Tante Atie

Tante Atie, Sophie's aunt, raises her like a mother. Atie has never married, and carries the secret of a lost love: Monsieur Augustin, the village schoolteacher, once loved her, but married someone else. Illiterate and kind, Atie passes on folklore and family stories to Sophie, telling her that her mother left her in Haiti for a reason, that her mother loves her, but that circumstances out of her control led her to leave Sophie in Haiti for a while. By the end of the book her friend Louise, who may also be her lover, has taught her to read and write, and she is never without her notebook, in which she copies other writers' poems and writes her own. Despite the fact that she began this growth so late in life, she is a much stronger, more self-aware woman.

Martine Caco

Sophie's mother, who is recovering from...