Robin struggled to breathe. The humidity was suffocating. Her feet were anchors keeping her at attention while her body swayed back and forth with the breeze. It was time for school inspection. She smoothed out the front of her white blouse hoping the housefather wouldn’t notice. It was the same white blouse she wore yesterday. The sun was so bright. It was beating down on her, closing in on her.

The other girls weren’t lining up for inspection. Somewhere down the dark tunnel of reality she could hear them crying. Their bodies were casting moving shadows on the side porch floor. Her heart was racing, beating to a tribal rhythm from within. The moving shadows seemed to dance around her, taunting her. Everything was spinning.

Robin diverted her gaze to Pedro the goat. He was tied to a wooden post in the front yard, chewing…always chewing. The mountain smelled like grass. There was a freshness to the air up here in the hills of the Dominican Republic. It was a vastness, a cleanliness, a purity that was missing in the capital where a new repulsive odor invades you every ten paces.


Robin filled her lungs. She loved how the grass smelled. It motivated her each day when she and the other girls had to cut it with a machete. It was tall and reed-like, not at all similar to the thin, delicate strands in her American yard back home. Chopping it down with a machete was a circular task that was never complete. By the time she reached the end of her section, the beginning needed cut again and the cycle would start over, as most cycles do.

Where were the other girls? Her gaze trolled the porch pausing at each of their faces. Frail Anna was weeping and clinging to stout Abigail who was petting Anna’s hair and cradling her like a child. Anna was wailing uncontrollably. Abigail looked like a freight train with angry steam bellowing upward. She looked like she might explode, or implode; Robin didn’t know her well enough to know which way she’d go.

In her six months of living here, Robin had never witnessed such chaos. Everything was always so orderly, but now it had all come unraveled at the seams. Robin gulped hard and fought off another bout of nausea. Why was everything spinning? Robin hoped she wasn’t coming down with typhoid like Agnes did last month. She had been taken away by the doctors and they never saw her again. She had to focus.

She turned her attention back to the girls on the porch. Anna was sniffling now and wiping her swollen eyes. She wouldn’t look at Robin but Abigail glared at her with squinty eyes that flashed with warning. Robin looked away. What reason does she have to be so angry? I’ve never said an unkind word to her. I’m the one who should be angry. The more Robin thought about the events of that morning, the more certain she became. It was herself who held sole title to the rights to be angry. If she could stand here in formation, ready for school, there was no reason why these other girls couldn’t pull themselves together and get in line.

Where was David? She was starting to panic. David would be furious that the girls were scattering. What would he do? Robin felt a knot taking grip on her stomach. It threatened to double her over but then a thought entered her mind that washed her with a calm she hadn’t felt in months. She was standing right where she was supposed to be. David was sure to reward her point sheet today. This was her chance to show leadership. When David sees her following procedures in the midst of all this commotion he would finally be impressed. He would see her potential.

She scanned the scene of tormented faces and found his, towering above the rest. She straightened her shoulders and forced herself to stand a little taller. He was talking on the phone right beyond the glass doors that led inside. He was talking as much with his hands as he was into the phone, making wildly exaggerated gestures. Every few seconds he snapped his head toward the porch and watched all the girls falling apart, everyone but her. He looked scared and something inside Robin relished the sight. Robin plucked a piece of lint from her navy blue uniform pants.

Then his eyes found hers. She could see the rage inside him, flames that had consumed him. The muscles in his jaw clenched and unclenched as he stared into her. There was no mistaking the contempt he had for her. It was hatred in his eyes.

Robin let her shoulders slump. She knew David wouldn’t give her any points for being in formation on time. There was no longer any reason to stand at attention. Her body gave way to gravity and she sat down on the sidewalk right beside the porch.

A small bird, her name’s sake, landed on the wrought iron railing bordering the west side of the porch. Its head made small, quick movements as it watched one girl and then another. It fluffed its feathers and sang forth such a sweet melody that Robin was sure the world has paused for a moment. It was as if the bird was somehow trying to restore balance to the despair playing out before him.

