some way, give him a face."
"It's hard enough to deal with, without giving him a face."
"Your mother never gave him a face. That's why he's a shadow. That's why he can control her. I'm not surprised she's having nightmares. This pregnancy is bringing feelings to the surface that she had never completely dealt with.
You will never be able to connect with your husband until you say good-bye to your father."
"I am seeing my mother this weekend," I said.
"You are establishing relations again."
"Joseph and I are going to visit her so we can get to know her friend."
"You mean her lover, the father of her child."
"Yes."
"Is it hard for you to imagine your mother sexually?"
"I've never really tried."
"Do it now."
"Do what?"
"Imagine her in the sexual act," she said.
I tried to imagine my mother, wincing and clenching her teeth as the large shadow of a man mounted her. She didn't like it. She even looked like she was crying, even though her lips were saying things that made him think otherwise.
"Do you imagine that it's the same for her as it is for you?"
"I imagine that she tries to be brave."
"Like you."
"Maybe."
"Do you think you'll ever stop thinking of what you and Joseph do as being brave?"
"I am his wife. There are certain things I need to do to keep him."
"The fear of abandonment. You always have that in the back of your mind, don't you?"
"I feel like my daughter is the only person in the world who won't leave me."
"Do you understand now why your mother was so adamantly against your being with a man, a much older man at that? It is only natural, dear heart. She also felt that you were the only person who would never leave her."
We stopped at a bench overlooking the river. Two swans were floating along trying to catch up with one another. The crew team was rowing towards the edge of the river.
"During your visit, did you go to the spot where your mother was raped?" Rena asked. "In the thick of the cane field. Did you go to the spot?"
"No, not really."
"What does that mean?"
"I ran past it."
"You and your mother should both go there again and see that you can walk away from it. Even if you can never face the man who is your father, there are things that you can say to the spot where it happened. I think you'll be free once you have your confrontation. There will be no more ghosts."
Chapter 33
My mother met us on the stoop outside the house. She was wearing a large tent dress with long puffy sleeves. She looked calmer, rested. Her skin was evened out with a powdered mahogany glow.
Joseph had driven in our station wagon, while I brought Brigitte in my mother's car.
"Ca va byen?" My mother kissed Joseph four times on the cheek. "I brought your wife and daughter back in one piece."
She took the baby from my arms and shoved Marc forward to introduce himself.
Marc was a bit fatter than I remembered. He was squeezed into a small gray jacket and a large pair of pants held up by suspenders.
Marc recited his full name as he shook Joseph's hand.
"Marc has a lot of the old ways," my mother said to Joseph.
The kitchen smelled like fried fish, boiled cabbage, and mayonnaise.
"What have you been up to?" my mother said, curling Brigitte up in her arms. Brigitte reached up to grab my mother's very short hair.
"She said Dada," Joseph announced proudly.
"Even when she grows up and gets a doctorate," Marc said, "it will not count as much."
Marc wrapped an apron around his waist and turned over the fish in the skillet.
My mother took Joseph on a tour of the house, the tour he had never gotten. He followed her obediently, beaming.
She moved us into the backyard where she had placed her