Ti liv mwen, my sweet little book. How wonderful to have your crisp white pages to write on during those quiet moments between my day and afternoon tasks. My teacher, Madame Auguste, gave you to me today before we started recitations. In front of the entire class, she said I deserved you because I had the best marks of all thirty-nine pupils last month. Madame Auguste is like that. Every now and then she will surprise the class with a kind gesture, such as a group outing or candies from the city, but this time she just chose me. She gave you to me.

It was Madame Auguste’s opinion that I could use you in whatever way I wanted, keep you in the little cedar box you came in and never take you out at all, or only remove you from there on special occasions. She also said that I could keep you in a special place at home. For me that would be under my pillow on the bed that Manman and I sleep in together.

“Celiane could also use her notebook,” she said, spelling out every word for the students to ponder, “to write down pensées or maxims that she likes so she can refer to them whenever it pleases her. She may use this book to jot down the pages of the texts she has to memorize for recitations in class, or she can simply use it to record her own ideas, thoughts of her own.”

Madame Auguste made such a speech of the whole thing to show me and the other pupils all the uses an empty notebook can have. But when she said I could use you to write down things about myself, I became very glad and decided that is exactly what I am going to do. I will tell you everything I can tell no one else, and you will keep quiet because you have no tongue and you cannot speak. My pen is your tongue and I am your voice so you will never betray my secrets.

I must go soon, sweet little book, to prepare for Manman’s return from the market. Manman goes to the market down the mountain in Léogâne on Wednesdays and Saturdays to sell peanut and coconut confections that she, my older brother, Moy, and I make together. Manman will be back soon, at just about the time that Moy will be returning from the cornfields. Ever since Papa left for New York five years ago, it is Moy who looks after Papa’s cornfields and Papa’s two pride cows.