Chevelle's Story

chapter 12

By the time Chevelle got home, it was early evening; her mother and Farah were in the kitchen cooking dinner while Jared and Josephe watched a movie in the living room. As soon as she saw everyone, Chevelle's throat closed up. She had been ready to barge in and make her demands known to her family members, but now that she was actually here, in front of them, she just couldn't do it. Certainly not with Jared in the room.

"Chevelle, bonswa," Nadègine greeted her, loud and cheery.

Chevelle gritted her teeth, hating the way her mother always managed to bring all the attention to her when she least wanted it. Chevelle sighed as she felt the eyes of Jared, Josephe, and Farah all land on her.

"Bonswa, Manman," she said quietly, giving Farah a quick nod and not daring to look over at the living room. "Where's Papa?"

Her mother pointed upstairs. "In our room. Why?"

"I just want to talk to him," Chevelle said, turning around and heading up the stairs before anyone else could say something that kept her down there a moment longer.

In a way, Chevelle was kind of happy everyone had been downstairs, because now she and her father could be alone. Her father was the one person Chevelle felt might understand where she was coming from; aside from Farah, he had always been the family member who understood her best. And since Farah was clearly not the one to talk to about this issue, he was her best option.

She knocked on his room door, and a few seconds later heard a faint, "Kiyès sa?"

"It's me," she said, opening the door and stepping into the bedroom where she found her father hunched over his desk, squinting at some papers.

"Bonswa," he murmured, not looking up from the desk as Chevelle closed the door and approached him.

"Bonswa," she greeted.

She sat at the edge of his bed, waiting for him to set down his papers. A few moments passed and he didn't make any move to acknowledge Chevelle further, so she cleared her throat. "Papa, do you have a moment?" she asked.

"For what?"

"I wanted to talk to you about something."

Now her father looked up from his desk, peering above his glasses at Chevelle. When he laid eyes on her, he could immediately see the distress etched into her brow, and this troubled him because out of all Antony Etienne's children, Chevelle had always been the most easygoing.

Ever since she was a child, Chevelle had been one to just take life as it was given to her, never worrying too much about the 'what ifs' or the roads untraveled. Sure, she had her own personal desires, but they had never been strong enough to make her doubt the divine path she was on.

For example: Chevelle had always had very good grades—much better than her siblings—and when she finished primary school, they planned for her to attend a boarding school in West Haiti for her secondary education. Chevelle knew how many doors this would open in her life and she was beyond excited for the opportunity, but in September, right before she was meant to leave, they found out that the scholarship they had been counting on didn't come through.

Without a scholarship, her family was unable to pay the tuition fees, and so Chevelle continued on to the poor, rundown secondary school that Josephe attended. Unlike Antony and Nadègine had expected though, she didn't complain about it. She didn't see the point since, complaints or not, what was done was done. Instead, Chevelle decided to make the most of her situation. She taught some of the girls in her class how to weave their own raffia cloth bags and before long, they were getting together every day after school to make these bags which they then sold at Marassa market, using the profits to buy textbooks, notebooks, and pencils for all the students in their class.