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1. Describe the events surrounding the Mother's Day card Sophie intends to give her Aunt Atie.

The story begins in the early 1980s in a small Haitian village called Croix-des-Rosets. The narrator, twelve-year-old Sophie, presses a daffodil into a Mother's Day card for her aunt Atie. Atie is upset that night, and Sophie decides to give her the card early. However, Atie refuses the card, saying mysteriously that this year the card belongs to Sophie's mother. This puzzles Sophie, because her mother left Haiti to live in Brooklyn, New York, when Sophie was very young, leaving Sophie behind with Atie.

2. What happens during the potluck dinner Atie and Sophie attend in Chapter 1?

At the potluck, the men and women sit separately, and the teenage boys and girls hide in dark corners. Tante Atie and Sophie drink tea with a circle of women, where Madame Augustin asks about Martine, Sophie's mother. Madame Augustin then mentions that she saw Atie receive a very big package yesterday, and keeps asking questions about the package and New York until finally implying, loudly, that the package was a plane ticket. When Atie states that the plane ticket is not for her, the women conclude that the ticket must be for Sophie.

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