WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 6

  Manman has visitors all the time, friends who come by to see how she is doing. They bring food and all kinds of teas and home remedies for her.

  Tonight after the last person left, we listened to the cassette that Papa sent us while we were in the city. He said that his friend Franck had written another letter and had made some calls to the consulate in Haiti to ask if we could be allowed to come to New York sooner.

  MONDAY, DECEMBER 11

  I have been spending so much time catching up with my studies I haven’t been able to write. Manman is doing much better. She has been walking with much less difficulty. All the country medicine mixed in with Tante Rose’s city medicine must be helping.

  WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 13

  Christmas is quickly approaching. My classmates will be performing a Nativity play on Christmas Eve. I am not going to be in the play because they began rehearsals while I was gone. Thérèse will be Mary and Pouchon will play Joseph.

  To make me feel included, Thérèse keeps asking my opinions on everything, how she should say her lines, how she should wear her hair, etc….

  Thérèse has sewn a rag doll to stand in as the baby Jesus. Some men from our village will build the manger and the star. The other pupils will play the innkeepers, shepherds, angels, and the three wise men.

  I cannot wait for Christmas Eve. Manman will make her delicious coconut drink, kremas, along with codfish fritters. Granpè Nozial and Granmè Melina will come over and will stay up all night talking, while Granpè Nozial throws rock salt into the cooking fire to set off sparks. Moy will finally finish his fanal, a cardboard lantern built in the shape of a tap tap, which he will hang in front of the house.

  If there is a bright moon, some of the boys from the surrounding villages might come to our yard to show off their own fanal. As they leave to go down the mountain to another house, carrying fanal of various shapes and sizes, they will look like a giant necklace of fireflies.

  Manman says the fanal help Tonton Nwèl, Father Christmas, find the houses where there are children. But if the children are bad, the light also brings the old man with the whip, Papa Fwèt. Unlike Father Christmas, who leaves presents under children’s pillows, Papa Fwèt cracks his whip loudly and frightens them into being good next year.

  FRIDAY, DECEMBER 15

  Who should come to see us but Tante Rose? She says we are going to have a Christmas miracle. She has been talking to her contact at the American consulate. We have to go there Monday, and if all goes well, we should be able to join Papa in New York by Christmas.

  “I told my contact about you and Celiane almost being killed by that bomb,” Tante Rose said. “I showed her the clinic and hospital papers. I begged and begged. Victor’s friend Franck wrote another letter, too, and made some phone calls, and it seems the three of you have a good chance of being approved.”

  I didn’t know what to think. Seeing Papa at Christmas? It does not seem possible.

  SATURDAY, DECEMBER 16

  There is so much to do in so little time. The biggest decision: What to do with the house? Granmè Melina and Granpè Nozial are going to look after it and Papa’s corn and cows until Manman and Papa can decide what to do with everything. (Manman and Papa together again. What an idea!)

  Moy has already picked out what he will be bringing with him to New York. He made a pile in a corner of the front room, his clothes and the notebooks with his sketches in them.

  LATER

  I went to Thérèse’s house and asked her mother if Thérèse could spend the afternoon with us. This gives us some time to say good-bye. It will also give Thérèse time to be around Moy, which I know she will like.

  I suddenly have a secret wish that Moy will come back to marry Thérèse, so Thérèse will be my sister-in-law. I know it is a silly dream, but it will make it easier for me to part with Thérèse, who before you, sweet little book, I told all my secrets to. But the way I am feeling now, I cannot even tell Thérèse about it.

  There is a part of me that does not want to leave, that is afraid to leave. It is the same part of me that’s worried Papa will be a stranger to me when I see him again, that in another country, my family—I mean my whole family, which includes Granmè Melina and Granpè Nozial and Tante Rose, too—will grow much further apart rather than closer together.

  I could not tell any of this to Thérèse. If I told her, she would think me ungrateful, even crazy. No one, not even Thérèse, would understand my hesitation. I don’t completely understand it myself.

  On the way back from Thérèse’s house, she and I promised to write to one another. Thérèse’s mother will pick up the letters when she goes to Léogâne. Thérèse will keep me up to date on everything that happens here, and I will write her of all the new things that happen to me in New York.

  We crossed pinkies, swearing we will never forget each other.

  LATER

  Thérèse went back to her house. We will say our final good-bye tomorrow, since we’ll have to pass her house on the way down to Léogâne.

  LATER

  The stars are out in large numbers tonight. While Manman and Moy continue packing their things, with help from Granmè Melina and Granpè Nozial, Tante Rose and I sit out in the yard for a while, looking up at the stars.

  Tante Rose is staring so hard she hardly blinks. Perhaps she is remembering what it was like to look up at this same sky when she was a girl. If I ever come back here as a woman, maybe I will look at the sky in the same way.

  SUNDAY, DECEMBER 17

  We all got up with the first rooster’s crow. I never heard the roosters so loudly before. Perhaps it is because I was not sleeping deeply anyway.

