Edwidge Danticat - Krik? Krak!

"When you are pregnant," Ma said to Caroline, "give your body whatever it wants. You don't want your child to have port-wine marks from your cravings."

Caroline went to our room and came back wearing her wedding dress and a false arm.

Ma's eyes wandered between the bare knees poking beneath the dress and the device attached to Caroline's forearm.

"I went out today and got myself a wedding present," Caroline said. It was a robotic arm with two shoulder straps that controlled the motion of the plastic fingers.

"Lately, I've been having this shooting pain in my stub and it feels like my arm is hurting," Caroline said.

"It does not look very real," Ma said.

"That's not the point, Ma!" Caroline snapped.

"I don't understand," Ma said.

"I often feel a shooting pain at the end of my left arm, always as though it was cut from me yesterday. The doc-tor said I have phantom pain."

"What? The pain of ghosts?"

"Phantom limb pain," Caroline explained, "a kind of pain that people feel after they've had their arms or legs amputated. The doctor thought this would make it go away."

"But your arm was never cut from you," Ma said. "Did you tell him that it was God who made you this way?"

"With all the pressure lately, with the wedding, he says that it's only natural that I should feel amputated."

"In that case, we all have phantom pain," Ma said.

When she woke up on her wedding day, Caroline looked drowsy and frazzled, as if she had aged several years since the last time we saw her. She said nothing to us in the kitchen as she swallowed two aspirins with a gulp of water.

"Do you want me to make you some soup?" Ma asked.

Caroline said nothing, letting her body drift down into Ma's arms as though she were an invalid. I helped her into a chair at the kitchen table. Ma went into the hall closet and pulled out some old leaves that she had been saving. She stuffed the leaves into a pot of water until the water overflowed.

Caroline was sitting so still that Ma raised her index finger under her nose to make sure she was breathing.

"What do you feel?" Ma asked.

"I am tired," Caroline said. "I want to sleep. Can I go back to bed?"

"The bed won't be yours for much longer," Ma said. 'As soon as you leave, we will take out your bed. From this day on, you will be sleeping with your husband, away from here."

"What's the matter?" I asked Caroline.

"I don't know," she said. "I just woke up feeling like I don't want to get married. All this pain, all this pain in my arm makes it seem so impossible somehow."

"You're just nervous," I said.

"Don't worry," Ma said. "I was the same on the morning of my wedding. I fell into a stupor, frightened of all the possibilities. We will give you a bath and then you lay down for a bit and you will rise as promised and get married."

The house smelled like a forest as the leaves boiled on the stove. Ma filled the bathtub with water and then dumped the boiled leaves inside.

We undressed Caroline and guided her to the tub, helping her raise her legs to get in.

"Just sink your whole body," Ma said, when Caroline was in the tub.

Caroline pushed her head against the side of the tub and lay there as her legs paddled playfully towards the water's surface.

Ma's eyes were fierce with purpose as she tried to stir Caroline out of her stupor.

'At last a sign," she joked. "She is my daughter after all. This is just the way I was on the day of my wedding."

Caroline groaned as Ma ran the leaves over her skin.

"Woman is angel," Ma said to Caroline. "You must confess, this is like pleasure."

Caroline sank deeper into the tub as she listened to Ma's voice.

"Some angels climb to heaven backwards," Caroline said. "I want to stay with us, Ma."

"You take your vows in sickness and in health," Ma said. "You decide to try sickness first? That is not very smart."

"You said this happened to you too, Ma?" Caroline asked.

"It did," Ma said. "My limbs all went dead on my wedding day. I vomited all over my wedding dress on the way to the church."

"I am glad I bought a cheap dress then," Caroline said, laughing. "How did you stop vomiting?"

"My honeymoon."

"You weren't afraid of that?"

"Heavens no," Ma said, scrubbing Caroline's back with a handful of leaves. "For that I couldn't wait."

Caroline leaned back in the water and closed her eyes.

"I am eager to be a guest in your house," Ma said to Caroline.

"I will cook all your favorite things," Caroline said.

"As long as your husband is not the cook, I will eat okay."

"Do you think I'll make a good wife, Ma?"

"Even though you are an island girl with one kind of season in your blood, you will make a wife for all sea-sons: spring, summer, autumn, and winter."

Caroline got up from the tub and walked alone to Ma's bedroom.

The phone rang and Ma picked it up. It was Eric.

"I don't understand it, honey," Caroline said, already sounding more lucid. "I just felt really blah! I know. I know, but for now, Ma's taking care of me."

Ma made her hair into tiny braids, and over them she put on a wig with a shoulder-length bob. Ma and I checked ourselves in the mirror. She in her pink dress and me in my green suit, the two of us looking like a giant patchwork quilt.

"How long do I have now?" Caroline asked.

'An hour," I said.

"Eric is meeting us there," Caroline said, "since it's bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding."

"If the groom is not supposed to see the bride, how do they get married?" Ma asked.

"They're not supposed to see each other until the ceremony," Caroline said.

Caroline dressed quickly. Her hair was slicked back in a small bun, and after much persuasion, Ma got her to wear a pair of white stockings to cover her jutting knees.

The robotic arm was not as noticeable as the first time we had seen it. She had bought a pair of long white gloves to wear over the plastic arm and her other arm. Ma put some blush on the apple of Caroline's cheeks and then applied some rice powder to her face. Caroline sat stiffly on the edge of her bed as Ma glued fake eye-lashes to her eyelids.

I took advantage of our last few minutes together to snap some instant Polaroid memories. Caroline wrapped her arms tightly around Ma as they posed for the pictures.

"Ma, you look so sweet," Caroline said.

We took a cab to the courthouse. I made Ma and Caroline pose for more pictures on the steps. It was as though we were going to a graduation ceremony.

The judge's secretary took us to a conference room while her boss finished an important telephone call. Eric was already there, waiting. As soon as we walked in, Eric rushed over to give Caroline a hug. He began stroking her mechanical arm as though it were a fascinating new toy.

"Lovely," he said.

"It's just for the day," Caroline said.

"It suits you fine," he said.

Caroline looked much better. The rouge and rice powder had given her face a silky brown-sugar finish.

Ma sat stiffly in one of the cushioned chairs with her purse in her lap, her body closed in on itself like a cage.

"Judge Perez will be right with you," the secretary said.

Judge Perez bounced in cheerfully after her. He had a veil of thinning brown hair and a goatee framing his lips.

"I'm sorry the bride and groom had to wait," he said giving Eric a hug. "I couldn't get off the phone."

"Do you two know what you're getting into?" he said, playfully tapping Eric's arm.