I have learned to swim. Emmanuel taught me at first. But I learned how to float myself. The water carries you up, even when you think you are too heavy. When I float like that, I think of you and your ledgers, I think of where you go when you order the world in your mind, and I think I am ever closer to joining you there. I wish you could see your Libertie, floating in cool water so blue it seems God would drink it, staring up at the sky. When you are worried for me, when you are scared for me, when you wish to know me, think of me like that.

Mama, I am coming to you. I will be there maybe even before this letter arrives. When I deliver these children, I will rest for as long as I can and then I will come to you. The Graces have already agreed to help. They have left me their cut of the last leg of this tour, they have left it with a ship captain in Jacmel’s port, and when I am ready, I am to find out when he next sails to New York, and he will harbor me and my children.

I will miss this country. I think it is here, more than anywhere else, that is my home. But I cannot stay. What a horrible thing in this world, to know your home and also know you can never live in it. I will tell you what Emmanuel has done, or rather, what he chooses to continue to have done, when I am home with you again. Emmanuel is a man who I do not think is all bad, but he does not have a big enough imagination to imagine me free beside him. I have already forgiven him for it, though.

I will carry to you my two children. I will wear their swaddling clothes as my own skirts. We will see you again before this world turns in another new direction. We will, at least, turn together.

I learned a new saying here today. Nou bout rive nan jaden an. We have almost reached the garden. My friend Ti Me says it to me as she measures my belly, how far it is dropped, when I am ready for birth. But I think of it as my song to you, my mother, when I see you again.

Love,

Libertie

The boy was at my breast first. He drank, and every time I tried to look in his eyes, he closed them tight. But when I looked away, I felt him watching me. The girl, she did not want my eyes. She watched my mouth. She watched my lips form shapes and my tongue vibrate as I sang to them. I watched her watch the invention of music. Right there, I invented it for her. Being a mother means being someone’s god, if only briefly. This is known, I think. But they are my gods, too. They are my country now.