The Dew Breaker - Edwidge Danticat [27]
To get a closer look at the man, she simply lowered her body and moved her face closer to his. She did not even pretend to drop something on the ground, as she’d planned.
Up close, it was instantly obvious that though the man bore a faint resemblance to Constant, it wasn’t him. In his most recent pictures, the ones in the newspapers, not the one on the WANTED flyer, Constant appeared much older, fatter, almost twice the size of this man. Constant also had a wider forehead, bushier eyebrows, larger, more bulging eyes, and fuller lips.
Anne straightened her body but still lingered in the aisle, glaring down at the man until he looked up at her and smiled. He seemed to think she was a person he knew too, a face he couldn’t immediately place. He looked up expectantly as though waiting for her to say something that would remind him of their connection, but she said nothing. Someone tapped Anne’s shoulder from behind and she continued walking, her knees shaking until she got back to her seat.
“Not him,” she whispered to her husband.
He turned to his daughter and repeated, “Not him.”
While slipping into her seat, Anne whispered these words again to herself. “Not him.” It was not him. She felt strangely comforted, as though she, her husband, and her daughter had just been spared bodily harm. Her daughter, however, was still staring at the man doubtfully.
Once everyone who wanted to had received communion, the choir began singing “Silent Night.” The tranquility of the melody and the solace of the words were now lost on Anne, for she was thinking that she would never attend this Mass, or any other, with her husband again. What if someone had been sitting there, staring at him, the same way her daughter had been staring at that man? And what if they recognized him, came up to him, and looked into his face?
When the choir finished the song, the priest motioned for them to start again so the congregation could join in.
Anne was surprised to see her husband’s lips move as though he were trying to follow along. He missed a few of the verses, lowering his head when he did, but he mostly managed to keep up. She was moved by this gesture, knowing he was singing only because he knew it was her favorite. He was trying to please her, take her mind off the agitation the man’s presence had caused her.
During the final blessing, her daughter kept her eyes on the man, craning her neck for a better view of his face.
As soon as the Mass ended, the priest headed down the aisle to greet the congregants on their way out. The people in the front pews followed him. She and her husband and daughter would have to wait until all the rows ahead of them had been emptied before they could exit.
When his turn came, the man they’d believed was Constant strolled past them, chatting with a woman at his side. As he passed her, their daughter raised her hand as if to grab his arm, but her father reached over, lowered it, and held it to her side until the man was beyond her reach.
“I wasn’t going to hit him,” the daughter said. “I was just going to ask his name.”
The daughter turned to her mother, as if to plead for her understanding and said, “Would it be so wrong, Manman, to ask his name?”
When it was their turn to greet the priest, her daughter and husband quickly slipped by him, leaving Anne to face him alone.
“It’s nice to see you, Anne,” the priest said. “I thought you were going to bring your family.”
“I did, Father,” she said.
From the church entrance, she looked out into the street, where most of the congregation had spilled onto the sidewalk. She pushed her head through the doorway until she spotted her husband and daughter crossing the street and moving toward a house with a plastic reindeer on the front lawn.
“There they are, Father,” she said, pointing as they reached the white metal fence bordering the house.
The priest turned to look, but couldn’t distinguish them from the others spread out now on both sidewalks.
Anne tried to imagine what her husband and daughter could be talking about out there, standing next to that light-drenched