I was nine. We walked to the station through streets that were still gray, past shuttered stalls and a dog asleep against a wall. By the time we arrived, the bus was already full, and she pushed me up the steps ahead of her. In one hand I held a plastic bag with two mangoes and the shirt. In the other, I held her sleeve, because I was sure that if I let go, Port-au-Prince would swallow her.

"Sit," she said, pointing to a space on a wooden bench between a man with a rooster and a woman selling bread. "I will stand."

She never sat during that whole trip. I remember being embarrassed and proud at the same time.

The bus pulled out with a groan. Inside, it smelled of sweat, fresh bread, and the sharp, sweet edge of the mangoes in my bag. Sacks of charcoal were stacked in the aisle, and someone had tied a goat's rope to the back rail. Every time the bus lurched, the whole crowd leaned together like one animal, then straightened again without a word.

The road to Jacmel curled through the mountains like a ribbon someone had dropped. On one side the hill rose in green walls; on the other, there was only air and, far below, a thin brown river. Every turn, the driver pressed his horn, and every turn, the rooster answered. By the third hour, the whole bus was laughing at it, even the driver. The bread woman wiped her eyes with the corner of her headscarf. Her little boy, who was about my size, kept looking over at my plastic bag.

Then the bus stopped. Not at a station, but in the middle of the road, with steam rising from the front like a kettle. The driver lifted the hood, looked inside, and said something that made the grown-ups groan.

Everyone climbed down. The men gathered around the engine and offered advice in loud, confident voices, none of which helped. The women moved into the thin shade of a mango tree. Somebody shared water from a plastic jug, passing it hand to hand, and nobody wiped the mouth of the jug. My grandmother stood a little apart, shading her eyes and studying the road in both directions, the way she studied the market before she bought anything.

We waited an hour. Then two. The sun climbed and the road shimmered. My mangoes were gone, shared with the bread woman's little boy, who had not stopped staring at them. I had cut them open with my grandmother's small knife, and the two of us sat in the dust with juice running to our elbows. Neither of us said a word. It was the best thing I ate that year.

"Come," my grandmother said at last. She took the bag and my hand. "We walk to the next village. Maybe someone has a truck."

"What about the bus?" I asked.

"The bus has made its decision," she said.

We walked for forty minutes. The road was stony and the heat came up through my sandals. They rubbed my heels raw, first pink, then angry, then bleeding a little at the back. I tried to walk differently, on the sides of my feet, and that was worse. When I finally started to cry, she did not tell me to stop. She knelt in the road, tied her scarf around my foot, and said, "Pain is a bad traveler. It always wants the front seat. Don't give it the front seat."

I did not understand then. But I stopped crying, because I was busy thinking about it. Where would I put the pain, if not in front? I decided, somewhere around the bend, that it could ride in the back with the goat.

At the village, a man with a blue pickup truck agreed to take us the rest of the way for a few coins. We rode in the back, sitting on a folded sack, with the wind in our faces, and my grandmother began to sing. Her voice cracked on the high notes. I joined her. Somewhere around the last hill, the sea appeared, a bright strip of silver at the edge of everything. I stopped singing for a moment just to look at it, and she kept going, softer, as if she did not want to disturb it.

We arrived in Jacmel after dark, twelve hours late. My aunt was waiting at the gate with a lantern, furious and relieved at the same time. She scolded my grandmother in fast words, then held her face in both hands. My grandmother let her. Then she turned to me, looked down at my foot still wrapped in her scarf, and for the first time all day, she sat. She lowered herself onto the step and let out one long breath.

For years, I remembered that trip as the day my feet hurt. Now I remember it differently. I remember a woman who stood for twelve hours so a child could sit, and who walked through the heat without once complaining. I remember that a journey is not ruined when the plan breaks. Sometimes the broken plan is the journey.

Franecia Joseph is a Haitian writer and psychology student based in Haiti. She is currently pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology at the Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences of the Université Notre-Dame d’Haïti. Her literary work explores memory, identity, silence, resilience, human relationships, and the psychological landscapes shaped by individual and collective experiences.

Her writing has received recognition in several literary competitions and publications in Haiti and internationally. Among her recent distinctions are the First Prize for “L’Éclat du Vieux Fer” at the 2026 Journées des Églises ouvertes, the Prix de la Francophonie awarded by the Société des Poètes Français for “La voix des Terres lointaines,” and the Grand Prize for Free Verse Poetry in the 2026 LPO Champagne-Ardenne / Grand Est competition.

She writes poetry and prose in French and English and is particularly interested in the ways ordinary experiences become carriers of memory and meaning. She also practices slam and oral poetry and continues to develop her literary work alongside her studies in psychology.

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