Dear Haiti, Love Alaine

by Maika Moulite

  It didn’t help that this was my first time in Haiti. Some of my oldest memories were of my parents arguing in hushed voices, a never-ending debate about taking the family on a trip to our home country. My dad would be so earnest in his suggestion, “It’ll be a good bonding moment! It’ll bring us closer together!” My mom would vehemently refuse, “I will never go back. And neither will my daughter.” And that would be the end of that conversation. Yet here I was, just a daughter, standing in a Haitian airport, searching for my fractured family and attempting to drown out the hurried clips of conversations happening around me.

  “Alaine!”

  I held my breath.

  “Hi, Mom. Hi, Tati Estelle,” I said tentatively as I approached them.

  Suddenly, I was wrapped in a bear hug from both sides, my mom and aunt circling me with pleasantly dry arms that contrasted with my own sweaty limbs. My nerves dissipated, chased away by the relief I felt from seeing the two women I admired most in the world. It had been too long since we were all together.

  “Welcome to the land of your people!” my aunt said, extending her arms in a grand gesture and nearly hitting the man handling my bags. (Clearly, you see who inspires my flair for the dramatic.)

  Tati Estelle stopped to thank the airport worker as she stealthily slipped a tightly fisted wad of cash into his hands. We stepped out of the airport and there waited hordes of people hoping to make a little cash by carrying suitcases or giving a ride. Others stood with their hands extended, simply hoping to receive a few dollars just because. My mom quickly ushered us into the idling car where my aunt’s driver, introduced as Fernand, was waiting and soon we were on our way. Lush palm trees with colorful flags tied around them dotted our path out of the airport and onto the country roads, the mountains rising and falling in the background as we drove along. The concrete wall that separated the airport from the surrounding community was covered in murals of Haitian people, spray-painted messages of hope and justice, and island scenery. We continued through the countryside and eventually came upon a monument depicting what looked like three men dressed in soldier uniforms, swords hanging from their sides, a bicorne hat planted firmly on the head of the man in the center.

  “This is a statue commemorating the Battle of Vertières,” my mom said, noticing the direction of my gaze. “It was the last battle before Haiti gained its independence.”

  “Of course!” I said a little too enthusiastically. The last thing I wanted was to crack open the possibility of her asking about my own botched tribute to Haitian independence... I changed the subject by asking a question I knew the answer to. “Is Henri Christophe shown too?”

  “Not in this one. Henri Christophe is our ancestor...the one who built the Sans-Souci Palace and Citadelle Laferrière,” Mom answered, her voice lowering slightly as if she were trying to recall an old memory. The right side of her face was awash in sunlight, accentuating her bottom lip, which she bit in concentration. “Jules left the field trip early with us... I could tell he didn’t want to, but he came along anyway.”

  “Do you mean Dad?” I asked. I had heard their meet-cute story a ton of times. For the record, always from him. He conveniently never mentioned this sneaking away part when he told me of the day they’d shared their lunches. I filed the new fact away in my mental comeback drawer by habit, even as I realized my mom’s mind had taken her somewhere else.

  “Papa?” Mom spat. “That man is going to get what is heading his way any minute.”

  “Mom... Celeste... You there?”

  She barely glanced my way before murmuring to herself, “He thanked me for saving him, you know. Andres shouldn’t have been messing with him.”

  “Celeste?” my aunt said gently, placing her hand on Mom’s arm.

  My mom gave her head a slight shake and smiled sheepishly. “Sorry. That happens sometimes.”

  I nodded, for once at a loss for words. She looked as put together, as beautiful, as proud as ever. But that was a mirage. The walls of the car abruptly closed in on me. I couldn’t escape this new reality, no matter how much I wanted to. We continued on our way to the house in silence, each of us avoiding eye contact with the others, staring ahead or out the window as we drove up yet another small hill. I swallowed the knot in my throat.