Robin drew her knees up to her chest. She buried her head in her arms and squeezed her eyes shut. She willed the porch to stop spinning, the shadows to stop dancing around her. The bird’s flute-like soprano carried her away, a captive to the memories of the morning.

* * * * * * * * * *

Robin Gale had been frantic to complete her task on time. She plucked the rubber stopper from the drain and dried the Formica countertop she’d already dried half a dozen times. She hated the little black and gold speckles under its surface. They made her second guess the cleanliness of her job. It was easy to mistake those speckles for slight particles of dirt or food. Mornings were always frenzied. She listened to the sink gurgle down the dirty water as if it were contemplating regurgitation. There were only a few minutes left and Robin’s impatience had grown rabid. Her waking hour had found her overwrought with the notion that today would somehow be set apart from her usual disappointing routine. She felt like one more failed house job would be enough to crush her hopeful spirit.

Her life was a stark contrast to the dreams of freedom and gracefulness her parents had envisioned when they named her after a few stanzas of a much loved poem by Emily Dickinson.


"Hope" is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops — at all –

And sweetest — in the Gale — is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –


Ironically, when Robin’s ideas about what constitutes womanhood took on a flight pattern of their own, her parents sent her to be reformed. She now lived in a world filled with point sheets and level systems. Her parents were determined that she conform to the standards of lady-like conduct befitting of their class.


The campus of Escuela de Mejoria was built into the tropical mountainsides a mile north of the small village of Jarabacoa. It was a Dominican village of only a few dozen families on the island of Hispaniola. It was a private, American owned campus accommodating forty students and forty staff. The students were primarily upper-class teenagers whose rebellious and unorthodox behaviors had become too burdensome for their parents to contain. For a large sum, the founders "will teach the troubled youth of today’s generation about respect, responsibility, and integrity using a challenging and demanding sequence of character building experiences," or so read the brochure.

There were four houses on campus. Each could board ten girls and two houseparents. Teachers, group leaders, and other faculty (mostly Americans) shared apartments on either side of the entrance gate. An escape attempt would be unlikely.


"Excuse me, David; may I please enter the kitchen?"
"Yes." It was always a monotone answer.

Her question was an echo of noise ricocheting off the same painted concrete walls as all the similar questions being shouted with urgency by the nine other girls she lived with. Apparently, having to ask permission to step from room to room would teach them submission to authority and help deter them from trying to run away, though Robin couldn’t understand why anyone would think of running away whilst living on an island. What were they supposed to do, swim back to America? Or maybe they were afraid we might cross the border into Haiti? As if the probability of being sold into sexual slavery and prostitution was somehow worth the risk to get away from having to do chores and continually bide your tongue. It was insulting to Robin to know the adults thought them to be so brainless.

Was life back home really that much better? Isn’t that exactly what they expect us ladies to do in America? Ripen and bring forth a crop of healthy babies and tend to the cooking and cleaning…all the while holding our tongues so we won’t give off the appearance of being too educated or too friendly with the hired help. Sometimes Robin felt as if the whole world had gone mad and she was teetering on sanity’s edge waiting for the gust of wind that would blow her either frith or froth.

Robin hurriedly wiped the metal pipes under the sink before soaking up the puddle of cold water that was always underneath them. There must not be anything there when the housefather swipes his hand under the pipes or he would deduct points. Scoring a one would mean having to run the horrendous Casita Run and scoring a zero would mean having to run two of them. Casita is the Spanish word for "little house" and the Casita Run was named after the little house at the top of the paved path that slithered and twisted from the entrance of the school to the top of the campus. It’s duration at such an altitude was infamous for inducing vomit or fainting spells. A fate the girls would exhaust themselves to avoid.

