I see the signpost at the corner, right in front of our house: American Street and Joy Road.
At the other end of the block is a house that has wooden slats for windows. It reminds me of the abandoned new houses in Port-au-Prince, where the owner had enough money to build them but not enough money to put in windows and doors. It looks like a tomb made for djab—angry spirits that haunt the night.
Farther to the right are vacant spaces where houses should be. They make gaping holes on the block, like missing teeth.
A few more cars start to drive down the block. The world here is awake. Manman is awake, too, for sure.
Finally, someone comes down the stairs. Pri. “Can you please braid my hair?” she asks, wearing a pair of baggy khaki pants. Her white shirt is buttoned all the way up to her neck and hangs loose over her shoulders.
I sit on the couch and she sits on a floor pillow in front of me while the news is on the TV. Donna walks by with her hair even longer than before. Her lips are redder and her eyelashes are longer, too. I contemplate asking to switch uniform skirts with her since hers is too short and mine is so long. “Is she going to a club after school?” I ask Pri.
“No. She just dresses like a ho. And I’m the only one who can call her that, you hear?”
I nod but she can’t see me.
Chantal comes down the stairs while looking at her phone. “Y’all got ten minutes, ’cause first class is at eight. Whoever’s not done, I’m leaving behind. Fabiola gets a pass ’cause I have to get her registered. But the two of you are just gonna have to take the bus.”
“For real, Chant?” Pri says. “You gonna make your little sisters take the Livernois bus when that new ride is supposed to be for everybody? And by the time that shitty bus comes, school will be over.”
“If y’all don’t hurry up!” Chantal calls back.
I wonder how Matant Jo gets to work since Chantal’s car is the only car I’ve seen parked in front of the house. So I ask, “When is Aunt Jo going to work?”
“Work?” they both say together.
“Ma is working right now,” Pri says.
“Yep. She’s working on getting your mother out of that detention center,” Chantal adds. “And she certainly worked to get you over here from Haiti, didn’t she?”
I nod again and promise myself not to ask about Matant Jo’s work again, unless it is the work of getting my mother home.
Pri pulls away from me when I’m done braiding her hair. She stands up to check it out in a nearby mirror. “Nah. Do that shit over again. I just need six regular braids going back,” she says, taking out the two I braided on each side of her head.
“But they look nice,” I say.
“Don’t make them look nice—just make them look . . . regular.”
She comes back to sit on the floor in front of me.
“I hope y’all are ready,” Chantal calls out.
“We are going to be late if I braid your hair again,” I say.
“Just hurry up. Don’t make them all puffy. I need them tight.”
Donna examines Princess’s braids from afar. “In other words, she needs them to look like a dude’s,” she says.
“Shut up, D,” Pri says.
“Is that true? Make them look like a boy’s?” I ask.
“Just make them tight, Fabiola, and hurry up.”
“Why do you want to look like a boy?” I start by pulling the soft hairs at her scalp very tight.
“Are you serious right now? I’m not trying to look like nobody but Pri. Feel me?”
I glance down at her khaki pants. “You don’t have to wear a uniform skirt to school like me and Donna?”
“It’s cold as fuck outside. If y’all wanna wear them short-ass skirts, then that’s on y’all,” she says.
Pri’s mouth is so dirty. Since my mother isn’t here, I want to grab her little lips and twist them myself. I take my time with each braid even though Chantal has come down and is ready to leave. I want Pri to like them. I need her to like me. I’m happy to have been helpful after being here for only a few hours.
Pri leans her head on my knee and it feels like I’ve been here for years instead of hours—as if I’d never left in the first place. Whenever my aunt and cousins would call Haiti, I’d imagine my life as an American—living in a house full of family, going to school, having a car and a boyfriend. I shake the memory of last night from my mind—the singing man, the punching man, the saving blue-cap man, and Donna.
“I remember when we were little, you used to be the most talkative one on the phone,” I say to Pri. “You would always ask to speak to me and you would tell me all about school and your friends. Remember when you said you didn’t want Donna to be your twin, you wanted me to be your twin instead, and you said you were going to take the bus to Haiti?”