  Manman’s leg seems healed now. Or maybe she has so many other things to think about that she is not concerned about her leg, but she is walking just like she did before the explosion.

  As we packed our things on Granpè Nozial’s mule, he told us his ice story again. This time the lesson seemed to be that he was happy enough that we were going to a place he hadn’t seen and we need not worry that he would be jealous.

  On the way down the mountain, we passed Thérèse’s house. I said good-bye to her, renewing our vows to remain friends forever. I held her so tight and for so long that everyone left me behind.

  I had to run to catch up. As I ran toward my family, I felt like I was being disloyal to Thérèse, like I was deserting her. I didn’t look back because I did not want to cry even more than I already did.

  When I caught up with Moy, he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and gave it to me to wipe my face.

  “You’ll see her again,” he said. “We’ll come back to visit her.”

  I didn’t believe Moy. If this were true, then why had Papa never come back to visit us?

  I had asked Manman that question once. The answer was that until a few weeks ago, Papa still hadn’t been “legal” in America, and if he had come to see us, he would not have been allowed to go back.

  Was America a prison that once you entered you were never allowed to leave? Would we be “legal” when we got there?

  As we walked the rest of the way down the mountain (Manman rode the mule so as not to strain her leg), I kept thinking of returning to Beau Jour one day to visit with Granmè Melina, Granpè Nozial, Thérèse, and Madame Auguste, or just to look at the stars the way Tante Rose did last night. This made me feel a little better.

  LATER

  Raymond was waiting for us with the borrowed car after the river crossing in Léogâne. We said good-bye to Granpè Nozial and Granmè Melina before climbing into the car. They did not sniffle or cry. They just told us they would see us soon.

  I think this is the proper way of saying good-bye, telling someone you will see her soon. This takes a lot of sadness out of it.

  Granpè Nozial and Granmè Melina watched us take our seats in the car and then started back across the river and up the mountain.

  MONDAY, DECEMBER 18

  At the consulate, we were interviewed by a lady with amber eyes and hair like corn husks. She asked Manman for our documents and examined them and then examined the ones she had in her own dossier.

  After reading all the papers, she asked Manman a few questions, like when she and Papa were married and who was there, on what dates Moy and I were born. She then asked who our sponsor was in New York. Tante Rose spoke up and said that Papa’s friend Franck, who owned several restaurants in New York, had written many letters and made several phone calls on our behalf.

  “All seems to be in order,” the lady says. “The only thing is …” She looks up at us, then searches the documents for our names. When she finds them, she says, “I need for you, Madame Aline, and for Celiane to have another medical examination.”

  It was just a precaution, she explained. Since we had both been hurt in that bombing in Carrefour, she had to make sure we were not going to the United States for medical care we could not afford, for which the city of New York would have to pay.

  The woman handed Manman a piece of paper with some doctors’ names. As soon as she received the results of our examinations, she said, if all was fine, she would approve our visas and we could travel immediately, if that’s what we wanted to do.

  After we left her office, we took a taxi to the office of the same doctor who had examined all three of us the year before. Even though he had a long line of patients waiting, Tante Rose used her charms, and the fact that they know some of the same people at the General Hospital, to get him to examine us. He then gave Tante Rose a paper saying we were okay.

  TUESDAY, DECEMBER 19

  WE ARE APPROVED!

  This time, after leaving the consulate, we went directly to the airport to buy our airplane tickets.

  We are leaving in two days.

  Manman had to borrow money from Tante Rose for the tickets. They cost a lot more than Manman had because we were leaving so soon.

  WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 20

  This morning, I was sitting in the living room when Tante Rose walked over and put a hand on my shoulder.

  “Celiane Espérance,” she says in a serious voice, “do you know why I am doing all this, spending every gourde I have to see that you and Moy and Aline get to be with Victor? For months and months, I begged my contact at the consulate. Do you know why?”

  “Because you are our family,” I say.

  “That,” she says, “and because even when things were very hard for my brother, he never asked me for anything before. This is the first time he’s asked me to do something for him. And you know what he asked? To do everything so you and he and Moy and Aline can be together this Christmas.”

  “Thank you, Tante Rose,” I say.

  “You don’t have to thank me,” she says. “I felt so bad that you and Aline were in that camion when the bomb hit it. I want to do this for you.”

  THURSDAY, DECEMBER 21

  Raymond drove us to the airport. Everything is happening so fast, I don’t know what to think anymore.

  I am trying to feel the way I know everyone would want me to feel. Maybe I am lucky. Maybe I am the luckiest girl in Haiti. After five years of separation, I am finally going to see my father.

  Still, I can’t shake the old fears and new ones, too: What if the plane falls out of the sky? What if we never make it to New York? What if we hate New York? What if we all hate each other when we get to New York?

  I have told myself that once I see Papa, I will know in one instant if everything will be all right. If my stomach feels settled when I see him and my fears vanish at the first sight of him, then I will know that everything will be fine.

