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private conversation again . . .
    The door is closed.
    Materena looks at Leilani, who’s now hiding her nose behind her hands.
    Materena takes Leilani’s hands away. “Come on now, girl. There’s nothing wrong with your nose.”
    But, in Leilani’s opinion, her nose is too flat, like the nose of a boxer.
    Materena wants to laugh, but this is a serious situation. She knows lots of cousins who are sensitive about their nose. You
     can tell these cousins anything you want, but mention their flat nose and they’re going to give
you
a flat nose. Loma, for instance, once told Tapeta during Mass, “I can’t believe how flat your nose is!” Tapeta kept on singing
     and waited until after Mass to punch Loma on the nose.
    “How come the size of your nose is bothering you now, Leilani?” Materena sounds and looks serious. “You never complained about
     your nose before.”
    Leilani admits that she looked at her nose for a long time in the mirror this morning and realized that her nose was flat.
    “How come you decided to look at your nose for a long time in the mirror this morning?”
    Leilani doesn’t know why she felt like looking at her nose for a long time in the mirror this morning. She just felt like
     looking at her nose for a long time in the mirror.
    Ah hia hia
. . .
    “Your nose, it’s nice to look at,” Materena says.
    “You’re not lying, Mamie?”
    “
Ah non,
I’m not lying. Do I look like I’m lying?”
    Leilani caresses her nose.
    “If you want to see a big nose, just look at my nose.” Materena points to her nose. Leilani is feeling much better about her
     nose now.
    And Materena can get back to her bouquet, but she’s got a question for her daughter, and she’s only being curious. “Tell me,
     girl, that trick with the peg, does it really work? Is it something you learned at school? If you put a peg on your nose—the
     nose is going to get pointed?”
    Leilani isn’t 100 percent sure. She’s only testing her invention at this stage.
    Materena goes back to her bouquet. But first, she goes to look at her nose in the mirror. She always looks at her nose when
     she’s in front of the mirror, because it is in the middle of her face, but right now, she’s more than looking at her nose.
     She’s studying it.
    “My nose is flat.” Well, Materena has always known her nose to be flat.
    She was born with a flat nose.
    Her auntie Stella delivered her, and apparently she said to Loana, “That’s a flat nose. Quick, girl, massage your baby girl’s
     nose before the bones harden.” But Loana told Stella to worry about her own nose.
    Loana was proud her baby girl had a flat nose just like hers. In her opinion, a flat nose was a sign of character. And she
     made sure to repeat this to Materena over the years, so by the time Materena was a teenager, she was very proud that her nose
     was flat.
    Once Loma said to Materena, “I can’t believe how wide your nostrils are!” And Materena said, “Loma, that’s because I’ve got
     character, and not everybody is born with it. I love my flat nose.”
    But when Materena gave birth to Leilani and saw the flat nose, she decided to massage it before the bones hardened—as by then
     Materena was beginning to be a bit
fiu
of her flat nose—but Loana slapped Materena’s hand. She said, “I know a woman whose mother massaged her on the nose as soon
     as she was born, and you know what? That woman’s nose is crooked now. It’s so crooked, she’s got trouble breathing.”
    Materena lifts her nose up so that it is pointed. “Ah, now I look ridiculous!” Well, anyway, there’s more to life than worrying
     about the size of your nose.
    Chuckling, Materena hurries to finish her grandmother’s bouquet. Okay now, what is missing here? Tapping a finger on her nose
     to help her think, Materena stares at the bouquet until, at last, she has a revelation.
    All the bouquet needs is a bit of yellow!

Eternal Sleep
    S itting under the frangipani tree beside the