We go up to my room so I can change. She stopped by after work to check up on me because my mother was starting to worry. In a dream she pictured me in some danger. That’s because now I’m in her sensitive zone. During the years I spent in Montreal, she never seemed so concerned as she is now when I’m only ten minutes away. You’re wrong, my sister tells me, she’s been worrying ever since you left. I’ll go see her tomorrow. My sister isn’t fooled by my mother’s subtle emotional blackmail. She knows her well. She has to come home at the same time every day, otherwise my mother gets it into her head to go looking for her in the streets of Port-au-Prince. How do you search for someone in a city of more than two million? My mother does just that. And nine times out of ten, she’ll find my sister. One of my aunts told me that back when my father was still there, my mother was a carefree young woman. Capricious even. She lost her job after her husband left.