  LATER

  It seems like the biggest part of traveling is waiting in line. The line to check our bags was very long. It took us two hours to reach the counter where we were assigned our seats. And then it was time to say good-bye to Tante Rose.

  As with Granmè Melina and Granpè Nozial, this was a short good-bye.

  “Give Victor a kiss for me,” Tante Rose said. Then she vanished into the crowd.

  I can’t help but wonder if I will ever see Tante Rose again.

  LATER

  I am writing this on the airplane. Manman seems uneasy. She has been trembling ever since she got on. Moy is looking out the window. To keep my mind off everything but the present, I have decided to make a list of the things I would have missed had I never been on an airplane.

  I would have missed the rise—going up, up, up from the ground and floating up in the air, as though inside a bird.

  I would have missed seeing the clouds in the sky so close.

  I would have missed watching the plane glide down from the sky and then watching a city appear below, a city filled with ice crystals and light.

  THURSDAY, DECEMBER 21

  11:30 P.M.

  I must write this before I sleep because I never want to forget it as long as I live, our first moment with Papa. It worked. The pact I made with myself worked. As soon as I saw Papa I knew that everything would be all right, that things would fall in place, that we would be okay.

  We heard him before we saw him, a deep voice calling our names. We looked around everywhere trying to find him; then all of a sudden he was right there, a few feet away. He hadn’t changed much except for some gray hairs and a beard he hadn’t had before.

  I rushed to him and grabbed him, almost coming up to his chest, which was a little strange since the last time I saw him, I was only as tall as his belly. I couldn’t believe he was close enough for me to smell the scent of fresh soap on him, to touch him, to hold him, to see his smile.

  When Manman embraced him, she ended up embracing us both. Squeezed between the two of them, I could hear her sobbing.

  I removed myself from between them to give Moy a chance to say hello. Moy and Papa shook hands over Manman’s shoulder.

  Manman had that look in her eyes, too, the look she has only when Papa is around. Her eyes were shining, as though there were little bits of stars in them. It was as if every sad moment she had lived through these past five years, every second that she’d spent missing Papa, had been erased from her memory. She was so happy that even if I still had some doubts, her smile, the tears of joy flowing out of her eyes, would have taken them away.

  A man came forward. It was Papa’s friend Franck. Manman greeted Franck and thanked him for everything he’s done for us.

  “Welcome to the Tenth Department,” Franck said. (Haiti is made up of nine geographical regions or “departments,” and those living abroad, in the diaspora, are considered part of a tenth one.)

  We went outside, where Papa loaded our things into Franck’s jeep. It was cold, cold like I have never felt before. There was snow on the ground and more was falling, like mountain rain with rice grain–sized hail, except the snow was falling much more slowly. The wind was blowing it around us and the snow was floating aimlessly, thousands and thousands of tiny clouds, which when the light hit them looked as though they had been dipped in liquid crystal.

  I thought of Granpè Nozial’s ice story. Granpè Nozial would have loved to see the snow, to watch bits of ice falling out of the sky.

  I held out my hands to catch a few snow shavings, but they melted as soon as they touched my palm. Shivering, Manman and Moy rushed into the car, but I stood there watching the soft ice turn to water blots on my fingertips.

  Papa reached over and took my hand.

  “I was so excited I forgot the coats,” he said as he helped me into the backseat where Moy and Manman were huddled together to keep warm.

  As we drove out of the airport, Papa reached back and took Manman’s hand. The snow kept falling, swirling around the streetlamps and car lights.

  There were blinking lights strung over the trees on the roads and highways, houses gleaming with Christmas wreaths on the front doors, candles and Christmas trees in the windows, life-size Nativity scenes on front lawns, and blown-up Father Christmases riding carriages on rooftops.

  “You are wet,” Manman said to me.

  By now the airport snow had penetrated my clothes. I could even feel the tingle of cold water sliding down my back.

  “Cécé, are you cold?” Papa asked.

  “Yes, I am,” I said, my teeth chattering, “but I am fine.”

  And I was. Papa was alive to me again. I could feel, hear, touch him. He did not have another family. We were still his only family. Judging from the big smile on his face, he loved us just as much as he did before, if not even more.

  Moy seemed happy, too, looking out the window, taking in everything. I could finally understand what Tante Rose meant when she said the word “miracle.” Our reunion felt even more wondrous than a miracle, a dream too large for even Franck’s giant jeep to contain.

  FRIDAY, DECEMBER 22

  We slept until noon, then ventured out to see the street. The snow had stopped falling, but there was still a lot of it on the ground.

  The street was quiet, the red-bricked row houses lined up like snowcapped soldiers standing at full attention. The snow now seemed to muffle things, even people, who as they walked past us would keep their heads low, close to their chests, their entire bodies covered in layers of thick material, their faces wrapped with scarves, which, even if they were looking at us, would barely allow us to see their eyes.

  It suddenly occurred to me that we looked like those people. Papa had gotten us sweaters, knit caps, scarves, coats, and rubber boots that made squishing noises each time we took a step.