LATER

We wait for Moy to return. When he does, he smells of gasoline, tar, smoke, and sweat. At nineteen, Moy is already a man. His gaze is becoming more resolved, more determined, all the time. He is looking more and more like Papa.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17

Tante Rose still goes to work every day. We worry about her while she is gone. Moy spends his days sketching, and Manman spends most of hers next to me in the bed that Tante Rose insists we both remain in.

I almost know my history book by heart now. Sometimes I recite my lessons to Manman and she likes that. What she likes most are those lessons about the battle of independence when Haitians came together to fight French colonists and form our nation. “Where are these kinds of people now?” Manman said at the end of one of those lessons. “Now all we do is fight each other over elections, put bombs in cars to blow up women and children.”

Manman got so upset that tears streamed down her face.

I wish the people who throw the bombs at the buses could see that not only do they hurt the bodies of people like Manman and me, they wound our souls, too.

LATER

Tonight while watching the television news broadcast, we heard gunfire in the distance. What kind of bad news will the morning bring?

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 18

There was no electricity today, so we listened to Christmas songs on Tante Rose’s battery-powered radio. We avoided the political programs altogether.

This is the time of the month that Papa sends us a cassette. I miss sitting in the front room with Manman and Moy, listening to Papa’s voice. Manman speaks to him on the telephone alone now, and does not let Moy and me join her. I think she doesn’t want us to lie to Papa, or keep the truth from him.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 19

Every couple of days, Tante Rose changes the dressing on Manman’s wound. Manman is taking her tablets daily and seems to only eat watercress and liver. She must really want to get better quickly so we can go home.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 20

Moy made a drawing of Manman and me lying in bed together. I am reading to Manman from my history book. It must have been a war-free passage because in the drawing, Manman is listening calmly with her eyes closed.

Moy’s drawing is so beautiful and so real that as I look at it I feel as though I am in the moment again, lying there with Manman and reading to her. I realize now what is magical about what Moy does. His pictures give you a chance to relive something, as though you had stepped out of your own skin for a while.