It’s 1937 in the Dominican Republic and lifelong servant Amabelle Désir suffers from nightmares about her parents’ drowning. Sebastien Onius, a handsome sugarcane worker and Amabelle’s lover, tries to soothe these nightmares. He tries to talk her out of her dream state and then tells Amabelle to strip so “you will know that you are fully awake and I can simply look at you and be happy” (2) Amabelle does this and he compliments her beauty. Her inner monologue does not match the scene, however. After the striptease, she says to herself, “It’s either be in a nightmare or be nowhere at all” (2). She falls back asleep thinking about her father’s warning about not playing with shadows when she was a child.

Señora Valencia, Amabelle’s wealthy childhood friend and her boss, goes into labor two months prematurely. Amabelle rushes to her side to help while they wait for Papi, her father, to get the doctor. Amabelle’s parents specialized in “births and deaths,” so she has some knowledge surrounding birthing procedures and is able to safely deliver what turns out to be twins, a boy and a girl, before the doctor ever arrives (5).