Everything Inside

The unnamed narrator of “The Port-au-Prince Marriage Special” is a young woman living in and running a hotel in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, with her husband Xavier and their 11-month-old son Wesley. The hotel caters primarily to the foreign-born children of Haitians living abroad; Xavier’s goal is to expose these tourists to Haitian culture and politics, and to convince them to return to Haiti and help rebuild the country. The story begins when the couple’s nanny Mélisande tells the narrator that she has been diagnosed with AIDS. The narrator initially panics, wondering if her son has been infected. She then wonders if she should have intervened when Mélisande first started getting sick, or even earlier, when she noticed Mélisande seeking out older, foreign men for romantic and sexual relationships. The narrator decides to enlist Xavier to help Mélisande access healthcare as quickly as possible.

To the narrator’s relief, Wesley tests negative for AIDS. She takes Mélisande to visit a Canadian doctor, who provides two months’ worth of medication, although he criticizes Mélisande for refusing to admit she’d had sex. The narrator eats breakfast with Mélisande each morning in order to ensure she’s taking the medicine as prescribed. Mélisande gains weight and seems to be improving, but faces the frequent criticism of her mother Babette, who is a chef in the hotel.