Breath, Eyes, Memory Part 18

"It's my discomfort with being in Haiti," she said. "I want to go back there only to be buried."

She picked at the white chicken they served us for lunch, while I gave Brigitte a bottle.

"You don't seem to eat much," she said.

"After I got married, I found out that I had something called bulimia," I said.

"What is that?"

"It's when you don't eat at all and then eat a whole lot- bingeing."

"How does that happen?" she said. "You are so tiny, so very pet.i.te. Why would you do that? I have never heard of a Haitian woman getting anything like that. Food, it was so rare when we were growing up. We could not waste it."

"You are blaming me for it," I said. "That is part of the problem."

"You have become very American," she said. "I am not blaming you. It is advice. I want to give you some advice. Eat. Food is good for you. It is a luxury. When I just came to this country I gained sixty pounds my first year. I couldn't believe all the different kinds of apples and ice cream. All the things that only the rich eat in Haiti, everyone could eat them here, dirt cheap."

"When I saw you for the first time, you were very thin."

"I had just gotten my b.r.e.a.s.t.s removed for the cancer. But before that, before the cancer. In the beginning, food was a struggle. To have so much to eat and not to eat it all. It took me a while to get used to the idea that the food was going to be there to stay. When I first came, I used to eat the way we ate at home. I ate for tomorrow and the next day and the day after that, in case I had nothing to eat for the next couple of days. I ate reserves. I would wake up and find the food still there and I would still eat ahead anyway."

"So it is not so abnormal that I have it," I said.

"You are different, but that's okay. I am different too. I want things to be good with us now."

My daughter was asleep by the time we landed in New York. My mother got our suitcases while I waited in the lobby.

"Will you spend the night at home before you go back to Providence?" she asked, struggling with our bags.

I told her I would.

"Don't you have someone you can call to pick us up?" I asked.

"The only person you have to count on is yourself," she said.

We took a cab back to Nostrand Avenue. I looked around the living room while she listened to the messages on her answering machine. There was still red everywhere, even the new sofa and love seat were a dark red velvet.

Most of her messages were from Marc. His voice sounded softer than I remembered it.

"T'es retourne?" Are you back?

"Call me as soon as you get back."

"Je t'aime."

He even sounded excited on the "I love you." She moved closer to the machine, blocking my view of it, as though he was there in the flesh and she was standing with him and they were naked together.

I walked up the red carpeted stairs to my old room. Aside from the bed, the room was completely bare. She had removed all the jazz legend posters that Joseph had given me. On the far end of the wall was the sketch of her and me at Coney Island. The sketch emphasized the merry-go-round but shrunk us in comparison, except for our hands, which seemed like the largest parts of our bodies.

My old bed no longer creaked when I sat on it. My mother had fixed the noisy springs that had made it so much fun, so musical.

Her messages still echoed from downstairs. A final declaration of love from Marc and then one of her friends, asking where she was.

I opened my old closet. It too was empty. I went to the guest room, where she had a desk and a cot to do her reading and sewing. She had said that she would make it more homelike if ever my grandmother or Tante Atie decided to come for a visit.

The bed in her reading and sewing room squealed when I sat on it. My daughter liked the sound and laughed as we bounced up and down on it.

"Some things never change," my mother said, watching us from the doorway.

"I think we'll sleep here," I said.

"And your room?"

"The mattress there is too stiff."

"You can have my room," she said.

"Don't worry. It is only for one night."

"What about the baby?"

"She'll be okay with me."

"You're wondering what I've done with your things, aren't you?" she asked.

"I don't need those things anymore."

I am sorry.

"Please don't be so sorry. I can always get others."

"I was pa.s.sionately mad," she said.

"And you burnt them?"

"In a very frustrated moment, yes. I was having an anxiety attack and I took it out on those clothes."

"Better on the clothes than on yourself," I said.

"In spite of what I have done to you, you've really become an understanding woman," she said. "What do you want for dinner? We'll have no more of that bulimia. I'll cure it with some good food."

"It's not that simple."

"Then what are you supposed to do?"

"For now, I eat only when I'm hungry."

"Are you hungry now?" she asked.

"Not now."

"You didn't eat on the flight."

"Okay," I gave in. "I'll eat whatever you make."

"I need to go out after dinner," she said. "It's very important, otherwise I wouldn't lose this time with my daughter and granddaughter."

"We'll be fine."

I gave Brigitte a bath in the tub while my mother cooked spaghetti for dinner. The cooking smells of the house had changed.

We ate at the kitchen table, watching through the low windows as a little girl skipped rope under a hanging light in a neighbor's yard.

Brigitte tried to dig her pacifier into my plate. I cut off a strand of spaghetti and put it in her mouth.

"After you left home," she said, "the only thing I ate was spaghetti. I would boil it and eat it quickly before I completely lost my appet.i.te. Everything Haitian reminded me of you."

"It didn't have to be that way."

"I didn't realize you would call my bluff. I thought you would come back to me, humiliated."

She got up and cleared the table, leaving my full plate of spaghetti in front of me.

"I have to go now," she said.

"Are you still seeing Marc?" I asked.

"I want him to have dinner with you and your husband soon."

"So you're still seeing him."

"Very much seeing him."

"Are you going to marry him?"

"I have not even told Monman and Atie about him. At this point in my life, wouldn't it be senseless for me to marry?"

She grabbed her purse and started for the door.

"The sooner I go out, the sooner I can come back. I won't be long. If my phone rings, you can pick it up."

I dialed my home number from the living room phone. The answering machine picked up after the third ring. I heard my own voice, joyfully announcing that "You've reached the Woods residence. For Joseph, Sophie, or Brigitte, please leave a message."

I hung up quickly, not sure what to say to myself. I called again a few minutes later and left a message.

"Joseph, I'm back from Haiti. I'm in Brooklyn at my mother's. Please call me."

I left her number.

He called back a few minutes later.

"What's up?" he asked, as though we were just having a casual conversation.

"I'm okay and you?"

"Fine, except my wife left me."

"I am back. I'm at my mother's," I said.

"Is Brigitte okay?" he asked. "Can I speak to her?"

Brigitte grabbed the phone with both hands when I put it against her face.

"Is she okay?" he asked.

"She's fine."

"And you?"

"Good."

"Sophie, what were you thinking?"

"I'm sorry."

"Is this how we're going to handle all our problems? I was afraid something awful had happened to you. I call at all hours and you're never there. When I rush back to Providence all I get is a note. 'Sorry I needed to go somewhere and empty out my head.'"

"I wasn't away very long."

"What if your mother hadn't gone back for you? Wouldn't you have stayed longer?"

"I am back now, aren't I?"

"And what if you feel like leaving again?" he asked.

"Can we please talk about that later?"

"Are you coming home?"

Yes.

"To stay?"

"What do you think?"

"I don't really know," he said. "What is it? What did I do, Sophie?"

"You know my problems."