  Papa. That man. Did she mean her own father? I wondered what he could have done to make her react that way. My grandfather had died years before I was born, but I sensed that whatever wound he’d inflicted was still fresh. The sting in her words confirmed it. I retraced our conversation in my mind in an effort to find a trigger. A distraction to keep the unexpected tears that were forming unshed. Dad. The Citadelle. Sans-Souci. Henri Christophe...

  “Hey, Tati Estelle?”

  “Hmm?”

  “What did you mean when you said I wouldn’t even be around to write those ‘four weak sentences’ if it wasn’t for Henri Christophe’s wife?”

  Tati Estelle glanced at my mother, who had gone still.

  “Well. Marie-Louise Coidavid is the matriarch of our family. She lived long after Henri Christophe—even her own children—had died. She was exiled for many years yet still made her way back to Haiti with the help of another first lady, Marie-Madeleine Lachenais—”

  “Oh, look, we’re here!”

  My mother pointed out the imposing estate as we drove through a gate that had swung open. Tati Estelle sighed in what could only be described as frustration. I swept my gaze over the exterior of the house, which was painted a light yellow with white accents along the balconies, window frames, and front doors. A dark blue sedan and light gray SUV were parked in the driveway to the left. A large mango tree cast a long shadow over the cars, the first signs of the sweet fruit peeking through its curtain of leaves.

  “This is our family home. Your grandmother moved to Pétion-Ville years ago, so I moved back here,” my aunt said as we climbed out of the car. Fernand was already rolling my luggage into the house.

  “Snazzier than what you expected, eh?” my mom said. She glanced at my surprised expression. “Haiti isn’t just dusty roads and impoverished people.”

  “Not if you go with what they show us on TV, anyway,” I countered. Plus, we did have to zoom past dusty roads and impoverished people before we got to the more impressive homes with wide spaces in between. The same could be said of neighborhoods in Miami or anywhere else, of course. But this was to an exponential degree.

  The foyer was lined in white tile and, a few steps ahead, the living room was on an elevated dais. Toward the back, white couches and mahogany fixtures rounded out the seating area with a flat-screen TV hanging on a far wall and an elaborate chandelier dangling from the center of the ceiling. Island Airbnb chic. Mom and I walked up the stairs, following Tati Estelle as she led me to where I would stay.

  “This used to be my old bedroom,” Mom said as I entered.

  There was a large bed with a blue patterned quilt laid out on it. A lamp stood on a table on either side of the headboard and a dark cedar ottoman chest sat at the foot of the bed. Directly across from the bed, a wide archway marked the entrance to the bathroom with twin sinks and matching mirrors on the wall above them. Tucked into a corner was a sliding glass door that led to the balcony.

  I stepped outside and gasped. The entire house was filled with tall windows that let in plenty of light, but even they hadn’t prepared me for this view. It was like the whole country was stretched out before me. To the right, green mountains lay in the distance, clusters of houses peeking through the brush. And to the left, the Atlantic Ocean sparkled like a Caribbean diamond.

  “Alaine, can you come here?” my mom asked, returning my attention to her. She was standing beside the bed, her arms folded. Tati Estelle was doing the best that she could to quietly sneak out of the room. “We need to talk about your behavior.”

  The bedroom door slammed as my aunt disappeared behind it.


  “Sorry!” she shouted. “So much for a muted exit!”

  And there we were. Me and Mom. Staring at each other as we stood in the room that was once hers, that I would now be sleeping in. She sat on the edge of the bed and patted the space beside her. Straight from Dad’s I’m-going-to-be-a-parent-now playbook. I promised myself that I wouldn’t speak first about The Incident and, by the looks of it, she had made the same vow.

