What did Tola See?
The new year's day was the day we did the ritual. We moved from house to house, in our best clothes and our brightest smiles. For our smiles, they gave us money and for our not-so-sonorous voices, they gave us more money. It was also the day Tola went mute and never spoke again. That day, Tola had stuck to me like a gum to a cloth. She didn't smile much, didn't sing louder like us. No one could blame her. Her sister, like us, had gone to give out new year's food and she never returned. The villa
