My mother kissed them on the cheek and stroked their children's heads. They looked curiously at her cerise jumper, ballooned around her small frame.

My grandmother was trembling on the spot where she was standing. Tante Atie put her hands on her hips and stared ahead. She did not look the least bit surprised.

A plantain green scarf floated in the breeze behind my mother. She skipped through the dust and rushed across the yard. Eliab circled around her like a wingless b.u.t.terfly.

My mother walked over and kissed my grandmother. Tante Atie moved slowly towards her, not particularly excited. My mother was glowing.

Tante Atie tapped her lips against my mother's cheeks, then went back to fanning the cooking sticks with my grandmother's hat.

"Sak pase, Atie?" asked my mother.

"You," answered Tante Atie fanning the flames. "You're what's new."

I clung to the porch railing as my anchor. It had been almost two years since the last time we saw each other. My mother's skin was unusually light, a pale mocha, three or four shades lighter than any of ours.

Brigitte's body tightened, as though she could sense the tension in mine.

"I see you still wear the deuil," my mother said to my grandmother.

"It is all the same," answered my grandmother. "The black is easier; it does not get dirty."

"Mon Dieu, you do not look bad for an old lady," said my mother. "And you have been talking about arranging your funeral like it was tomorrow."

"Your skin looks lighter," said my grandmother. "Is it prodwi? You use something?"

My mother looked embarra.s.sed.

"It is very cold in America," my mother said. "The cold turns us into ghosts."

"Papa Shango, the sun here, will change that," my grandmother said.

"I am not staying long enough for that," my mother said. "When I got your telegram, I decided to come and see Sophie and take care of your affairs at the same time. I plan to stay for only three days. This is not the visit I owe you. This is just circ.u.mstance. When I come again, I will stay with you for a very long time."

I watched her from the railing, waiting for her to look over and address me personally.

She looked very young and thin, but for the most part healthy. Because of the roomy size of her jumper, I couldn't tell whether or not she was wearing her prosthetic bra.

"Sophie, walk to your mother," said my grandmother.

They were all staring at me, even Eliab. My mother put her hands in her pockets. She narrowed her eyes as she tried to see my face through the sun's glare.

Brigitte began to twist in my arms. She sensed something.

"Sophie, walk to your mother." My grandmother's voice grew more forceful.

My mother looked uncomfortable, almost scared.

I did not move. We stared at each other across the yard, each waiting for the other to yield. As her daughter, I was expected to walk over and greet her first. However, I did not trust my legs. I wasn't sure I could make it down the steps without slipping and hurting both myself and Brigitte.

"Walk to your mother." My grandmother was becoming angry.

"It is okay," my mother said, coming towards me. "I will walk to her."

She climbed onto the porch and kissed me on the cheek.

Brigitte reached up to grab a large loop earring on my mother's right lobe.

"You didn't send word you were coming," I said.

"Let me see her," she said, extending her hands for Brigitte. Brigitte leaned forward. I let her slip into my mother's grasp.

"How old is she now?" she asked.

"Almost six months."

She made funny faces at Brigitte.

"I got all the pictures you sent me," she said.

"Why didn't you answer?"

"I couldn't find the words," she said. "How are you?"

"I've been better."

She went back to the yard to pay the cart boys and took Brigitte with her.

"You're not staying here, are you?" she asked when she came back to the porch.

She tickled Brigitte's armpits as she spoke, giggling along with her.

I reached for my daughter. She pressed Brigitte's body against her chest and would not give her back.

"Manman asked me to come here and make things better between us. It's not right for a mother and daughter to be enemies. Manman thinks it puts a curse on the family. Besides, your husband came to me and I could not refuse him."

"You've seen him?"

"Oh, the flames in your eyes."

"How is he?"

"Worried. I told him we would be back in three days."

"You can't make plans for me."

' "I did."

We were speaking to one another in English without realizing it.

"Oh that cling-clang talk," interrupted my grandmother. "It sounds like gla.s.s breaking."

Brigitte was pulling at my mother's earrings. My mother took them off and handed them to me.

"You and I, we started wrong," my mother said. "You are now a woman, with your own house. We are allowed to start again."

The mid-morning sky looked like an old quilt, with long bands of red and indigo stretching their way past drifting clouds. Like everything else, eventually even the rainbows disappeared.

Chapter 25.

My mother changed into a sun dress to parcel out what she had brought. Under the spaghetti straps, I could see the true unbleached ebony shade of her skin. In contrast, her face looked like the palm of a hand.

My grandmother reached over and cupped her hands over my mother's prosthetic bra.

"Do they hurt?" asked my grandmother.

"No," my mother answered, "because they are not really part of me."

She had brought cloth for my mother and Tante Atie to share. Packaged rice and beans and packaged spices for my grandmother.

I got the diapers and underclothes that Joseph had sent for the baby, along with some T-shirts and shorts for me.

"If you were not such a stubborn old woman," my mother said to my grandmother, "I would move you and Atie to Croix-des-Rosets or the city. I could buy you a bougainvillea. You would have electricity, and all kinds of modern machines."

"I like myself here," said my grandmother. "I need to see about my papers for this land and I need to have all the things for my pa.s.sing. With all my children here, this is a good time."

Tante Atie was writing in her notebook. My mother leaned over to look. Tante Atie pulled her notebook away and slammed it shut.

"We will see the notary about the land papers," said my grandmother. "We will do it tomorrow."

"What will you do with the land?" asked Tante Atie.

"I want to make the papers show all the people it belongs to."

Tante Atie did not go to Louise's house, but spent the evening in the yard, staring at the sky.

My mother could not sleep. She went outside and sat with Tante Atie. They looked up for a long time without saying a word.

Finally my mother said, "Do you remember all the unpleasant stories Manman used to tell us about the stars in the sky?"

"My favorite," said Tante Atie, "was the one about the girl who wished she could marry a star and then went up there and, as real as her eyes were black, the man she wished for was a monster."

"Atie, you remember everything."

"I liked what Papa said better. He thought, Papa, that the stars were brave men."

"Maybe he was right," my mother said.

"He said they would come back and fall in love with me. I wouldn't say that was right."

"We used to fight so hard when we saw a star wink. You said it was winking at you. I thought it was winking at me. I think, Manman, she told us that unpleasant story about the stars to stop the quarrels."

"Young girls, they should be allowed to keep their pleasant stories," Tante Atie said.

"Why don't you sleep in your bed?" asked my mother.

"Because it is empty in my bed."

"You had flanneurs, men who came to ask for your hand."

"Until better women came along."

"How could you not be chosen? You are Atie Caco."

"Atie Caco to you. Special to no one."

"You were so beautiful, Atie, when you were a girl. Papa, he loved you best."

"I have then the curse of a girl whose papa loved her best."

Tante Atie rubbed the scar on the side of her head. They looked up at the sky and pointed to a blinking star.

"You can keep the brightest ones," said Tante Atie. "When you are gone, I will have them all to myself."

"We come from a place," my mother said, "where in one instant, you can lose your father and all your other dreams."

Chapter 26.

My mother and grandmother left early for the notary's. Tante Atie was not in her room. Eliab was playing with pieces of brown paper, stuffing them with leaves to make cigars.

I called him to buy me some milk from the market.

"The new lady," he said, "does she belong to you?"

"Sometimes I claim her," I said, "sometimes I do not."

I gave him some money to buy me some goat milk from the market. He came back with some milk in a cut-off plastic container and a large mango for himself.