Breath, Eyes, Memory

Part 2 opens six years later, with Sophie at age 18 and about to begin college. She and her mother have moved out of the apartment and into a house, which Sophie notes even has a closet larger than most rooms in Haitian homes. She remarks how her mother has started growing hibiscus instead of daffodils and decorates mostly in red.

Sophie attends a middle and high school where French is the primary language, causing her to be ostracized by the English-speaking American children around her. As a result, the only man she meets is Joseph, who moves in next door to her and her mother. She describes him as “old like God is old to me, ever present and full of wisdom” (67)—though in fact he is the same age as Sophie’s mother. Despite Martine’s distrust of him, Sophie begins to fall in love with him, at first sneaking smiles and glances at him when they walk by, and eventually getting to meet him when he comes over to use her phone. She learns that he is a musician who lives most of the year in Providence but travels to perform.

Eventually, she begins to regularly visit him at his home and talks with him.