Timeline and Summary

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• Martine picks up Sophie from the airport in New York. Sophie thinks that she looks thin and unwell.
• She suffers from terrible nightmares and Sophie soothes her. She tells Sophie that she will not let her go again.
• Martine introduces Sophie to Marc and the rest of the Haitian-American community in Brooklyn. She tells her daughter that she must get a good education.
• She also tells Sophie that she may not have a boyfriend until she's eighteen, so that she focuses on what is important (i.e. bringing honor to the family).
• She asks Sophie if she is the mother that she'd been imagining.
• Martine tells Sophie the truth about how she was born. She thinks Sophie must look like the man who fathered her, since she doesn't look like the other Caco women.
• Martine works two jobs so that she can support Sophie and send money back home to her mother and sister in Haiti.
• When Sophie turns eighteen, she hooks up with their neighbor, Joseph. Martine is not okay with this.
• Martine finds out that Sophie has been fooling her so that she can date Joseph. She begins virginity testing her daughter on a weekly basis.
• When she finds that Sophie's hymen has been broken, she kicks her out.
• Martine refuses to answer Sophie's letters once her daughter has left home and is married.
• Once Joseph contacts her about Sophie's disappearance, she sends a cassette to her mother and sister in Haiti to tell them about it. She appears soon afterward.
• She helps her mother to plan her funeral (Ifé's funeral, that is) and tries to patch things up a little with Sophie.
• Martine tells her mother that she, too, wants to be buried in Haiti when she dies. Ifé tells her that she needs to be friends with Sophie to make that a reality.
• She has to explain to Sophie why she tested her virginity when it was such a humiliating thing to do.
• Back in the U.S., we learn what happened to Martine after Sophie left (i.e. burning her things in anger).
• But now she wants to be friends and invites Sophie to visit with her husband.
• She tells Sophie that she is pregnant with Marc's baby. She's pretty unhappy about it and is having frightening thoughts.
• When they talk on the phone later, it's clear that Martine is still torn about the baby. She wants an abortion, but feels guilty.
• Sophie, Joseph and Brigitte visit Martine and Marc in Brooklyn. Things seem good as the family reconciles—except that Martine is feeling worse about the baby.
• Martine tells Sophie that she hears her unborn child speaking to her in a male voice, and it's saying some horrible things. She's decided to have an abortion.
• Martine stabs herself to death in her house. Sophie dresses her in the brightest red outfit she has. Martine's body is sent to Haiti for burial.