Breath, Eyes, Memory: Chapter 23 Summary & Analysis

By morning, Tante Atie still hasn’t come home. Granmè Ifé is worried, and Sophie and Brigitte go outside with her to sit on the porch and wait for Tante Atie’s return. Eventually, Tante Atie and Louise come walking up the road. Louise goes into the yard, fetches the pig she gave as a gift, and walks away with it. Granmè Ifé explains that she told Tante Atie that if Louise did not come claim the pig, she’d kill it. Sophie offers to buy the pig, but Tante Atie warns her that any money Louise gets will bring her closer to taking a boat to Miami.

Tante Atie, whose calf has been bothering her, procures from her bag a jar of leeches. She applies them to her calf, and they suck the blood out of the lump on her leg. The outdated ritual makes Sophie dizzy and nauseous.

Sophie offers to make dinner that night, and Tante Atie tells Sophie she’ll take her to a smaller market where there’s less chance of violence. On the way, the women stop at a cemetery, where Tante Atie points out the graves of their ancestors. She explains that their family name, Caco, is taken from the name of a scarlet-colored bird whose feathers look like fire. At the market, Tante Atie’s inspiring story is contrasted by a dark one Sophie overhears about a woman who takes off her skin at night to fly away from home—but returns one night to find that her husband has peppered it so that she cannot put it back on. Eventually, the husband kills her.

Sophie cooks a large dinner, surprised by how her instincts take over and allow her to make the dish from memory. Granmè Ifé and Tante Atie both compliment Sophie on the delicious meal. After dinner, Tante Atie goes off to her lesson with Louise, and Granmè Ifé says she can hear footsteps on the road. She says the footsteps belong to a young woman who has been out with her boyfriend—she is on her way home to be tested by her mother. The words chill Sophie to the bone.

Sophie thinks about the “virginity cult” of Haitian mothers’ obsession with keeping their daughters pure. She remembers that her mother always listened to the sound of her urine hitting the toilet bowl—if it was too loud, it would mean Sophie had been “deflowered.” Sophie thinks of a story she once heard about a rich man who married a poor black girl, choosing her over prettier girls due to her virtue. He bought white sheets and a white nightgown for their wedding night so that he could display them the morning after—but during sex, the girl did not bleed. In order to maintain his pride, the man cut the girl between her legs—but the girl could not stop bleeding, and died. The man paraded her blood-soaked sheets during her funeral procession.

Sophie thinks back on her memories of being tested, and how she learned to “double” while her mother tested her—she fled her body, focusing on pleasant memories or dreams. Even after the testing ended, Sophie found herself continuing to double during sex with Joseph.

On the porch, Sophie confronts Granmè Ifé about the process of testing, and her grandmother explains that a daughter’s purity is her mother’s responsibility—a daughter’s disgrace ruins the whole family. Sophie asks why Granmè Ifé tested her daughters even though they hated it, and she says it was her duty. Sophie tells her grandmother that the testing is “the most horrible thing that ever happened” to her. Her grandmother tells her to have “patience”—soon Sophie’s struggles with her husband will go away.

Sophie brings Brigitte inside to put her to bed, and Granmè Ifé follows her. She tells Sophie that as a mother, she must understand that a mother does everything she does for a child’s own good, and must “liberate” herself from the pain her mother caused her. Moments later, though, Granmè Ifé confesses that her heart “weeps like a river” for the pain that generations of testing have caused Sophie.