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“We have to buy the plane tickets,” I said, deciphering his words.

“Tell your uncle to buy them. I’ll send him the money.” My father spoke louder than he needed to, his voice energetic, animated.

“Are you happy?” my father asked me toward the end of the conversation.

I pretended not to hear.

“Here’s Bob,” I said.

My brother too came to life on the phone with my parents. The three of them were already chatting like old friends, plotting all the things they were going to do.

“Edwidge has promised a bunch of gifts, something for everyone,” he tattled.

I reached over and pinched him on the back of the hand that was holding the phone. My uncle slapped my hand away, all the while shooting me a reprimanding glare. Even though we had been expecting it, how could I tell him that I didn’t want to leave him? What difference could it make? For better or for worse, I had to go. These were my parents, my real parents, and they wanted me to come and live with them.

Later that week, Tante Denise took me to a pricey shop on Grand Rue to buy me a new dress. I picked one I thought rather fancy. It was bright yellow with a satin camisole and a flounced skirt. Bob’s light blue suit was made by my uncle’s tailor, whom he’d engaged since he’d stopped taking work to Monsieur Pradel.

On our departure day, we were overfed before being taken to the airport. Tante Denise cooked a large pot of cornmeal and herring and blended beet juice with condensed milk for us to wash it down.

When Nick, sobbing in his cornmeal, asked, “Why do I have to go back to school after my lunch? Why can’t I go with them?” Tante Denise wrapped her arms around Bob’s and my necks, kissed our cheeks from behind our chairs and ran into her room. Liline’s father, Tante Denise’s brother Linoir, who’d spent three years working as a cane cutter in the Dominican Republic, had recently come home to die. That grief compounded by our leaving was too much for her to bear.

Liline, however, was taking things a lot better. She barely knew her father and was terrified of the sunken eyes, dried-up skin, and convulsions through which his cholera was manifesting itself. Just as Tante Denise locked her bedroom door, Liline had blocked the door to her heart. She went to see her father only once and swore she would never see him again. And as Bob and I left the house, even though I’d left my treasured copy of Madeleine tucked under her pillow, which I knew she had seen that morning while making her bed, she simply told us “Na wè,” See you later, while never looking up from her plate.

At the airport, Bob and I tried to keep up with my uncle as he hurried to one of the long lines winding their way to the counters. My uncle was holding our single small suitcase in one hand and a mustard-colored envelope filled with our papers in the other.

Waiting on the line, my uncle began sweating and kept wiping his face until his blue monogrammed handkerchief was soaked. Was he sad? Angry? Nervous? For himself? For us?

Over the years, in my travels, I have spoken to three middle-aged Haitian flight attendants who claimed they were the ones who met my brother and me at the airline counter, took our hands and led us away from my uncle, guiding us to our seats on the airplane.

“You didn’t cry at all,” one of them said. “You both simply gave your uncle a kiss on the cheek and walked away.”

“You didn’t make any noise about it,” another one said, “but the front of your dress was wet from your tears.”

“You both refused to move. Your uncle had to order you to come with me and he got really mad and yelled,” the last one said, not knowing that by then my uncle could not yell.

Their faulty recollections have wiped out whatever certainty I’ve had, if ever, about that day. At different stages my brother and I were probably all of those children—the ones who didn’t cry, the ones who quietly sobbed and the ones who refused to leave.

Over the years, I have also met other passengers who believed they