Krik? Krak!: In the Old Days

by Edwidge Danticat
In this short story collection, award-winning writer Edwidge Danticat explores everyday life in Haiti.

Here are links to our lists for the stories in the collection: Children of the Sea, Nineteen Thirty-Seven, A Wall of Fire Rising, Night Women, Between the Pool and the Gardenias, The Missing Peace, Seeing Things Simply, New York Day Women, Caroline's Wedding, Epilogue: Women Like Us, In the Old Days
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. raspy
    unpleasantly harsh or grating in sound
    Once these words were out of the way, the woman’s voice grew a tad more firm, raspy, but still confident, as she immediately turned to the logistical details.
  2. primal
    having existed from the beginning
    Instead I continued grading my students’ papers, which were not really essays, but my ninth graders’ initial—I had asked for primal—reactions to a piece of literature that they had voted on as a class to read.
  3. bawl
    cry loudly
    I saw parents announce to their bawling children that they were divorcing.
  4. disown
    prevent deliberately (as by making a will) from inheriting
    I heard women reveal to men that the children they’d raised were not theirs and elderly parents inform grown sons and daughters that they were disowning them.
  5. lavish
    characterized by extravagance and profusion
    Even her customers, offering lavish praise and seeking details about the food, could not get her to linger in conversation.
  6. patron
    a regular customer
    I felt most beautiful when my mother’s patrons complimented her on her beauty, because in the next breath, they would also say I looked like her.
  7. plait
    weave into a braided hairdo
    “He still chose a country over us,” she said, digging her fingers past her plaited braids into her scalp.
  8. foyer
    a large entrance or reception room or area
    The little bells kept chiming as I followed her through a dark foyer into the living room.
  9. ottoman
    a low seat or a stool to rest the feet of a seated person
    The living room decor was sparse, with a velvet brown pull-out sofa and a matching ottoman and a TV console...
  10. potent
    having a strong physiological or chemical effect
    This made me think that maybe the drink wasn’t as potent as I’d initially thought, so I poured myself another glass.
  11. noble
    having high or elevated character
    He had chosen a country over us, as my mother had said, because it was nobler to take care of hundreds than one, or hundreds and one.
  12. hospice
    a program of medical care for the terminally ill
    “I’ll just be a minute,” she said, after my father’s wife reintroduced her as his hospice physician.
  13. clad
    wearing or provided with clothing
    From the outline of his stiff, pajama clad body under the thin blanket, I could see that we were about the same height, though the illness might have shrunk him.
  14. frigid
    extremely cold
    I let my hands travel up the frigid railing of the hospital bed towards my father’s face, which when my fingertips grazed it felt as prickly and haggard as it looked and just as dead.
  15. haggard
    very thin, especially from disease or hunger or cold
    I let my hands travel up the frigid railing of the hospital bed towards my father’s face, which when my fingertips grazed it felt as prickly and haggard as it looked and just as dead.
  16. void
    an empty area or space
    In her flushed and swollen features, I could see the void that my father had left.
  17. covet
    wish, long, or crave for
    I was envying it, coveting it.
  18. midwife
    a woman skilled in aiding the delivery of babies
    In the old days when a baby was born, the midwife would put the baby on the ground, on a blanket, in front of the father’s feet, and it was up to the father to bend down and pick up the child and claim the child as his own.
  19. vigil
    the rite of staying awake for devotional purposes
    I sat down on the cot that was meant for my father’s wife, the cot where she must have spent many nights on both a vigil and a deathwatch.
  20. privy
    informed about something secret or not generally known
    An entire world seemed to be hiding there, a world I had never been privy to, a world I would never know.
Created on Tue Sep 11 14:34:38 EDT 2018 (updated Tue Sep 11 14:50:46 EDT 2018)

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