Dimanch / Sunday, September 26, 1999

Sunday. Church.

This morning Naïka read the Bible verse in front of the whole church, in Kreyòl, for the first time. Psalm 46, verse 1, the one I said two hundred times last September when we were waiting for news of Frantz. She chose it herself. She practiced all week with me in the kitchen, and her r's were too American, and I didn't correct them. She stood at the front in her yellow dress and read, "Bondye se refij nou..." God is our refuge... and her voice was small at first and then big. Manno sat next to me with his arms crossed, pretending to be bored, and moving his lips with every word.

In the afternoon Papa called from Haiti. Frantz had told him Naïka would read. He said, "Did she read in Kreyòl?" I said yes, Papa. He was quiet. Then he said, "Bon. Kounye a mwen ka mouri." Good, now I can die. Papa says this about everything good. He has been dying happy since 1980.

Tonight: rice and beans, golf on TV for Jean-Robert, who doesn't understand golf but says the Americans came back and won and it's exciting, then homework, baths. Frantz's baby has a tooth coming. My fingerprints are October 14. The can in the kitchen is empty, and tonight I put five dollars in it again, for a party. Naïka's idea.

Bridge kids. Every day I walk across them, back and forth. They hold.

Mèkredi / Wednesday, September 22, 1999

Small things from today, because today was a good day and I want to remember it:

The mango tree has one last mango, very high, and nobody can reach it. The boys next door and Manno have been trying all week with a pole. Today a squirrel got it.

At work Mrs. G. taught me a card game from 1920 and beat me three times.

Naïka finally got the third Harry Potter from the library and read me the first chapter in the car.

Jean-Robert came home with a bag of kenèp from a Haitian lady selling them on the corner, and we sat on the porch cracking them with our teeth and spitting the seeds into the yard, like children in Port-au-Prince.

Nothing happened today. It was beautiful.

Vandredi / Friday, September 17, 1999

Supper quiz. Naïka: "Who wrote the Declaration of Independence?" Me: "Thomas Jefferson." Manno: "Who is the President?" Me: "Bill Clinton." Manno: "Correct! And what is the name of his dog?" That is not on the test. (It is Buddy. Now I know that too.)

Madi / Tuesday, September 14, 1999

The Floyd scare. All weekend the TV showed a monster storm, huge, bigger than the whole state of Florida on the map, turning toward us. On Sunday people emptied the stores: water, bread, batteries, canned soup, plywood. The line for gas at the station on Second Avenue went around the block. Monday morning Jean-Robert put up the shutters, all of them, and the house was dark again like last year.

I worked a double yesterday because half the aides stayed home with their kids. We moved the beds away from the windows and filled every bucket in the building. The old people were calm. They have seen storms. Mrs. G., who is ninety-seven now, told the story of 1926 again and said, "Don't go outside in the eye," and I said, "I promised you, Mrs. G."

And then it turned. It went north, far out at sea, and we had some wind and a little rain and that was all. Mèsi Jezi. But now it goes up toward Georgia and the Carolinas, and the TV shows the highways full of cars, everybody running. I pray for them. I know what it is to wait for news of your people.

Dimanch / Sunday, September 5, 1999

Labor Day weekend. I sent Frantz the money for Widline's school: the fees, the uniform, the books. Most schools in Haiti are private, and the parents pay for everything, the books, the uniforms, the shoes that must be black. Frantz is a teacher and he still cannot pay for his own daughter's school on a teacher's pay. Sometimes they pay the teachers months late. He never complains about it. He only tells me the facts, like a teacher, and I do the arithmetic.

Baby Jacques is ten weeks old and fat, Frantz says, fat like a little mayor. The electricity in their neighborhood comes maybe a few hours a day, so Marie-Ange does the ironing at night when it comes. A cousin who came to Brooklyn brought a picture, and Rose mailed it to me: the baby on Papa's lap, Papa in his church shirt, both of them looking at the camera very seriously, like two old men at a meeting.

Jean-Robert says next summer we go to Haiti, all four of us. The twins have never been. I am afraid, and I want it more than anything. Both.