Sometimes the cleaning towels got too wet and left moisture tracks behind. Housefathers didn’t like to get their hands wet so Robin often used her t-shirt to immaculate her area. Most of her shirts had been worn transparent near the bottoms and were now freckled with small holes so she had taken to using her skirts to wipe underneath the sinks. When she crouched down and lunged like a urinating pup, she could use her skirt to clean the floor without showing anything more than calf muscles.

She was straining forward to reach the back wall where condensation likes to gather when a perfect square of clean, dry terrycloth landed at her heels. She turned just in time to see Twila wink at her. Twila was from the south and was the daughter of an impressive tobacco plantation owner. Her father didn’t approve of her wasting her charitable nature on the blacks he hired so he desperately sent her to reform school in hopes that she might become civilized. Twila was always doing nice things for the other girls when she could. Taking on the maternal role in the house had given her purpose enough to get through the program. Robin mouthed a quick thank you and returned to her cleaning.

There were twenty five graded categories each day, most of which were scored by the housefather, David. Everything was fair game. Responding promptly, courtesy and respect toward others, and keeping a neat a clean personal appearance were all subject to housefather interpretation. House jobs, room jobs, work time, and school time all brought their own scores. Every minute of the day was scrutinized. One small misjudgment or bad decision would likely have an adverse effect on at least a half a dozen boxes on the point sheet for that day.

Each category could earn, in theory, zero to five points. However, no one earned five points. Perfection was unattainable. It was the elusive, dangling carrot pushing the girls toward destination home. Weekly points were added up to achieve levels (also zero through five) and one's quality of life was completely dependent upon which level one had achieved. One vile swipe of the housefather’s hand would pluck her hopeful heartsong from its nesting place.

At the end of every day each student would run their accumulated casitas with the housefather timing each run from the front porch. Twila would often petition David to allow her to run alongside the lower ranking girls to offer them encouragement and support. She always managed an incurable perkiness, chattering away while she ran. Robin hoped, as she continued to perfect her chore, that today wouldn’t be a chattering casita day.

Robin remembered the first week she arrived. Magdalene House looked too small to board ten girls. She couldn’t believe her parents were going through with it. Somewhere in the depths of herself she had clung to the irrational idea that her parents were pitching their most intricate bluff thus far. Even aboard the ship she had convinced herself (though not quite entirely) this was a vacation of sorts to test the waters of her migration. They just wanted to see how long she would continue to fly south. Bringing her here was like the first sign of spring, and as such was certain to induce her journey homeward.

Surely her parents wouldn’t leave her stranded on some underdeveloped island with forty fanatical strangers amidst an “uncivilized” culture. Wasn’t that the very thing they were trying to nudge her away from? She couldn’t understand why being in love with Mabili was so unthinkable. He was as benevolent as sacrifice and as compassionate as charity. His arms were as strong as his work ethic. He was as smart as he was wise, and unlike her father, Mabili treated her with respect. It’s so hard to understand why two people who’ve spent their whole lives arguing with each other and trapped within a loveless marriage would bequest their only daughter to willingly undergo the same miserable entrapment. If they loved her wouldn’t they want her to be happy? Shouldn’t they be joyful to see their daughter in love with a kindly man? Would they be throwing such a big fit if her suitor had the wrong hair color or eye color? Is skin more important than hair or eyes? Does not a painting need more than one shade to feel complete? Robin didn’t care how long it took to get through this school; she was determined to get back home to him. She would never give him up and she knew he would wait for her. Love is a verb without pigment or hue. Love is an oil that no amount of turpentine can dilute.

As quickly and quietly as Twila had dropped the cleaning towel for Robin to use, she now scooped it up and whisked it away. She turned over her shoulder and smiled at Robin. They had a special bond. Twila knew what it was like to love a black man. She had went against her father and loved outside her race. It had been a secret sin that ended with the sound of her father’s shotgun. His crime went unpunished and Twila became a resident of Escuela de Mejoria.

