ANBA LIMYE BLAN (beneath the white Light)

Ariella, 11th - New York, NY

Geraldine wakes before the sun. The small alarm clock on her nightstand glows 4:50 a.m, and the chill in her small apartment sinks into her bones like memory. She wraps her scarf around her hair, as she whispers a short prayer in Kreyol “Bondye, ba mwen fos pou jodi a. Pa kite mwen kraze.”(God, give me strength for today. Don’t let me fall apart.)

She slips into her worn out beige sneakers and steps out into the biting morning. Half of Brooklyn is still asleep, the streetlights flicker dimly, yellow, and weary. Casting shadows across the cracked sidewalk. Geraldine will soon step into the house where the lights are never tired. Where the ceiling lights glow, bright and clean. On the subway, she listens to a voice note from her eldest son in Fond-Verrettes: “Maman, yo tire sou lari anko, Nou pa soti depi twa jou. Manje ap fini.” (Mom, they shot in the street again, We haven’t gone out in three days. Food is running low) 

She closes her eyes. Her hands tighten around the cold metal pole as the train shudders forward. She sees their facades, her two children, through the glass of her mind. Small hands. Hungry eyes. Left behind in a country swallowed by violence and fear. 

At 7:00 a.m, she unlocks the brownstone door on the Upper West Side. She is immediately swallowed by the bright light. Not sunlight, but the white glow of carefully curated warmth: lamps, scented candles, and overhead fixtures that blur every hard edge of reality. It’s a different world there. 

Little Charlotte is already fussing. “Shhh, ti cheri,”( shhh my darling) Geraldine  whispers, lifting the small child into her arms, instantly the girl molds into Geraldine’s embrace.  Every day at seven on the dot once she arrives Charlotte is inseparable from her. Nobody can pry the child away from her beloved nanny. She reaches out for her, calls for her, and seeks her eyes first when she wakes up from a nap. It's Geraldine who knows which cry means hunger and which means fear. Sometimes she catches the mother watching. A look of conflictedness and unease flash across her face like a shadow. Maybe she knows. Maybe she resents it. That her own daughter reaches for the arms of her nanny before her. 

But Geraldine doesn’t hold pride in it. Only sadness because the bond formed comes with a price, two years from now Geraldine will get let go by the family and the child will forget about her, and she’ll care for a new child , it's all part of the cycle. 

She changes diapers, folds laundry still warm from the dyer, and prepares the baby’s food as instructed. Each spoonful she feeds Charlotte reminds her of her own, thousands of miles away, eating plain rice from a shared tin plate. 

The baby coos, smiles and falls asleep in her arms. The smell of cocoa butter and jasmine oil comforts little Charlotte as she drifts off to sleep. These are scents from home Geraldine refuses to give up. She wonders how her children are sleeping without the sweet scent of her smell to lull them off to sleep. When Charlotte is teething, it is Geraldine who rocks her through the pain. When she is sick, it is Geraldine who stays late, whispering prayers while wiping her runny nose. And when Charlotte's  parents return home, exhausted from meetings and luncheons, Geraldine steps back and becomes invisible again. 

By 6:00 pm, she’s putting on her coat. Charlotte cries as Geraldine gets ready to leave. Sometimes even clinging  to her leg. The mother and father try to distract the child, but the wail continues as the door clicks shut behind her. On the subway, her reflection stares back from the darkened window, brown eyes lined with fatigue and sorrow, scarf slipping, heart full of two worlds.  “Mwen pap bilye nou. Maman ap travay pou nou.” (I won’t forget you. Mama is working hard for you.) 

And tomorrow, she will do it again. Under the white lights. In that white house. Holding someone else’s baby while her children are oceans away, calling her name into the dark.