Free Land of Love and Drowning: A Novel by Tiphanie Yanique

The toes pointing and flexing into the air silently. And the other foot was not a foot at all. But a hoof. A hoof all the way up to what should be his mother’s ankle. A bone-colored cleft in place of toes. Thick brown hair all the way up to the knee. And this foot did not touch the father’s skin or move at all, but remained stiff just over this father’s tight back.
    Jacob, who was never called Esau except today, eased out of the room. Chanting in his head, “You are not real. You are not real. You are not real.” And lay back down on the sofa in the sitting room. Waiting to fall back asleep and wake into his real life.
    Did his mother know that he saw? Did her instructions as he grew up to keep his head high and his eyes to the ceiling show that she knew? But in time, Jacob forgot that he really knew. Forgot that it wasn’t a bad dream. Forgot that his real-real father was not Benjamin McKenzie. Forgot his mother’s hoof foot. Forgot that he had any sisters at all.

16.
    Eeona had been only seventeen when she became engaged to Louis Moreau III, the son of a landowner from the countryside of Guadeloupe and a woman from the seaside of Nice. He would take Eeona back to his Guadeloupe and let her finish her studies before babies came. It would be important that his wife speak both French and English comfortably—especially if she was to be an asset with the wives of the men patronizing the golf course he would build on Anegada.
    A month after the furtive proposal, Eeona was still seventeen when her parents finally paid her a visit on Tortola. Mama brought lace doilies for her cousin as a gift. Little Anette hid behind Mama’s dress, shy of this lovely older sister she barely remembered. The cousin coaxed Anette into the kitchen with sweets. Then the parents shut themselves up with Eeona in the sitting room and asked if she was still a virgin. They had heard about the clandestine visit to Anegada and the beach called Flash of Beauty. We all had. Eeona had looked at her father sitting with both his hands tugging on his earlobes. She had sobbed then, forced tears about being deflowered by Louis Moreau on the small Anegada. It was a lie, but during Eeona’s entire performance, she kept her teary eyes on her father. Did he see that she was a woman now? Fit to be a madame? Was he jealous?
    As far as the Moreau boy was concerned, Antoinette wasn’t concerned at all. The mother wanted the daughter married off. Period. Perhaps young Moreau would even love Eeona. Then Eeona would be saved from her irascible beauty. And Antoinette would only have little Anette left between her and her real life. The recent one in her womb was already washed away. Easy this time.
    What Antoinette worried about was her daughter’s silver secret and how a premarital lover might respond. Eeona was secretive but her motherknew she also tended to the silver with a soft baby brush—she might be silly enough to flaunt it. Perhaps the Frenchman had kept his eyes closed out of fear or modesty during their first knowing? Oh, but he would soon become bold and wide-eyed and he would see. He might assume the silver hair suggested infertility. Or an overly mature nature. Either way, it was a risk to marriage and the mother knew she must keep her daughter away from the lusty fiancé until they were sanctified.
    When the parents finally opened the parlor door, little Anette walked cautiously to her sister and began babbling incoherently.
    “I’ve taught her a few Latin phrases,” said the cousin proudly. “She’s a natural with language.”
    Eeona pursed her lips, for her own French progressed slowly. She didn’t bother to embrace her baby sister, but instead stood and went to her room. Anette could be heard crying, then Mama was comforting. The parents took both their daughters back to St. Thomas the next morning.
    The evening they returned to Frenchtown, Owen Arthur came to Eeona’s room. This was something he had not done since she had left the