I shake my head, unsure of what to say. What if they are mad that my mother didn’t make it through? What if they tell my aunt and she is even angrier?
Primadonna moves closer to me, and I look her up and down to see that she is much taller because of her fancy high heels. She lives up to her name with her diva hair and sunglasses at night.
“Hi, Fabiola,” she sings. Her voice is like a billion tiny bells. “So good to finally meet you. Call me Donna.”
Princess steps in front of me. “And I’m Pri. Not Princess. Just Pri. And big sis over here is Chant.”
Princess and Primadonna, or Pri and Donna now—my twin cousins. Les Marassa Jumeaux, who are as different as hot pepper and honey. Their faces are mirrors of each other, but their bodies are opposites—one tall and skinny and the other short and chunky—as if Princess ruled their mother’s womb and Primadonna was an underfed peasant.
Chantal pushes up her eyeglasses and looks over at the baggage claim. “It’s fine if you call me Chantal. So where is your mom?”
I turn back toward the busyness of the airport. I wonder if my mother is waiting for her flight to Detroit and praying that I don’t worry about her. I wonder if she is still arguing with those uniformed people and if she has thrown those important documents in their faces and cursed their children’s children. Manman will not go quietly. She will fight with her claws to get to me. “She’s not here yet” is all I say.
“How long do we have to wait for her? We didn’t pay for parking,” Chantal says. I feel like she’s looking straight through me.
“Well.” I pause. “They said she’s being detained in New York.”
“Detained? What? She wasn’t on the plane with you?” Donna asks.
My face goes hot. “From Haiti, yes. But when we got to Customs,” I start to say, but my voice cracks. “They took her into a room. But maybe she will be on the next plane?”
“Shit! We thought that might happen,” Pri says.
“Shut up, Pri. Don’t scare her,” Donna says. She pulls Pri aside and takes out her cell phone. “I’m calling Ma.”
Chantal shakes her head, then turns to me. “This doesn’t sound right, Fabiola,” she says as she grabs my hand and pulls me back inside. We wait in line for a long time at the Delta Air Lines counter before finally reaching the man at the desk. “Hello, sir? We’re looking for a passenger who might be on the next flight from New York.”
Chantal’s English is like that of the newspeople on TV. Her voice is high and soft, and every sentence sounds like a question, even when she gives them my name and my mother’s name. It’s as if she isn’t sure of anything and this uniformed man behind the desk and the computer will have all the answers in the universe.
I spell out Manman’s name for Chantal, who then spells it out for the man behind the counter. He prints Chantal a piece of paper and she steps off to the side. I follow her as she starts searching her phone for answers.
“What’s your mother’s birthday?”
I tell her. Then she asks if my mother has a middle name. I tell her that, too. She shakes her head. Chantal shows me her phone.
My mother’s name is on the screen. All the other words and numbers I don’t understand.
“Fabiola, your mother’s going to be sent to an immigration detention center in New Jersey. She’s not coming to Detroit,” Chantal says. She pauses and the corners of her mouth turn down. “They’re planning on sending her back to Haiti.”
I can see Pri and Donna watching me from a few feet away. Donna has hung up the phone. Her brows are furrowed and she bites her bottom lip. The same look is on Pri’s face.
I am quiet. Then I say, “What?”
She repeats what she said, but I only hear sending her back to Haiti over and over again.
If there were no blood vessels, no rib cage, no muscles holding up my heart to where it beats in my chest, it would’ve fallen out onto the floor.
I set my mother’s carry-on down on the floor. “If New Jersey is still in the United States, then we can go get her. We can explain everything and show them that her papers are good,” I say. My voice trembles.
Chantal shakes her head and puts her hand on my shoulder. “I don’t know if that’s how it works, Fabiola.”
Chantal steps away from me and talks to her sisters with her arms crossed. Her face looks as if she is carrying the weight of all our problems on her head. We make eye contact and she smiles a little. She comes over and takes my hand. “Come on, cuzz. Let’s go home.”
I don’t move.
I remember all those times in Port-au-Prince, standing in the open market or at an intersection waiting for my mother as the sun went down and it started to get dark and she still didn’t arrive. Even as the busy streets of Delmas began to empty out and no one but vagabon and MINUSTAH troops passed by on motorbikes and trucks, I waited.
And she always came. She’s never left me alone.
“Donna just spoke to Ma. She wants us to bring you home.”