Everything Inside

Elsie is a Haitian American nurse’s assistant living in Miami, Florida. She is characterized both by her loneliness and her struggles to let go of the past. The very first sentence of “Dosas” highlights both of these features: “Elsie was with Gaspard, her live in renal-failure patient, when her ex-husband called to inform her that his girlfriend, Olivia, had been kidnapped” (3). The fact that Elsie’s first (and, since they live together, closest) connection is with her patient indicates her loneliness; since Blaise and Olivia left, Elsie has no intimate connections in her life beyond her patient. The emphasis in the second half of the sentence on her ex-husband and his girlfriend highlights her struggles to let go of the past. Because she does not fully understand Blaise’s motivations for leaving, Elsie still sees him as a part of her life; the fact that she refers to Olivia as his girlfriend, rather than her friend, is evidence of Elsie’s anger at Olivia’s betrayal. It’s only when the scam is revealed that Elsie is able to accept that both of these relationships have ended.