Jedi / Thursday, September 2, 1999

First week of fourth grade. For the first time the twins are in different classes. The school says it is good for twins to be apart, to become their own people. Naïka cried in the car the first morning. Manno didn't; he was very cool; he said, "See you at lunch, Naïka," like a businessman. Then that night at bedtime Manno cried, and Naïka held his hand across the space between the beds and told him about her teacher in Kreyòl until he fell asleep.

I stood in the doorway. I didn't go in. Some things you let them do for each other.

And a letter from the INS! My fingerprint appointment, in October. Mèt Bazile says this is a good sign. Jean-Robert put the letter on the refrigerator under the photograph of Mr. H. and his fish. The refrigerator is getting crowded. It is the history of our family, with magnets.

Jedi / Thursday, August 12, 1999

Mr. H. died Tuesday night, in his sleep, with his son there. I was off. I found out Wednesday morning when I came in and the bed was made up tight with the white blanket and nobody in it. That is how we find out, in this work. The bed tells you.

I did my rounds. I did my job. At lunch I went out to the car and cried until the break was over, and then I fixed my face and went back in. Miss Loretta gave me a peppermint and didn't say anything, which is her way.

Today his son came to get his things. He found me in the hall. He gave me a photograph: Mr. H. young, on his boat, with a big fish, and a woman next to him with her hair in a scarf, laughing. Ruth. On the back the son wrote, "Thank you for going fishing with him."

Seven months. He threw his tray at me. He called me things. And at the end he called me Ruth. I have been an aide eight years and I still do not understand this work. I only know I am supposed to do it.

The photograph is on the refrigerator, next to the twins' certificates.

Dimanch / Sunday, August 1, 1999

Beach day. After church we drove to the beach, all four of us, and the twins stayed in the water three hours until their fingers were raisins. Jean-Robert slept under the umbrella with his mouth open and the newspaper on his stomach. I sat in my chair with my feet in the sand and did nothing. Nothing! I don't remember the last time.

Naïka brought her book. She is reading Harry Potter, the second one, for the third time: a boy in England who lives in a cupboard under the stairs with his mean aunt and uncle, and then finds out he is a wizard. The third book comes in September and she has already asked the librarian to save it for her. I asked her why she likes it so much. She said, "Because he has two worlds, Manman. The regular one and the magic one. And he has to go back and forth."

Bridge kid. I didn't say it. I only thought it.

Manno found a crab and named it Frantz, after his uncle, and let it go. He said, "Now there's a Frantz here too."

Mèkredi / Wednesday, July 21, 1999

Mr. H. is going. Not fast, but the nurses know, and I know, the way you know in this work. He stopped eating last week. He sleeps most of the day now. The hospice lady comes Tuesdays and Fridays. His son flew down from Atlanta and sits with him in the afternoons and reads him the fishing reports from the newspaper.

On my lunch I go and sit with him, fifteen minutes. Sometimes he opens his eyes and says "Ruth," and sometimes he says nothing. Today I sang to him, very soft, "What a Friend We Have in Jesus," in Kreyòl, the way my grandmother sang it. I don't know if he heard. His son was in the doorway when I finished. He said, "Dad used to hate music." I said, "I'm sorry." He said, "No. He didn't use to have a lot of things." I didn't understand. Then I did.

The twins are at church camp all day, learning Bible verses and making things from popsicle sticks. At night they tell me everything. I listen like it's the news.

Lendi / Monday, July 5, 1999

Fourth of July yesterday. We went downtown to the park by the bay for the fireworks, Jean-Robert and the twins and me, and Ti-Paul and his new girlfriend, who is Dominican and very pretty and laughs at everything Ti-Paul says, so we all like her. Blankets on the grass, a cooler with sandwiches and Kola Champagne, the Haitian soda that tastes like cream soda's cousin. Mosquitoes. Thousands of people speaking every language.

When the fireworks started, Naïka took my hand and said, "Next year you can say they're your fireworks." I said, "If the INS hurries." She said, "Tell them to hurry." I will write them a letter, cheri.

Older entries: January to June 1999.