She sat in the driver's seat and turned on the engine. It made a loud grating noise as though it were about to explode.
'We will soon be on our way,' she said.
She rubbed her hands together and pressed her head back against the seat. She did not look like the picture Tante Atie had on her night table. Her face was long and hollow. Her hair had a blunt cut and she had long spindly legs. She had dark circles under her eyes and, as she smiled, lines of wrinkles tightened her expression. Her fingers were scarred and sunburned. It was as though she had never stopped working in the cane fields after all.
'It is ready now,' she said.
She strapped the seatbelt across her flat chest, pressing herself even further into the torn cushions. She leaned over and attached my seatbelt as the car finally drove off.
Night had just fallen. Lights glowed everywhere. A long string of cars sped along the highway, each like a single diamond on a very long bracelet.
'We will be in the city soon,' she said.
I still had not said anything to her.
'How is your Tante Atie?' she asked. 'Does she still go to night school?'
'Night school?'
'She told me once in a cassette that she was going to start night school. Did she ever start it?'
'Non.'
'The old girl lost her nerve. She lost her fight. You should have seen us when we were young. We always dreamt of becoming important women. We were going to be the first women doctors from my mother's village. We would not stop at being doctors either. We were going to be engineers too. Imagine our surprise when we found out we had limits.'
All the street lights were suddenly gone. The streets we drove down now were dim and hazy. The windows were draped with bars; black trash bags blew out into the night air.
There were young men standing on street corners, throwing empty cans at passing cars. My mother swerved the car to avoid a bottle that almost came crashing through the windshield.
'How is Lotus?' she asked. 'Donald's wife, Madame Augustin.'
'She is fine,' I said.
'Atie has sent me cassettes about that. You know Lotus was not meant to marry Donald. Your aunt Atie was supposed to. But the heart is fickle, what can you say? When Lotus came along, he did not want my sister anymore.'
There was writing all over the building. As we walked towards it, my mother nearly tripped over a man sleeping under a blanket of newspapers.
'Your schooling is the only thing that will make people respect you,' my mother said as she put a key in the front door.
The thick dirty glass was covered with names written in graffiti bubbles.
'You are going to work hard here,' she said, 'and no one is going to break your heart because you cannot read or write. You have a chance to become the kind of woman Atie and I have always wanted to be. If you make something of yourself in life, we will all succeed. You can raise our heads.'
A smell of old musty walls met us at the entrance to her apartment. She closed the door behind her and dragged the suitcase inside.
'You wait for me here,' she said, once we got inside. I stood on the other side of a heavy door in the dark hall, waiting for her.
She disappeared behind a bedroom door. I wandered in and slid my fingers across the table and chairs neatly lined up in the kitchen. The tablecloth was shielded with a red plastic cover, the same blush red as the sofa in the living room.
There were books scattered all over the counter. I flipped through the pages quickly. The books had pictures of sick old people in them and women dressed in white helping them.
I was startled to hear my name when she called it.
'Sophie, where are you?'
I ran back to the spot where she had left me. She was standing there with a tall well-dressed doll at her side. The doll was caramel-colored with a fine pointy noise.
'Come,' she said. 'We will show you to your room.'
I followed her through a dark doorway. She turned on the light and laid the doll down on a small day-bed by the window.
I kept my eyes on the blue wallpaper and the water stains that crept from the ceiling down to the floor.
She kept staring at my face for a reaction.
'Don't you like it?' she asked.
'Yes. I like it. Thank you.'
Sitting on the edge of the bed, she unbraided the doll's hair, taking out the ribbons and barrettes that matched the yellow dress. She put them on a night table near the bed. There was a picture of her and Tante Atie there. Tante Atie was holding a baby and my mother had her hand around Tante Atie's shoulder.
I moved closer to get a better look at the baby in Tante Atie's arms. I had never seen an infant picture of myself, but somehow I knew that it was me. Who else could it have been? I looked for traces in the child, a feature that was my mother's but still mine too. It was the first time in my life that I noticed that I looked like no one in my family. Not my mother. Not my Tante Atie. I did not look like them when I was a baby and I did not look like them now.
'If you don't like the room,' my mother said, 'we can always change it.'
She glanced at the picture as she picked up a small brush and combed the doll's hair into a ponytail.
'I like the room fine,' I stuttered.
She tied a rubber band around the doll's ponytail, then reached under the bed for a small trunk.
She unbuttoned the back of the doll's dress and changed her into a pajama set.
'You won't resent sharing your room, will you?' She stroked the doll's back. 'She is like a friend to me. She kept me company while we were apart. It seems crazy, I know. A grown woman like me with a doll. I am giving her to you now. You take good care of her.'
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?'
