The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat Page B

fingers of her right hand. The fingers came apart slowly; then Ms. Hinds extended the whole hand, grabbing the pad. She had to force herself to sit up in order to write and she grimaced as she did so, trying to maintain her grip on the pad and slide up against the pillow Nadine propped behind her back.
    Ms. Hinds scribbled down a few quick words, then held up the pad for Nadine to read. At first Nadine could not understand the handwriting. It was unsteady and hurried and the words ran together, but Nadine sounded them out, one letter at a time, with some encouragement from Ms. Hinds, who slowly moved her head up and down when Nadine guessed correctly.
    “I can’t speak,” Nadine made out.
    “That’s right,” Nadine said. “You can’t.”
    Looking even more perplexed at Nadine’s unsympathetic reaction, Ms. Hinds grabbed the pad from Nadine’s hand and scribbled, “I’m a teacher.”
    “I know,” Nadine said.
    “WHY SEND ME HOME LIKE THIS?” Ms. Hinds scribbled next.
    “Because we have done all we can for you here,” Nadine said. “Now you must work with a speech therapist. You can get an artificial larynx, a voice box. The speech therapist will help you.”
    “Feel like a basenji,” Ms. Hinds wrote, her face sinking closer to her chest.
    “What’s a b-a-s-e-n-j-i?” Nadine asked, spelling out the word.
    “A dog,” Ms. Hinds wrote. “Doesn’t bark.”
    “A dog that doesn’t bark?” Nadine asked. “What kind of dog is that?”
    “Exists,” Ms. Hinds wrote, as she bit down hard on her quivering lower lip.
    That night at home, Nadine found herself more exhausted than usual. With the television news as white noise, she dialed Eric’s home phone number, hoping she was finally ready to hear his voice for more than the twenty-five seconds her answering machine allowed. He should be home resting now, she thought, preparing to start his second job as a night janitor at Medgar Evers College.
    Her mind was suddenly blank. What would she say? She was trying to think of something frivolous, a line of small talk, when she heard the message that his number had been changed to one that was unlisted.
    She quickly hung up and redialed, only to get the same message. After dialing a few more times, she decided to call her parents instead.
    Ten years ago her parents had sold everything they owned and moved from what passed for a lower-middle-class neighborhood to one on the edge of a slum, in order to send her to nursing school abroad. Ten years ago she’d dreamed of seeing the world, of making her own way in it. These were the intangibles she’d proposed to her mother, the kindergarten teacher, and her father, the camion driver, in the guise of a nursing career. This was what they’d sacrificed everything for. But she always knew that she would repay them. And she had, with half her salary every month, and sometimes more. In return, what she got was the chance to parent them rather than have them parent her. Calling them, however, on the rare occasions that she actually called rather than received their calls, always made her wish to be the one guarded, rather than the guardian, to be reassured now and then that some wounds could heal, that some decisions would not haunt her forever.
    “Manman,” her voice immediately dropped to a whisper when her mother’s came over the phone line, squealing with happiness.
    For every decibel Nadine’s voice dropped, her mother’s rose. “My love, we were so worried about you. How are you? We have not heard your voice in so long.”
    “I’m fine, Manman,” she said.
    “You sound low. You sound down. We have to start planning again when you can come or when we can come see you, as soon as Papa can travel.”
    “How is Papa?” she asked.
    “He’s right here. Let me put him on. He’ll be very glad to hear you.”
    Suddenly her father was on the phone, his tone calmer but excited in his own way. “We were waiting so long for this call, chérie.”
    “I know,