“From your cousin, I assume,” he said.
I opened the letter with a paring knife left out in the yard. The blade was rusty and left a mark the color of blood. I examined the handwriting. “From his wife.”
I did not read any more, but instead decided to bring the letter to its rightful recipient. I took Jacobo with me. He was then nearly four, a quiet child who often refused to do as he was told. In truth, I loved Jacobo more dearly than any of the others, though I still hid the fact that I favored him. He was both clever and dreamy, interested in the adult world, which the other children ignored.
“You can help me carry a package,” I told him. He always liked to be useful. We took some fruit and slices of the cassava bread that Rosalie had baked that morning and brought the food up into the hills before going on to Jestine’s. I wanted favor, and I hoped my gifts might bring this. We left the offerings in the doorway of the herb man’s house. I saw signs of life: pots, pans, and a bucket of water.
“Is this a werewolf’s house?” my son asked. I had read him all my stories, and he liked to hear that one over and over again. But now his eyes were wide.
“Oh, no,” I told him. “A good man lives here. We leave him some food because he’s very old.”
Another frightened child might hide behind his mother’s skirts, but my son peered through a window. It was covered with two boards with some meshing attached to keep the mosquitoes out. The herbalist was likely in bed, or watching us, waiting for us to leave. There were some parrots in the tamarind trees, and the leaves shook down on us. “It’s raining,” Jacobo said, and he gathered the leaves and set them at the herb man’s doorstep as yet another gift.
We went along the path that seemed to change every time I took it. We came upon donkeys and crouched down to watch them. Jacobo was entranced. When I held a finger to my lips he nodded and agreed to be silent so we wouldn’t frighten the creatures away.
“One of them is Jean-François,” I whispered.
My son shook his head. “Donkeys don’t have names,” he whispered back.
He was very sure of himself even then. I should have known there would be trouble between us, for our temperaments were too alike, but instead I laughed and the donkeys scattered and we watched them disappear into the hills.
THERE HAD BEEN A terrible hurricane some months before, and many of the buildings at the harbor were still in bad shape. My husband had paid some men to fix Jestine’s roof and fashion new wooden shutters that she could close from the inside when bad weather struck. She had painted them blue and white. Many of the palm trees had been toppled, and they still lay on the side of the road. I had the letter tucked into the bodice of my dress. It felt heavy, like a stone. I held Jacobo’s hand, but he broke away and ran to Jestine’s house, climbing up the steps two at a time while I held my breath, frightened he might fall and be swept away to sea.
There were many skilled tailors in our country; it was a useful trade on an island where sailors often needed to be fitted for entire new wardrobes. But no one’s work was as fine as Jestine’s. She had learned her craft when she made my wedding dress, and then my mourning dress, and then my spring-green dress. She had made all of Lyddie’s clothes. Now she had begun her own elite business. There was a list of women waiting to purchase her handiwork. She was a talented seamstress, but even more important, she could imagine a dress like no other. She called each one by name: the storm, for an inky silk creation she’d begun during the hurricane when the wind swept inside her house. The Moth, pale gray linen from France, so luminous and lovely, she hated to sell it to the ugly old woman who had commissioned it. Now she was working on Starlight, fashioned of silvery damask, a fabric that would reflect light into the wearer’s face so that no one would be able to gaze away. Once again, for the old lady who didn’t deserve such beauty. There was a spool of white thread beside Jestine and handfuls of crystal beads.
Jacobo loved to visit here and made himself right at home. Jestine was like a dear auntie to him, and the truth was I was jealous. They talked about things I didn’t care about, the color of the sea, and of palm leaves, and rejoiced over how many shades of red there were. My boy went inside and lay down on Jestine’s bed, pulling the thin blue quilt over himself. Ever since he’d had a drink from the herbalist’s potion, he’d been an excellent sleeper. Jestine and I laughed to think of the time when he was an infant and kept me up all night with his screams.
At last, I handed Jestine the letter. The sewing fell from her lap in a coil when she saw it. The needle she held pricked her skin, and a single drop of blood fell from her finger. Later she would use a limewater paste to remove it from the fabric, but every time the ugly woman wore the dress in public and I saw her, I remembered this day.