Ayiti

Everything I know about my family’s history, I know in fragments. We are the keepers of secrets. We are secrets ourselves. We try to protect each other from the geography of so much sorrow. I don’t know that we succeed.

The waters did not run deep. It was just a border between two geographies of grief.

For many years, we didn't realize our parents had accents, that their voices sounded different to unkind American ears. All we heard was home. Then the world intruded. It always does.

I step away as I notice a group of young, angry men walking toward us. I doubt that there is any particular reason for their anger. It is the anger that most men feel these days; they are angry about their impotence and their desires and their reality. It is an anger we all feel. But it is an anger only men can freely express.

Freedom, it seems, has a price. We are defined by what we are not and what we do not have.

Some mornings we wake, our stomachs empty, our stomachs angry, but never do we look to the ground beneath our feet with longing in our mouths. We chew on our pride. The dirt we do not eat.

I will never regret this decision, no matter what happens to us.

La liberté, semble-t-il, a un prix. On nous définit par ce que nous ne sommes pas et ce que nous n'avons pas.

He started talking about his marriage. I leaned across the table and pressed two fingers against his lips. ‘Let’s not do that. Let’s not sit here and tell each other everything there is to know about who we once loved. I am tired of listening to men talk about their regrets.