Robin was thankful to have someone like Twila here that could relate to her lost love, but she was even more thankful Mabili was still alive. For all her parents’ faults, at least they didn’t kill him. Her parents said they brought her here because they loved her, but they brought her here because they love themselves and their own way of life. They’re afraid of anything outside the comfort zone of their snug little gossip circle. Their flighty Robin was making waves where little birds shouldn’t play. Robin had made up her mind. She would play their game. She would get through this program’s regimen and return to Mabili. She would save herself for him alone as he too had pledged himself to her before she left.

Robin ripped her t-shirt from the bottom until she had completely torn off a nice sized dust rag. She stood on her tiptoes and used the torn cloth to dust the metal slats that covered the window above the sink. She dusted with the slats open, from top to bottom so as to make sure to get all the fallen dust from the slats above. Then she wrapped the make-shift dust rag tightly around her index finger and closed the slats. Each slat had a groove all along the front edge that was easier to clean when the slats were closed. Robin stuck her finger inside the top groove and ran it the entire length of the slat. She looked at her finger and wrinkled up her nose. She didn’t understand how these slats could get so filthy when she dusted them every morning. While she worked her way from top to bottom, wiping her covered finger on her skirt now and again, her mind drifted back to the night she left home.

She had wanted Mabili to take her that night, to take all of her, but he wouldn’t. He wanted to give her a wedding first. He had become familiar with her customs and wanted to honor her traditions as a gesture of his love for her. He told her of his plans to work twice as hard while she was gone to save up for their wedding. He told her gently that her parents would never approve of them. She knew he was right. He even came up with a way to skip the part of the ceremony where her father would normally walk her down the aisle and give her away. Having to walk down the aisle alone would only cause her pain, he said, so he wanted her permission to have them walk through opposing arbors toward each other with their bridesmaids and groomsmen behind them. The arbors would represent the turbulence they’d passed through to be together. They would stand facing only each other with both arbors and turbulence behind them. She relished these memories during the stressful days at this oppressive school. They were the thread that kept the patchwork of her mind in tact.

"Excuse me, David; may I please step onto the back porch?" Robin knew there were only a few minutes left.

"Yes." It was often impossible to determine who the housefather was answering but Robin was willing to risk it. Better to play dumb later than be late now. Robin stepped onto the back porch, slung the dripping wet cleaning towel onto her clothes line and secretly prayed that the housefather wouldn't check the towels today. All housefathers were different and each one would check distinct parts of the task on particular days. The towels were supposed to get wrung out by putting them between two rollers while turning a crank. The rollers pulled the towels through while squeezing all the water out of them, but there was no time for that today.

"Excuse me, David; may I please step into the kitchen?" Robin knew she was down to precious seconds.

"Yes," more dry monotone.

She raced down the narrow kitchen to the double industrial sinks she knew so well. These were her sinks. Being the dishwasher was the house job none of the girls wanted and consequently was always awarded to the lowest ranking girl in the house. Robin had been the lowest ranking girl in Magdalene House for six months. The girls were allotted thirty minutes to complete their house jobs each morning before school. Being the dishwasher meant that all the dishes for twelve people had to be done before you could begin to immaculate your station. In addition to that loss of time, it was the job with the grimiest and largest surface area to clean. Furthermore, the dish washer, along with the dryer, had to do their house job three times a day instead of just once. This meant less time for homework or writing letters home, two responsibilities that had transformed themselves into privileges among the daily line-up of laborious duties the girls had to endure. Sometimes Robin felt like she would never get off zero level, much less see home again. She could relate more than ever to the way people treated Mabili. They would try to intimidate and dehumanize him, creating unrealistic expectations to allow for their mistreatment of him. Having to ask permission to enter a room, being treated like a possession, and forced to work with very little pay helped her to feel a deeper connection with him. Their hearts were like radar, sending out pings to each other that spanned the great distance. This experience was supposed to wake her up and guide her away from Mabili, but it had only succeeded in half its mission. It woke her up alright, to the prideful cruelty of her own race and to the pricelessness of a humble heart. Every day she spent here only solidified her resolve.

