If I am a goody-goody, Sonja is pragmatic. “Come on,” she says and plunges down the trail, and I follow as I always do.

We are edgy enough to sing — noise an inoculation against the snakes drawn to our disobedience. Children’s books have taught us what happens to those foolish enough to disobey their parents.

It is a bright day, and then it isn’t. A canopy of leaves mutes the sun and though it is the dry season, the air is cool and damp. The ground holds its own moisture and gives off a loamy scent of here and home that I will carry with me like a puzzle piece. It is the smell of crushed leaves, lemon grass, pods, and earth and something else. I will later breathe in this smell and then, only then, will I know I am back.

Somewhere on the trail, I elbow past my sister, anxious to prove I am small, but not slow. I hold arms out, part branches that swing shut behind me. The bush vibrates with insects, and a rattle in the elephant grass can be heard for several paces. Our feet are clad in flip-flops, the worn rubber slapping our heels as we walk. Grass scratches at our calves, and our steps perturb locust, which leap from one blade to another. They are large, and their sudden movements startle us. It is a delicious fear. A chance mamba gives drama to what would be just a random walk on a random day. We are edgy enough to sing — noise an inoculation against the snakes drawn to our disobedience. Children’s books have taught us what happens to those foolish enough to disobey their parents. They burn a hole in their mother’s favorite dress, eat all their Halloween candy and get sick.

At the top of the hill, my mother reaches into the washing machine and pulls out damp clothing. She is pleased to snatch these moments away from us. She carries the basket outside. She is humming, always humming. As she clips a pair of jeans to the clothesline and leans down for another, she looks before she grabs. A snake once appeared in this plastic basket — jeans, then sheets, then coiled viper.

My mother had then used a stick to pluck each item from the basket. She picked around the snake, like it was a bit of avocado she didn’t want to eat. Our water came from the rain barrel, the supply dependent on afternoon showers. It had not rained in days, and there was not enough water to rewash the clothes. She pulled out everything except a dishtowel, then she killed the snake with the jimbe, teeth gritted as the blade swept the air.

My mother now moves down the clothesline, pinning sheets and pants and dresses. She is tentative each time she reaches down, even as her mind is caught on the puzzle of the day — how to cook beans and rice and make it taste like something different. If only she had a tomato.

“I was hanging clothes, when I heard you scream,” this is how my mother will always begin the story. “I was hanging clothes,” she will emphasize. She was doing something ordinary, and then it happened. “My heart stopped,” she will say next. Her fears jumped from possibilities to something past and present. An event had already taken place.

The cry she hears is continual, one long siren, and she is not sure whether that is good or bad, only that it is coming from the path, and she must hurry. She drops what she is holding and begins to run. The shriek grabs at her earlobes, so much screaming from two small girls.