  We had a familiar mother-disciplining-daughter dance. The Celeste-Alaine two-step. I anticipated her next moves: break eye contact, shake head, smooth clothes when standing up in defeat retreat. Sure, I got into the occasional shenanigan, but it never affected my grades—until now, anyway. My mom wasn’t around often, and when she was, she didn’t have much of a say in my day-to-day actions. This fact hung silently in the air whenever we reached this impasse. What she would say was, in a very serious tone, “Alaine, you can’t keep up this behavior,” and then she’d back away from me slowly, inching toward the doorway, racing down the hall like an escaped prisoner as soon as she crossed the threshold.

  This time was different.

  “Alaine,” my mom said after she was done clearing her throat for the third time. “I have to be frank with you. This is all my fault.”

  I picked up my eyes from where they’d fallen out of their now-bulging sockets. Was my mom admitting that she had screwed up as a parent making it easier for me to back out of my unavoidable punishment? Yes, yes, she was.

  “How so?” I asked.

  “I understand why you act out the way you do. When your father and I divorced, we decided it was in your best interest to live with him in a more stable home with someone who would be there regularly.”

  “How about we stop pretending that being away from me wasn’t in your best interest too.”

  My mom paused.

  “It has been admittedly...easier on my career to not have to deal with conventional parenting—”

  “Please stop.”

  I could’ve easily let her continue to wallow in her guilt, but I knew that for all of my mother’s faults, I had gotten into this particular trouble myself.

  “Your actions have been a cry for my attention,” she continued.

  I tried to memorize her brown eyes and pointy nose the way they were right then. I volunteered in a nursing home and had seen older residents with Alzheimer’s only in passing. Her skin was still so smooth and youthful, nothing like them or the version of her that I’d seen in my dream the night I’d found out. I wondered if she would even get the chance to grow old. I read online that the life expectancy after diagnosis was four to eight years on average but could be decades longer. Celeste Beauparlant was nothing if not above average... But just in case, I didn’t want to spend the time we had left fighting about a stupid, immature thing that she wouldn’t remember.

  “You can’t take all the blame,” I said. I groaned inwardly as I pulled up the screenshots from my study group chat about The Incident for her to read herself.

  My mom sat quietly as she skimmed through all the messages. When she was done, she handed the phone back to me and said nothing for a moment.

  Finally, she spoke. “Your father told me something happened, but I didn’t think it was as bad as he was making it out to be.”

  “Oh...it was bad.”

  “And this Peter? Is he okay?”

  “He had to be taken to the hospital, but he’s a trouper. Sometimes there are casualties of war.”

  “This isn’t funny, Alaine. He could’ve gotten really sick.”

  “But he didn’t. And I wasn’t aiming for him. He knew that. I helped him study for calc last semester.”

  She rubbed her forehead.

  “What is wrong with you?”

  “Look. I had every intention of redeeming myself in class and taking the assignment more seriously. We each got to choose one major moment in history and of course I decided to write and present on the Haitian Revolution. Then Sister Wagner—”

  “Sister Wagner?”

  “History and creative writing teacher. She had us rehearse the presentation portion of our project in groups during class a few weeks ago. As soon as I started reciting from the Emancipation Decree of 1794, I heard snickering. Some of the students were calling out that I should make my presentation...on...”

  Now, I know what you’re thinking. Will I ever get the secret to this bomb twist-out? But what you should really be wondering is: Why the hesitation? What could the students have said that would be so bad as to warrant you acting out in such a way that would get you suspended? And if you weren’t thinking that, you should be. Because that’s exactly what my mom asked.

  “You know how you were supposed to present during Career Day?” I continued when my mom nodded. “Well, Nina Voltaire and her father thought that it would be a great idea for their presentation to focus on conflict negotiation and anger management on the set of Will You Be Mine? in light of...recent events. I stuck through the presentation even though I could tell that it was going to be a load of—”

  “Alaine.”

  “Crap. Finally, they came to what I thought was the end of their presentation. But I was wrong, because there you were on the projector in front of my entire senior class, slapping Senator Venegas on an endless loop. And then there was a countdown with smoke coming out of your ears and your eyes bulging out of their sockets...and you exploded.

