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“Do you love Jestine?” I had asked one day. He was a handsome man, yet still a child in many ways.

“Of course I do,” he said. “But Madame can never hear of it.”

“You’re going to let Madame Pomié ruin your life?”

Aaron had pushed me off the bed. “There are rules,” he told me. I was shocked to hear him say so. I thought of us as rebels, wandering the island, going where we pleased, even if it was something my mother had forbidden.

“You’re the one who will ruin your life if you don’t understand there are differences among us,” he told me.

After that I didn’t trust Aaron. I told Jestine a thousand times,
Don’t choose him,
but she said in love there were no choices and swore one day I’d find that to be true. I could not concentrate on my books or on the stories I wrote anymore. I listened to the moth that always tried to get into my room, and I wished I could fly with it across the ocean. Perhaps in the cold my heart would freeze and I would care nothing for those I was forced to abandon.

MY FATHER ESCORTED ME
to the Petit house on a Sunday afternoon when the church bells were ringing. There were mountains all around town, and many of the streets were steep. One had to climb up staircases made of ballast stones from ships that had docked at the island, for thousands of such stones were unloaded when the shipmasters picked up their cargo. The Petit home was up a winding twist of a road. The house was pretty, painted yellow with a large veranda. There were green shutters at every window that could be fastened shut when there was the threat of a hurricane. Egrets were fishing in a small pond nearby, a sign of good luck despite Jestine’s warnings. Egrets meant joy and happiness. I knew that much. I asked my father to fetch Monsieur Petit while I waited at the gate. I needed a moment to collect my thoughts. “Go on,” I said to my father. “It’s fine for me to wait on my own.”

“If you’re this bossy with him, he’ll likely cancel the wedding,” my father warned.

“If he doesn’t try to please me now, what will he do when he’s my husband?”

My father laughed, but he did as I asked. Standing there, I noticed egrets worked into the design of the iron fence. I wondered if Madame Petit had asked the ironworker for this pattern after watching the very birds I now spied in the pond.

I didn’t go forward until my father and Monsieur Petit came out. They were so much older I felt silly being young and inexperienced, but then I saw how tentative Monsieur Petit was and I felt my strength. I nodded a greeting, then asked if they would leave.

In the bright light Monsieur Petit looked worried and even older than he had on the evening we met. “But you don’t know the house.”

“You plan on marrying me, yet you have discomfort about me being in your house? Do you think I’m a thief?”

He laughed. “Not at all. It’s only that I wished to introduce you. For your comfort.”

I assured him that women spoke to children in ways men did not understand, or so Adelle had always told me. I said I was comfortable on my own and he could return in one hour. That was time enough. In one hour I would discover all I needed to know.

“And you don’t have to watch over me,” I teased my father. “If anyone was to do that, it would be Monsieur Petit.”

Isaac Petit looked startled. I think he was still in a dream, imagining that his wife might return to him. I saw that his posture was somewhat stooped, as if he carried sorrow on his back. All of this might have made another girl turn and run, but I had always been the sort of person to do my best no matter the situation. I went to the porch, where there was wicker furniture set out facing a long view of the harbor. The water was pale green in the shallows, turquoise in the deep. The sea changed color depending on the tides and the wind. I pried open the heavy mahogany door and slipped inside the house, where it was cooler, darkened against the summer heat with closed shutters and drawn curtains. Being inside was like drinking a glass of chilled water. I stood in the hallway and shivered, thankful to be cold.

The boys were clearly expecting a guest, for they found me in the hall fast enough. They had dressed formally for the occasion in white shirts and black trousers, their hair combed back with lavender water. They raced in and looked disappointed when they spied me lingering there.

“We thought our new mother was coming,” they burst out.

I could tell they thought I was a day woman, hired to help with the laundry. My clothes were plain and I was young. Not what they had expected.

“You can have but one mother in this world and no one can take her place,” I assured them.

When I asked for a tour, they showed me all the rooms they planned to show their new stepmother.

“Let’s run,” they said. “We’re usually not allowed.”

I laughed and chased them down the hall. I let them think I was the laundress; it was the best way to observe their true natures. The older boy, David, was outgoing and talkative. Samuel was the quieter one, who had green eyes, the color of the sea. There was a sadness sifting through him. He seemed older than his age, which was less than four, but I was soon reminded of how young he was. Sometime during the tour of the house, he took my hand, quite naturally. The truth was I liked the feel of his hand in mine, the heat and weight of it.

THE BOYS SHARED A
room. The window opened to a stand of banana trees. From here it was possible to watch the bats at night, for those creatures love this kind of fruit, opening the peels with their hands as if they were small people. I sat with the children on the bed and heard David’s stories of the bats he had seen—one that had red eyes, one that had pointed teeth, one as large as a cat that darted through the shadows to sit on the window ledge so it might peer inside the room, licking its lips. Samuel crept into my lap during this story. He shivered and kicked his feet. I leaned down and said, “Your brother is making up these stories. If he saw a bat as big as a cat it was indeed a cat. He was probably too sleepy to tell the difference.”

After that Samuel seemed calmer. I thanked the boys for showing off the house.

“It’s one of the prettiest on the island,” I said.

“Our mother made it that way,” Samuel told me.

When he let go of my hand, I felt empty. They went off to play, and I continued along the corridor so I might glance into Monsieur Petit’s room. It was very neat and clean, with a huge mahogany bed. There was white mosquito netting hanging down, held in place through a hook in the wooden rafters. The duvet was a pale mint green of very soft cotton. It seemed Monsieur Petit and his wife had slept together, for she hadn’t her own bedroom, as many married women did, only the nursery next door. I peered inside. The room was dark, and I wondered if I would see Madame Petit’s ghost if I reached out to her, for I knew I could call spirits to me so that they flickered over my palms.