Robin used what was left of the bottom of her t-shirt to sop up some last minute moisture discovered around the drains in the sink. "Please, please, please...” It was her mantra. It was all she could think each morning in those last few seconds before the whistle blew.

Then the familiar scream of the housefather's whistle sent nine hopeful and anxiety-laden teenage girls into the bedroom for the fifteen minutes allotted to prepare for school and report to the side porch for inspection.

"Excuse me, David; may I please enter the bedroom?" Robin waited for permission while all the other girls who didn't need sanction to enter the bedroom brushed and bumped their way past her. The bedroom didn't have an exit to the outside so only girls on zero level had to seek permission to enter it, and as of now Robin was the only girl on zero level. David was probably checking jobs already and didn't hear her.

"Excuse me, David; may I please enter the bedroom?" She said it a little louder this time and with much less patience turned to look for him. The shock of finding his chin a centimeter away from her nose made her gasp involuntarily. She looked upward to his gray eyes but found something in his gaze that stole the swallow from her throat. His eyes were hollow, empty. They reduced her to paralysis. She had never seen him look this way before and she wondered if she had been on zero level longer than all the other girls combined. Perhaps her insolence would be enough to frustrate any housefather. Perhaps he could sense her insincere submission and recognized her brazen mask for the guise that it was.

"You have passing permission.” David said “Follow me. You need to fix our little problem." Robin followed him to the back porch silently praying that he hadn't discovered the dripping towel, that there was some other explanation. The moment Robin stepped onto the back porch she felt the cold puddle of water invading her already tattered shoes and soaking into her only dry pair of socks. She knew it was useless to make excuses at this point. She reached up to take the towel off her clothesline with the intentions of wringing it out, when she realized he was standing so close to her heels that she could feel his breath on her neck. The little hairs residing there became needles in formation. There was no telling how long he might stand there trying to intimidate her, so she stood still like the obedient pet her parents could be proud of and gave herself over to wandering thoughts. "Why isn't he saying anything? Oh well, he can yell at me all he wants to, he's still not allowed to touch me. On the other hand, it was so much faster to be spanked by my parents than to have to go through all this crap every day. I can’t believe these creeps are supposed to be teaching me about respect. How are we supposed to learn respect through being disrespected? I'm never going to be ready for school inspection now. How is anyone supposed to get off these levels when..." that was the last thing Robin remembered thinking.

Her mouth was covered with the warm, lotion-scented palm of a masculine hand. Her face was pressed into the biting concrete wall. Its cold surface usually provided the girls with a second or two of relief on a hot day. They’d lift their shirts and allow their backs to momentarily lie against the wall. This time the bitter wall offered no consolation, only the coarse knobby trauma of begrudging abrasions. Its deliverance was in remission. This couldn’t be happening. Her eyes frantically followed the cracks in the concrete as if they’d lead her to a way out. She fixated on the deep gorge along one of the crevices and her mind indulged the illusion that she could crawl inside it to the safety and shelter of its sanctuary. But each time she sought refuge in the warmth of its mercy, one drop of dish water would dive from her towel and shock her back to reality. Drip. She could feel the diamonds inlaid in his loose wedding band engraving their painful impression on her chin. She tried to turn her head but in an instant her whole body was sandwiched between the dank wall and the massive shoulders of the man behind her. Drip. Fingernails scratched at the insides of her thighs. They hungered for the cotton barrier standing between them and their feeding. Drip. She cringed at the ripping sound of fabric and saw what used to be her panties land in the puddle at her feet. Drip. Without speaking a word the man entrusted to build her character crammed himself into the only part of her that had still belonged to her. She couldn't stop herself from screaming but his hand was so big her muffled cries went unheard.

