Breath, Eyes, Memory

The next morning, Martine admits to Sophie that she is pregnant. She tells her that she cannot have the baby because she is still so haunted by her rape. Her nightmares continue and have even gotten worse, as she woke up once choking Marc and another pounding her own stomach. Sophie pleads with her to seek psychiatric help for her trauma and to have the baby, but Martine insists that it will only cause her more distress.

At the end of the chapter, Sophie contemplates just how bad her mother’s nightmares are. She considers how she herself had suicidal thoughts, and that her mother’s nightmares had been passed on to her. She watches Brigitte sleep and is hopeful that she will not have nightmares as well.

Sophie returns to Joseph the next day and he greets her happily, although he again expresses his displeasure at how she left him. She tells him that at “home” in Haiti, her grandmother was preparing for her funeral. Joseph calls attention to the fact that she never had referred to it as “home” before, typically calling her mother’s house in New York her “home.”

Sophie calls her mother, who admits that she had gone to try to have an abortion, but they told her she had to wait 24 hours. Martine says that all she can see when she looks at any man or thinks about her baby is the man who raped her.

That night, Joseph pushes Sophie to have sex with him. The entire time she thinks of her mother, and now that their relationship is mended, she wants to be there for her and ensure that she turns out okay. She thinks of the Marassa and considers how Sophie and Martine—in their suffering—are really “twins, in spirit. Marassas” (200). After Joseph finishes, she admits that she was fighting back tears the entire time. She goes down into the kitchen and eats all the leftovers from dinner, then goes into the bathroom to purge it all from her body.

Sophie attends a therapy session with two other women who suffered sexual trauma in their past—Buki, who experienced genital mutilation as a child, and Davina, who was raped by her grandfather for 10 years. The women repeat empowering phrases about how their past trauma allows them to better understand others’ trauma, and how their survival is a mark of how strong they are. They then burn the names of their abusers. Sophie leaves the session feeling as though she better understands why her mother did what she did, and how it is now her responsibility to end the trauma and ensure her daughter does not go through the same thing she did.

Sophie calls her mother, who tells her how much Atie has been suffering since Louise left. Sophie decides to write Atie a letter.

Sophie has an appointment with her therapist. They talk about Sophie’s visit to Haiti and the rekindling of her relationship with her mother. Her therapist pushes her to confront the feelings of hate she held for her mother, but Sophie is adamant that she never truly hated her. She says that she felt Martine was only trying to be a good mother, and that she wants to start fresh with her and not harbor any feelings of anger.

Sophie and her therapist also discuss Sophie’s attempts at sex with Joseph, which she calls her efforts to be “brave” and do her duty. She expresses her feelings that Joseph may leave her if she does not perform this duty and says that Brigitte is the only person she feels will never abandon her. Her therapist points out that these are the same feelings that Martine must have had for Sophie—that the pain she caused her was rooted in her fear that Sophie would abandon her like everyone else.

The therapist ends by suggesting that Martine continues to have nightmares and is struggling with her pregnancy because she was never able to truly face her rapist or “give him a face” (209). She suggests that Martine and Sophie return one day to Haiti to the cane field where her mother was raped and attempt to free themselves from the “ghosts” of their past.

Sophie and Joseph go to Martine’s house to meet Marc and have dinner. At dinner, Martine talks about religion and how much she enjoyed going to an African American church in Harlem and listening to their songs. Joseph explains that the songs are about being somewhere else—somewhere they are free.

When Sophie and Joseph return home, Martine calls Sophie to tell her that she has decided not to have her baby. She said that it “speaks” to her and has a man’s voice, and that she fears that it will have some remnant of the man who raped her.

In another session with her therapist, Sophie discusses her mother’s decision to abort her child. She explains that Martine is hearing the child speak to her and that it is saying awful things. Her therapist expresses her fear over what Martine is going through and stresses to Sophie that Martine needs professional help. If she will not seek help, she believes that Sophie should help her with an exorcism ritual to release the hatred and trauma from within her.

When Sophie returns home, there is a message from Marc telling Sophie to call him. She and Joseph wait all night before speaking with him. Marc tells them that Martine has died by suicide. She used a knife to stab herself in the stomach 17 times and said in the ambulance as she died that she could not have the baby. Sophie leaves to travel to New York while Joseph stays with Brigitte.

Sophie is angry at Marc over her mother’s death, saying that he should have found her sooner and that he knew how bad her nightmares were. At the same time, she blames herself, because she, too, knew of the nightmares, and because she feels partially responsible for her mother’s trauma as the product of her rape. From her mother’s closet, Sophie chooses a bright red dress for her mother. She realizes the color is inappropriate for a funeral, but she does not care.

After the funeral, which takes place in Haiti, Sophie runs into a cane field and begins angrily destroying the sugar cane as the others watch. Her grandmother asks her, “Are you free?” and Atie shouts, “You are free!” in response (233).

Sophie considers all the stories that she has been told, about mothers and daughters, animals, and the Haitian land. She contemplates how she is a product of all these stories, as well as a product of both the joy and the trauma passed down through generations.