When Lyddie was born, nearly six years earlier, the rift between my mother and Adelle became too deep to repair, and despite my threats, my mother let her go.
“That’s fine,” Adelle said to me. “I would not wish to work with her even if I were starving.”
Because of my mother, no woman from our community would hire Adelle, and in the end she was forced to take in sailors’ laundry, a job far beneath her. My mother had no idea that my father sent Adelle a monthly check or that I gave her a portion of my own household funds. Isaac never asked me why I did this, nor did he question me when I went to visit Adelle every day when she fell ill. It happened suddenly. One day she simply grew weak, as if under a spell. I went to see her, bringing my baby, Delphine, along. Adelle taught her to clap her hands and how to wave good-bye. When Adelle could no longer eat anything solid, I made her a soft fongee porridge, the same recipe she used to fix for Jestine and me when we were girls. I fed her until the day she waved me away. “Give it to the baby,” she said.
Adelle’s illness made breathing difficult. The day when she could no longer rise from the bed without being lifted came. Jestine sent Lyddie to fetch me because she’d had a dream about me. I went down to the harbor, my throat and chest aching. I was afraid of what Adelle might tell me. I hoped she didn’t blame me for how cruel my mother had been, or how badly my cousin had treated Jestine. I sat on her bed. For once I’d left my children at home. Adelle had me lean close so no one would overhear. As it turned out she wanted to tell me more of my future. “He won’t be your only husband,” she said of Monsieur Petit. She sounded like a bird, distant, breathy. “If you find happiness, take it. You won’t find it again. But you’ll know him as soon as you see him.”
There were so many questions I should have asked. I never even knew who Adelle’s parents were and how she had come to be on St. Thomas or what her African name had been. I had written down so many stories, but I’d never asked Adelle for hers. I should have asked if Jestine’s father was a man I knew. At the end Adelle could no longer speak and it was too late. Each evening I sat beside the bed and read to her from my old notebook, stories of the stars in the sky, how God had placed them in a path between him and us so we could always find our way to him. How a pelican had then scattered those stars above us so we could lie in our beds at night and be comforted resting beneath the path to God. How a bird had traveled halfway across the world for love.
Adelle took my hand the last time I was there. She ran a finger inside my palm. Her fingers were long and thin, and she wore a gold ring. Perhaps someone who loved her had given it to her, or perhaps she had bought the ring for herself. She would never tell. This was as close as anyone from our different worlds dared to be, for fear the past would destroy what we had. Still, the past was close, outside the door. Adelle’s touch felt like the skin and bones of a bird, weightless. I shivered because I knew this was her good-bye to me.
Jestine came then, and I watched Lyddie with my own children for the next day and night. And then it happened and we lost her. I saw Jestine standing in my yard alone and I knew. I hoped Adelle’s spirit would be above us in the sky to watch over us.
THE NEXT MORNING MY father called me into the library. Mr. Enrique had brought him the sad news, and my father hadn’t slept. My mother was out visiting Madame Halevy, so my father and I were free to talk. I thought perhaps he had planned it that way. He asked that I place a rose from our garden at Adelle’s grave. He had been sending provisions from our store to her house twice a week, and had done so ever since my mother had let her go. Now he would send the funeral dinner as well. I kissed him and thought him the most generous man in the world. We embraced each other and shed tears for Adelle, then my father stalked away. He didn’t want me to know what he felt, but I heard him sobbing in the garden. If I am not mistaken, my mother, walking up from the street, heard it as well.
I went to the African churchyard for the burial. I stood outside the fence made of sticks and wire and ached for Jestine. She wore a borrowed black dress and stood with her little girl by her side, holding hands. The cemetery was different than ours. There were wooden crosses carved with angels, shells set in intricate patterns, potted vines of purple blooms. Some people were Christians; some practiced the old religions of their homelands. I knew most everyone at the service, including Mr. Enrique, who had continued on as the clerk in the office with my husband, teaching him the business. I had only recently discovered that although my father had long ago granted him his freedom, Mr. Enrique was still listed in the official records as a slave. I suppose I didn’t want to know these things, especially when it came to my father. I wanted to believe the world was different than it was. But there was just so much a grown woman could pretend. There was more than one world on our island, and boundaries that could not be overstepped. On the day of the funeral, I knew it was not my place to mourn with Adelle’s family and friends, although when Jestine exited the churchyard, she came to kiss me.