"You've been here for six months. Dripping towels cause puddles of water. Puddles of water cause slippery porches and that could cause someone to fall and get hurt,” he panted. “You wouldn't want anyone to get hurt would you, Robin?" It wasn't uncommon for the housefathers to raise their voices to the girls when they were disobedient so when his panting climaxed into a sudden moan, the other girls were certain to translate it as frustration. Cloaked in the backdrop of his rebuke, her violation would be invisible. The girls upstairs would only think he was reproaching her for a poorly done house job. Mabili would be the only one who would notice. He would see the change in her immediately. It would kill him. He would be devoured by his hatred toward the white man. She could not bear to ruin his gentle spirit. Burning tears fell like hail from boiling anger clouds and Robin closed the part of her soul that had ever wanted to be loved. The radar screen went black. Suddenly, her whole life became about those eight minutes and she vowed to never pray again.

"You have six and a half minutes until school inspection." he said dryly before he pushed her through the doorway and exhaled.

"Excuse me, David, may I please enter the bedroom?" her voice crackled and she tried to maintain her composure in front of the other girls.

"Yes." This time there was a hint of mockery in his monotone.

Robin tore her clothes off and put on her dirty uniform from the day before. There was no time to take clean clothes off hangers or undo buttons. There was no time to wash away the hidden blood. There was no reason to look in the mirror while she pulled her curly hair back into a ponytail. She wouldn't have been able to see through her tears anyhow.

"Sweetheart, you've gotta stop feelin' sorry for yourself and try harder on your house job or you aint' never gonna get outta here. Twila was the mother hen among the girls. She was on third level and was allowed to give the low-rankers suggestions and advice. "You gotta stop cryin' and pull yourself together. Don't you wanna graduate and go home?"

"For what?" Robin replied. It wasn't so much a question as it was surrender.

"For your future, girl. Don't you wanna wear make-up and perfume again?" She let out a light, dreamy sigh. "Don't you wanna meet some charming and handsome man that'll take one look into your eyes and forget all about the other skirts he was chasin'? Don't you remember ice cream and root beer? I heard what David said to you out on the porch. Someone coulda got hurt out there. You’re real lucky David found that towel before one of us got hurt. "

The truth was that Robin never wanted to wear make-up or fragrances again. The thought of men looking at her and smelling her perfume unleashed a monster within her. She could feel her muscles tighten and especially in her hands and arms. She wanted to strangle David with her bare hands and at this moment, trapped inside this rage, she felt like she could do just that. She kept thinking about the cold concrete wall outside and the puddle of water that had been at her feet. She remembered all the cracks in the wall and especially the one with the cave-like pit that held out its arms and stood there watching. She felt herself start shaking. She saw flashes of his wedding ring and smelled the pungent mint on his breath. Someone could get hurt he said…someone could get hurt. She screamed upward to whatever gods might be listening, a primal vow to avenge. Every muscle within her became the vice to crush her fury. She couldn’t stop herself from shaking. She was no longer teetering on sanity. An explosive gale sent her stormy heart plunging into the depths of decision. She could feel the other girls staring at her. Their screams jolted her back into reality and she knew they were the final call for school inspection.

"I'd better hurry." she thought and relaxed her grip. She managed to stand up on numb legs and wonder without expression or animation how sweet little Twila had died.

* * * * * * * * *

The bird was still singing on the wrought iron rail. Robin opened her eyes. Nothing about the morning warranted singing. She picked up a rock and threw it at the bird. It flew away. Finally a moment of peace. Robin walked over to where the bird had been perched and looked down over the railing down into the yard. This time it was the banana trees casting moving shadows on the ground. The world started to spin again. Robin turned toward the porch to catch her bearings.

David came barreling through the doorway and was headed straight toward her. His footsteps were thunderous earthquakes. Everything was shaking and spinning. The bird started to sing again. Robin faced the yard and looked toward the song. The tempo increased and the pitch grew sharp. The bird started flapping his wings. Robin was sure the little fellow wanted her to follow him. She glanced over her shoulder in time to see David reaching out a burly arm in her direction. Quickly she turned and hopped over the rail. For a fraction of a stretched-out second she soared through the air with the freedom of her name. Pedro was still chewing the grass she loved to smell. She was free and her broken body lay crumpled on the front lawn for the entire school to see.

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