eyes forever. I encouraged my brother to do the same. In the process we fell asleep, waking up only when one of the flight attendants nudged us to rouse for supper.
By then it was too dark out to see the clouds again. Bob marveled at the fact that it didn’t seem as though we were moving. Though we’d eaten what was probably the biggest lunch of our lives, we still cleaned up our tray of plane food, relishing the novelty of the tiny plastic plates on which the Haitian- style rice and beans and American-style grilled chicken breasts were served. After having spread one of his small butter squares on his roll, Bob placed the other one in his pocket, where it melted before landing.
We heard our parents before we saw them. Walking on either side of the stewardess who’d taken us from my uncle at the airport in Port-au-Prince, my brother and I made out our names above the din of the people lunging forward, flashing pictures, waving flowers and stuffed animals in the arrival lounge. Our parents’ voices, my father’s firm and resolute, my mother’s brassy and booming, were coming from behind us.
The stewardess loosened her grip on our hands but didn’t completely let go as we turned around to find them.
“Are these your parents?” she asked as they approached, my mother sweeping the crowd aside and my father following more leisurely behind her, apologizing to the shoving victims in her wake.
When she reached us, my mother grabbed us both and pressed us against her chest. I inhaled deeply, taking in her mixed scent of coconut hair pomade and baby powder that formed uneven white lines all around her neck.
My father took care of the logistics, signing a form that the stewardess had until then kept folded in her pocket.
“Bonne chance. Good luck,” she said before walking away.
My father bent down for us to kiss him. His beard, thicker and bristlier now, prickled my lips and nose. Still, I followed my brother’s lead and wrapped my arms around his neck as I kissed him.
“Where are Kelly and Karl?” asked my brother, already displaying the male sibling solidarity I would later come to suspect all my brothers of. A friend from their building was looking after the boys, my mother said. We’d see them when we got home.
In the airport parking lot, I shivered. Even though it was spring-a concept I’d have to grow accustomed to now, the actual manifestation of seasons-there was a biting chill in the air. Later I’d learn that my father had lost a job that day. He’d asked his boss at the New Jersey handbag factory where he was working if he could leave early to pick us up and the boss had said no. My father had left anyway and on his way out was told he was fired. During the drive to the airport, he decided he would never work for anybody again.
While loading our suitcase into the back of an old beaten-up gray station wagon, my father asked, “How’s Uncle?”
“Uncle seemed sad,” Bob answered for me. “I think he was sad to see us leave.”
“I suppose that’s how it is sometimes,” my father said in a whisper of a voice. “One papa happy, one papa sad.”
Gypsy
Our new home was a two-bedroom apartment on the sixth floor of a six-story brick building in a cul-de-sac off Flatbush Avenue called Westbury Court. Beneath the building ran a subway station through which rattled the D, M and Q trains at all hours, day and night.
At first sight, my parents’ living room seemed lavish and plush with its beige wall-to-wall carpeting, its velour-upholstered sofas and chairs, covered in plastic for their protection, and the diagonal mirror cutouts framing a giant velvet print of the Last Supper. I mistook their fire escape, which extended from my parents’ bedroom window to the living room’s, for an outdoor terrace and immediately began to imagine all of us spending summer evenings out there, looking over the neighborhood while sipping American colas and telling each other stories.
“Don’t, and I mean
He was speaking as though he was already saving our lives by giving us that most helpful order. I pressed my fingers against the accordion bars on the windows, watching my dreams of spending evenings floating above Brooklyn evaporate.
My brothers, whom my mother had gone and picked up at her friend’s down the hall, bounced into the room, eager to see us. They were, of course, bigger: Kelly a gangling seven-year- old and Karl a much stouter five.
Karl immediately ran up to me, nearly knocking me off my feet as he wrapped his arms around my hips and squeezed as hard as he could. Looking up, with a broad, crooked smile, he asked, “Are you really my sister?”
I wasn’t used to hugs. It wasn’t really part of my daily interactions even with the people I loved most, but I let my hands fall on his shoulders and stroked his back. Looking down at him, I wondered if my mother had told him about the time we’d first met, he a baby in my arms. Or did he instinctively know that we were supposed to love one another?
My parents were looking on, both with big grins on their contented faces. They were perhaps moved, amused, pleased that Karl had what could only be called a deep sense of thoughtfulness. Over the years, I would grow used to it. I’d even count on it. He was often the first to offer a chair to someone who was standing, start a conversation with someone who seemed shy. He was the person to call immediately when something terrible happened. But back then his attempt at a hug felt like more. It was, and still remains, the best welcome I’d ever had in my life. It felt like love.
“Of course, she’s your sister,” my mother answered when I didn’t. Her hand pressed against Kelly’s back, she was nudging him forward, toward us, but he stood in place, watching Bob. My father’s arm was resting on Bob’s shoulder and he too was trying to move him toward Kelly.
“Why don’t you show your brother one of your toys,” my father told Kelly. Kelly’s face brightened. He motioned for Bob to follow him. Bob looked up at my father for confirmation, then slowly marched behind Kelly, disappearing down the narrow hallway that led to the bedrooms.
They were barely gone a minute when my mother called them back.
“Vini, come, food.” She motioned for us all to move to the kitchen, where the stovetop was crowded with pots and pans. In a corner across from the refrigerator was a small table and four chairs. Since she and my father and the boys had already eaten, she filled two plates with food and put them down in front of Bob and me. Karl was still holding on, slipping onto my lap as I ate my rice and beans, stewed chicken, fried plantains and meatballs.
“I helped cook that,” my father said proudly. “It’s your welcome repas.”
Kelly was watching us with his chin pressed down on the table. Bob ate quickly and asked for more. I wanted to kick him under the table. “They’ll think you haven’t eaten since they left you,” I hissed.
“Let the boy eat,” my father said and laughed. He was leaning against
