‘No, Nairo, it’s not that, Nairo,’ Josephine repeated. ‘It’s just that you’re the cachaco who took his bike, up and down, up and down with those pink cheeks.’ She pressed her fingers into the shape of little buds and pinched her own face. I cracked up at the cachaco’s expression; maybe I even blushed on his behalf. The two little ones came jostling towards the entrance. ‘Maa, maa! Come see, maa!’

‘We were just planting some seeds. Uoakie, pappa, uokie, pappa!’ Josephine hoisted one of the boys into her arms. Open-mouthed, the other one fixed me with shining eyes. He glanced at Maa and then back at me, pointing.

‘Aaay, pappa, you like Miss Lynton?’

‘May I carry him?’ I asked in English. The child opened his arms to me and I picked him up. ‘Ay, Josephine, you mean business, I can see that. You got us all dazzled!’ The boy was probably three years old, and heavy. His soft round cheeks were the colour of caramel cream and his hair curled back in long, firm waves.

‘Daaaazzled! A like di word,’ Josephine repeated, fluttering her hand in the air like a Hollywood enchant-
ress. Her voice softened and smoothed in an attempt to distract the great-grandchild in her arms. ‘Come now, kids, mi jaft go backyard. Tell me what you want. How you feelin,’ mamita?’ she asked me this time. She turned away for a moment, making her way towards the cooler beside the fridge full of fizzy drinks.

‘Good, Maa Josephine, all right and getting better.’

I was moved that she knew I was sick, that she remembered the state I was in when we met all those days ago now. Rudy asked her for something to drink and I got a soda, too, just in case. I kept holding the little boy as we paid. ‘Tell her mi niem is Aital,’ said Maa Josephine with her perpetual grin. ‘And me deh Alwin, right so?’ She wasn’t a ghost. There she was, Josephine, swaying her powerful torso from side to side like a great tree in motion, her thick white braid crowning her head.

‘OK, little guy,’ I said. Aital touched my hair and beamed, flaunting a nearly complete set of incisors. ‘Nice to meet you, Aital!’

Beside me, the cachaco was looking at the child, too; they looked at each other, really. I hooked my free hand under his arm and set him down next to his brother. Identical. How could Josephine tell them apart? ‘It’s always more than I think I know! But they got different temperaments, mama, everybody got dem kankara!’

We said our goodbyes. Josephine called out to me once more before we left: ‘Enjoy your trip, mama!’ Sending the kids off into the yard, she slipped a hand into her skirt pocket and offered me a piece of her special sugar cake. ‘For lieta!’ she announced, winking.