The Dew Breaker

“Seven” does not relate to the preceding part in an immediately obvious way. This part is narrated in the third person. It deals with a male character living in the basement of a single-family home along with two other men. He is awaiting his wife’s imminent arrival from Haiti. He has not seen her for seven years. Seven is an important number to this character because it represents so many things: the number of hours spent working each of his two jobs (including a night job as janitor at Medgar Evers College), the second number in his age (37), and now the number of hours before his wife arrives at JFK Airport in New York, where he lives.

Early in the story, he ascends the stairs to the kitchen to inform his landlady of his wife’s arrival. Her only concerns are that the man’s wife is tidy and that living with his wife and two others in a cramped basement could pose a problem. He informs her that he intends to move out to a new apartment with his wife at the earliest opportunity.

Following this conversation, the man dwells upon the fact that he has addressed the landlady as “Madame” and that he acts inferior to her.