The Case of the Wrong Cream and Echoes from Cape Verde and America

Flashback, 1948, New England Tiffany (Tiffany owed her name to her brother, Manuel, who thought it would be better for this last born child to have a more American-sounding name.), who had just turned three the previous month, was sitting on the old sofa with Serena, her sister who was five years older than she. Serena was patiently trying to show her how to tie her shoelaces, and Joana, who was one and a half years older than Tiffany, was watching and laughing, as she had learned to do that tricky job the year before. Tiffany kept pushing Serena's hands away, saying stubbornly, "I want to do it. Let me do it." Manu (the nickname by which Tiffany and her sisters called their big brother, the firstborn child) was sitting nearby in the old worn out armchair next to the sofa, pretending to read "Hamlet," since he was president of the Dramatics Club at the local high school, and was to play the role of the Prince of Denmark in the school play scheduled for the following scholastic year. Suddenly the door to their spacious five-room apartment opened. Pietro entered, his face even more pale than usual. He had been born on the island of Fogo, the largest island of the Cape Verde archipelago, and home for centuries to his people, and looked a mixture of Portuguese and Dutch, with dark auburn hair and dark gray eyes. His skin was so white that in the summer he never got tanned at all, but became bright red instead. Manu dropped his book, and looked fearfully up at his father. "She's dead," Pietro said with unbelief. Manu jumped up and ran from the living room, nearly crashing into the edge of the hallway wall and disfiguring his handsome face as he careened like a drunken man into his bedroom. He slammed the door and threw himself on his old iron-framed bed, never to be a teenager (He had just turned 18 that month.) again. That day, in that very moment, he left adolescence forever and became a man. Serena, trying to be brave in order not to frighten her sisters, tried to stifle her sobs. Joanna, no longer laughing, sat quietly, looking at her father with her wide-spaced dark eyes. Tiffany, after having taken one look at her father's stricken face, and not having understood his words, returned to trying to tie her shoelaces. Four beautiful people of Cape Verde origins, who were living in America, the land of the free. Four people whose lives had suddenly plunged into one of the worse tragedies imaginable for a family, the loss of a young mother. Four people who would have to get on with the business of living without dear, good, beautiful and strong Lara, heretofore the strongest member of their family unit.