The Farming Of Bones

Señor Pico Duarte, Señora Valencia’s husband, arrives and runs with joy to his wife and newly-born children. He names the boy Rafael after the Generalissimo. Señor Pico then dismisses Juana and Amabelle so he can be with his family. Juana and Luis sit down to have dinner together and Luis reveals that on the way home, Señor Pico hit and killed a pedestrian with his vehicle. Before the conversation can further develop, Doctor Javier and his daughter, Señorita Beatriz, arrive to check on the newborn twins. Shortly after their arrival, Juana is asked to stay the night and Amabelle is sent home. Señor Pico tells Señora Valencia that he has a new assignment in the military, but Señora Valencia is less than pleased with this advancement, as she fears it means Señor Pico will spend even more time away from her. Before Amabelle leaves, Papi corroborates Luis’s story and admits they may have killed a man and left him to die. At home, Amabelle reflects on her experiences playing in Henry I’s citadel as a child. Her reverie is interrupted by Sebastien, who walks in bloody and grass-stained and tells her that his friend and colleague, Joël, has been hit and killed by a car. He explains that he is helping Joël’s father, Kongo, make funeral arrangements. He leaves and Amabelle lays down to await his return. 

Amabelle describes the day her parents drowned. She was a child following them back from a shopping trip in Dajabon. They needed to cross over a river during a rainstorm. Despite her mother’s warnings, her father insisted it was safe. He decided to carry her mother across and come back for Amabelle. Her parents were quickly swallowed in the current and killed. Amabelle screamed and tried to commit suicide but was pulled back from the water by some nearby boys who had earlier tried to save her parents.