Part 24 (2/2)
”Am I hearing you right?” I asked.
”She is gone.”
Joseph pressed harder against me.
”What happened?” I was shouting at Marc.
”I woke up in the middle of the night. Sometimes, I wake up and she's not there, so I was not worried. Two hours pa.s.sed and I woke up again, I went to the bathroom and she was lying there.”
”Lying there? Lying where? Talk faster, will you?”
”In blood. She was lying there in blood.”
”Did she slip and fall?”
”It was very hard to see.”
”What was very hard to see?”
”She had a mountain of sheets on the floor. She had prepared this.”
”What?”
”She stabbed her stomach with an old rusty knife. I counted, and they counted again in the hospital. Seventeen times.”
”Are you sure?”
”It was seventeen times.”
”How could you sleep?” I shouted.
”She was still breathing when I found her,” he said. ”She even said something in the ambulance. She died there in the ambulance.”
”What did she say in the ambulance?”
”Mwin pa kapab enk. She could not carry the baby. She said that to the ambulance people.”
”How could you sleep?” I was screaming at him.
”I did the best I could,” he said. ”I tried to save her. Don't you know how I wanted this child?”
”Why did you give her a child? Didn't you know about the nightmares?” I asked.
”You knew better about the nightmares,” he said, ”but where were you?”
I crashed into Joseph's arms when I hung up the phone.
It was as if the world started whirling after that, as though I had no control over anything. Everything raced by like a speeding train and I, breathlessly, sprang after it, trying to keep up.
I grabbed my suitcase from the closet and threw a few things inside.
”I am going with you,” Joseph said.
”What about Brigitte? Who will look after her? I can't take her into this.”
”Let's sit down and think of some way.”
I didn't have time to sit and think.
”You stay. I go. It's that simple.”
He didn't insist anymore. He helped me pack my bag. We woke up the baby and he drove me to the bus station.
We held each other until the bus was about to pull out.
I gave Brigitte a kiss on the forehead.
”Mommy will bring you a treat from the market.”
She began to cry as I boarded the bus. Joseph took her away quickly, not looking back.
Marc was waiting in the house in Brooklyn when I got there. Somehow I expected there to be detectives, and flas.h.i.+ng cameras, but this was New York after all. People killed themselves every day. Besides, he was a lawyer. He knew people in power. He simply had to tell them that my mother was crazy.
There was a trail of dried blood, down from the stairs to the living room and out to the street where they must have loaded her into the ambulance. The bathroom floor was spotless, however, except for the pile of b.l.o.o.d.y sheets stuffed in trash bags in the corner.
”Sophie, will you sit down?” Marc said, following me as I raced in and out of every room in the house. ”I need to tell you how things will proceed.”
I rushed into my mother's room. It was spotless and her bed was properly made. In her closet, everything was in some shade of red, her favorite color since she'd left Haiti.
”I was cleared beyond any doubt in your mother's accident. I have used what influence I have to make this very expeditious for all of us. I have contacted a funeral home. They will get her from the morgue and they will s.h.i.+p her to a funeral home in Dame Marie.”
If I died mute, I would never speak to him again. I would never open my mouth and address a word to him.
”We can see her in the funeral home,” he said. ”They will s.h.i.+p her tomorrow night. That's the earliest possible. They have a service. They notify the family. I have already had your family notified.”
How dare he? How could he? To send news that could kill my grandmother, by telegram.
”You can sleep at my house until the flight tomorrow night.”
I had no intention of going to his house. I was going to spend the night right there, in my mother's house.
He did not leave me. He stayed in the living room and ate Chinese food while I crouched in the fetal position in the large bed in my mother's room.
Joseph let me listen to Brigitte's giggles when I called home. I heard a voice say Mama, but I knew it was his. She was still saying Dada, even though I knew he had tried to coach her.
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