Because of this, I kept my hands closed.

I suppose I was nervous about what she might say to me. What if she warned me away? What if she uttered a jealous curse?

I found my way downstairs easily enough. I wanted to see what else I would discover in this house that had held so much sorrow, perhaps a sign that would tell me whether I should stay or go. In the parlor there was a small piano, painted white. I ran my hands over the keys without making a sound. Then I listened to a bee, tapping against the window, struggling to get inside. I could spy the sea from this room, as green as Samuel’s eyes. Perhaps that was all the sign I needed.

The maid was in the kitchen, the baby in her arms as she cooked a soup for lunch. I could smell curry and chicken gravy. The maid had set out johnnycakes on a platter and was drinking a cup of steaming balsam bush tea. Hot food in hot weather, local people say. Such meals heat you up inside and then when you finish and put them aside, you feel cooler. I recognized the maid from the market—an African woman named Rosalie, who had always lived with the Petit family. Her accent was the same as ours, a rich Creole French. When she turned from the stove to see me standing there, she took a step away. The baby in her arms had golden hair and dark blue eyes, nearly violet in color. She waved her small hands at me. Perhaps this was another sign.

“May I hold her?” I asked.

The maid grasped onto her. “Maybe you’re a spirit,” she said, uneasy.

“I’m not. You know Adelle, who works for us. I’m Moses Pomié’s daughter.”

She wasn’t convinced it was safe to have me in the house. “You might have come to steal her.”

“I didn’t. I was invited to this house by Monsieur Petit.”

“He didn’t invite you to hold this child. As you can see, he’s not here. I am. So it’s my decision.”

I understood that if a person made a pledge to a ghost, she would fear being haunted if she failed to keep her word. I would have to win them both over, the maid and the spirit of the mistress of this house. I gazed at the stove. There was a heavy cast-iron pot, and the fragrance of the food was unmistakable.

“Curried lime chicken soup. That’s my favorite, I must say. I’d like your recipe.”

“I don’t give my recipes to strangers.”

By then we were speaking informally, as if we knew each other. “I’m not really a stranger.” I picked up a wooden spoon from the table. “May I?”

Rosalie shrugged, so I took a taste.

“I could never make a soup as good as this one.” Indeed, it was very good. But my compliment got me only so far. Rosalie was still wary, so I told her the truth about my visit. “Monsieur Petit has asked to marry me.”

She nodded. “I’ve heard so. Not that he mentioned it to me.”

“I’ll likely say yes.”

“You’re here due to love?”

We gazed at each other. I saw that very few lies could get past this woman. “Due to circumstance.”

“Because he won’t love you,” Rosalie informed me. She was a straightforward woman, not yet thirty. “Just so you have that clear in your mind. That won’t happen. He already loved someone.”

“Fine,” I said. At that time I didn’t care about love. I didn’t even believe in it, since it had never affected me.

Rosalie saw that I was studying Hannah. She was darling, so pretty she looked like a bluebell in a garden.

“She’s a very good baby.” Rosalie shifted the child in her arms. “Maybe you’ll spoil her.”

“I won’t. You won’t let me.”

Rosalie threw me a look. She knew what I meant. If I came to live here, I would keep her on. I would share the baby with her. She decided to let me hold Hannah. As soon as the child was in my arms, she gazed into my eyes as if we somehow knew each other.

“She doesn’t like strangers,” Rosalie said, “but she’s taken to you.”

I smoothed the baby’s hair. I felt something close to my heart. “Do you think you can love someone who doesn’t belong to you?”

Rosalie nodded. “I know that you can.”

MY HOUR IN THE
Petit house passed quickly. The sea had turned a darker green, and pelicans wheeled across the sky. When I left, only Monsieur Petit was waiting at the gate. He looked appealing from a distance, and I noticed that his suit was more elegant than most, presumably tailored in France. There I was in my cotton skirt and blouse, my hair unbraided. I felt like a child beside him as we met and shook hands. Parrots in the treetops called when we went up the hill. It was another good sign to see parrots nearby. The Danish government had sent over mongooses to kill the many rats that made their home around the wharves, but since rats were nocturnal, the mongooses had turned on other prey, attacking our parrots. Now there were fewer than a hundred left in the wild, mostly in the mountains, where the foliage was deep enough for them to hide from these predators.

As we walked on, I realized that I no longer considered this to be purely a business arrangement. I felt dizzy, and there was a lump in my throat. I had fallen in love, not with Monsieur Petit but with the children.

We were silent as we strolled through town, unpracticed in the art of conversation with one another. When we reached my parents’ house, Isaac Petit gently placed his hand on my arm. I didn’t shrink from his touch as I’d imagined I would.

“You didn’t give your opinion of the children. Were they well behaved?”

“Very much so. The maid has done well with them.”

“You will, too. Children need a mother.”

“I’ve already told them that children can have only one mother in this world. I would not dream to think I could take your wife’s place.”

Monsieur Petit nodded. I saw his grief pass over his face. “You will do well all the same,” he told me.

“I want Rosalie to continue on.”

“Of course. She’s always been with us, and you’ll need help.”

He was an agreeable man, more attractive than I had first thought. No wonder my predecessor had fallen in love with him, and slept in his bed rather than have a room of her own.

Throughout my life my mother hushed me whenever I tried to speak my mind, but if I kept silent now, I would never be able to be honest with this man, so I decided to say what another woman might keep to herself.

“When you think of the woman who is your wife, I will not expect you to think of me first,” I told Monsieur Petit.