Free The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat

arms.
    On the way back to Señora Valencia’s house, I stopped at the parish school to visit with Father Romain. Father Romain was younger than most of the priests I had seen. He was dressed in his cassock, running through the yard with a large ring-shaped kite giving his pupils a lesson on the principles of light and colors, terrain and landscape, earth and sky, and the precise direction of the wind at the exact place in which they were standing.
    “It is Amabelle,” he said, handing the kite to one of the older boys to fly, “she who is from the same village of the world as me, Cap Haitien, the city of Henry Ps great citadel.”
    Father Romain always made much of our being from the same place, just as Sebastien did. Most people here did. It was a way of being joined to your old life through the presence of another person. At times you could sit for a whole evening with such individuals, just listening to their existence unfold, from the house where they were born to the hill where they wanted to be buried. It was their way of returning home, with you as a witness or as someone to bring them back to the present, either with a yawn, a plea to be excused, or the skillful intrusion of your own tale. This was how people left imprints of themselves in each other’s memory so that if you left first and went back to the common village, you could carry, if not a letter, a piece of treasured clothing, some message to their loved ones that their place was still among the living.
    Priests were not excluded from this, and Father Romain, though he was devoted to his students, missed his younger sister and his other relations on the other side of the border. In his sermons to the Haitian congregants of the valley he often reminded everyone of common ties: language, foods, history, carnival, songs, tales, and prayers. His creed was one of memory, how remembering—though sometimes painful—can make you strong.
    The children crowded around him, yanking at his fingers, begging him to continue with the kite-flying class. He calmed them by taking turns touching each of their heads. When he had tapped all the children, he reached over and stroked my hand, and removing his instructor’s spectacles to look straight into my eyes, he told me, “I am needed, Amabelle.”
    “Certainly I see that, Father,” I said.
    “I have already told this to Kongo,” he said. “Please tell Sebastien for me, too. I am sad for Joel’s death. These things happen too often. People die unfairly, innocently. His father will need kind words from all of us.”
    “Thank you, Father,” I said, feeling that he had given me what I had come for, a fresh measure of hope.
    “Thank you for your visit, Amabelle.”
    His students dragged him away, fighting for control of the kite string.
    Walking up the hill to Señora Valencia’s house, I saw Doctor Javier’s sister, Beatriz. She was wearing an old green sundress and twirling a matching parasol above her head. The morning breeze went through her skirt, raising it above her knees, but she did not seem to notice.
    Beatriz walked into the parlor where Papi was sitting near the radio, listening for word from Spain. He had his notebook on his lap, in which he scribbled a few words, looked up, then scribbled again, between loud fits of coughing.
    Beatriz kissed Papi on the cheek, showing him a kindness she reserved only for old men who had no interest in marrying her. Papi kept his eyes on his notebook and continued to write. Beatriz picked a wicker sofa across from him and sat down. She swung her long braid from her back to her shoulder. The end of the braid landed on the closed parasol on her lap. “Papi, you haven’t strolled past our house in some time.” She played with the braid while talking.
    “I was staying here in case Valencia’s labor pains began,” Papi said.
    “Now that the babies are here—”
    “I will be walking your way again,” he said.
    Juana rushed out from the pantry to meet