  “As I explain this to you now, of course it sounds like a stupid high school prank that I should’ve just ignored. But I couldn’t let it go. That’s when I got my bright idea to use my class presentation to demonstrate a moment of epic retaliation and get Nina back.”

  “Do not let your aunt hear you describing the kickoff of the Haitian Revolution at Bois Caïman as a moment of epic retaliation.”

  “I was just joking.”

  “Not everything’s a joke, Alaine!”

  “I understand that. And I tried to ignore the stupid ‘jokes’ from almost everyone in my classes—including teachers—and that only worked for so long. Sue me for not wanting to deal with them bad-mouthing you anymore.

  “And now I have to spend my first trip to Haiti making up for it by doing community service for the next two months. Dad handled it, and I won’t be run out of school by a mob. It’s fine.”

  “No, Alaine. You don’t understand. Peter could’ve been seriously hurt. Luckily, you had the wherewithal to find his EpiPen, but what if you hadn’t? Would you be prepared to face those consequences? You tell me that you watch every single episode of Sunday Politicos. Do you remember when I brought Donna Lewis on to discuss discipline disparities in the school system? By and large, children of color are punished more harshly for their actions. Yes, this was supposed to be your way of getting back at Nina, but look at how many other people were caught in the cross fire. You’re focused on the fact that you were able to dodge expulsion, but all your father and I can think about is how this would’ve turned out if Peter had been seriously injured or, worse, died. Alaine, the decisions you make, even if they’re well-meaning, can impact the rest of your life. And I need you to remember that your father and I will not always be here to get you out of trouble.”

  I was looking down at my lap as Mom spoke, but when her voice caught, I lifted my head. She was staring at me so intently, her expression pleading with me to hear what she was saying and not forget it. But I couldn’t bring myself to think about the day my parents would no longer be around.

  “I’m really sorry, Mom.”

  My mom smoothed down the front of her pants and got up. Instead of slinking out the door like she normally would whenever she had to have a stern talk with me, she stepped in front of me and took my hands in hers.

  “Thank you for trying to stick up for me. I know you meant well. But next time, let’s think things through a little bit before we act.”

  “I’ll
try harder,” I muttered.

  “That’s all I ask,” she said as she stroked my hair like she used to do when I was younger. One of my sharpest memories from around the time of my parents’ divorce is my mother sitting me down and showing me how to massage my scalp and twist my hair so I wouldn’t have to depend on Dad’s embarrassing pigtails when she moved to DC.

  I smiled at my mother as I realized this was the first time in a long while that we had had a meaningful conversation. Why hadn’t it always been this way? It would’ve been great to have more mother-daughter moments like this instead of all those endured awkward silences on the phone. But as we sat here wordlessly, I could tell there was something more she wanted to say. She hadn’t brought up her diagnosis or that strange moment in the car and I realized then that I was avoiding mentioning them too. And although we had so much opening up to do in an unknown period of time, I still wasn’t ready to hear it from her. My mom must’ve sensed my ambivalence, because she leaned over and hugged me tightly. There was something about the way she held me now that made me feel like she was holding on for more than just a quick embrace.

  “Are you all right, Mom?”

  She leaned back, her sad brown eyes peering straight into my heart. “Yes...yes. I’m fine.”

  But I knew that she wasn’t.

  Research Following My Convo with Mom

  The American Association of Alzheimer’s Awareness (AAAA)

  What to Do if Your Loved One is Diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease (B.R.E.A.T.H.E.)

  Believe that your loved one is still in there. Alzheimer’s is a disease that lies to its sufferers and their family and friends by saying they’re gone. That is not the case. You will always have the memories and moments that make up the experiences you share with each other.

  Research. It’s important to be informed after learning of this diagnosis. The weight of all the details may appear insurmountable, but they will start making more sense, little by little. Join support groups to have morale boosters in place in the most trying times, as well as the special moments that lead to smiles.