Sometimes Moy comes home angry because his classmates tease him and say, “Your papa is in New York. Why must you work the fields?” Moy has gotten into fights because of this. Just last week he punched a classmate, who then hit Moy on the shoulder with a stick. I don’t know all the details. That’s all Moy was willing to say about it.

Manman is worried that Moy is becoming too difficult. She blames his behavior on the fact that Papa is gone. I don’t think she is blaming Papa, just his absence. Whenever Moy gets into one of his fights, Manman always makes it clear to him that she is the granmoun, the adult, and that he is the child—Moy is nineteen and not a child, but to Manman he will always be one. You should see Manman standing on her toes to make herself the same height as Moy to scold him.

“Listen to me, Moy, the head that’s accustomed to wearing a hat will always wear a hat,” she says to him.

I wasn’t sure what she was trying to tell Moy then, but now I realize that maybe she was telling him that if he gets used to being in fights, he would always be fighting.

Manman likes to speak in pictures like that. They are called proverbs. I like proverbs because you have to stop and think to interpret them. They make a picture for you, and you must discover for yourself how to interpret it.

In any case, after supper we all sit in the front room with the cassette machine that Papa had bought for us before he left for New York. Manman brought new batteries from the market, which she puts in the machine before inserting the cassette.

Papa always begins his cassettes to us in the same way.

“Alo, Aline.” (That’s Manman.)

Then it’s, “Alo, Moy, alo, Celiane.”

Papa continues, “How are you, my precious ones? I am trying to see all three of you in my mind as I sit here. Aline, I see your face leaning close to the machine as if you would like to touch my voice. Celiane, I see you pulling at a little strand of hair on the left side of your face because you are waiting for Papa to say your name.”

Papa knows us well. It is true Manman was leaning forward as though she wanted to kiss Papa’s voice and I was doing the same, except I was also pulling on my hair. (I wonder if Manman tells Papa in secret that this is what we do while listening to his cassettes.) Moy was leaning back in his chair. He was trying to appear calm and unexcited.