Cousin Rochelle

Guest post by Shaherazade Budreau   ‘m Shaherazade Budreau and I’m going to tell you what Faith told me and Susie Applegate about how Rochelle was born and how she died and some of the stuff in between.  Faith said Rochelle was born early in the morning. Two o’clock. She said she was looking at the clock at just that moment. Rochelle was easy being born and that always seemed ironical to Faith how a child could get into this world so easy and go out so hard.  People were already talking about who the daddy might be long before Rochelle was born even though Faith just wouldn’t say. She didn’t tell anyone not even her parents or her brother Tim or her sister Susan. The only one she told, the one she thought she could trust was her best friend, Geena McCoy.  Charlie disappeared from room 17 at the…

Them Bones, part 2

haherazade said, “Shoot, ain’t that much changed. Just living in the wrong place can get you killed if you’re living where somebody else wants to be.” She lifted her chin up a little higher and sat up straight, as tall as she could. “Where some white folks want to live.”  Neither Faith nor I made a motion to disagree with her. You can’t disagree with the weight of history without sounding like a fool or being one.  Faith nodded. “Charlie showed up here in Germaine about three months after V-J day. We’d seen our share of strangers coming through and we had our share of war brides from other parts of the country and the world. But when Charlie turned up, he wasn’t just another stranger. There were some uneasy from the start. But he knew how to turn that. How to make people feel at ease and he had…

Them Bones, part 1

Those bones could be anybody’s, Shaherazade,” I said. “Do you want hot chocolate? Or tea?”  “I want a double shot hazelnut latte, 16 oz. That’s what I told Mama, but she is so sure it’s Uncle Charlie.”  I was about to ask Ezra Sweet what happened to his job in Redmond, but he was already steaming the milk and seemed so fixed on the process that I didn’t want to interrupt him. I heard a woman’s voice behind me strong enough to be clear above the sound of the espresso machine.  “They’re Charlie’s bones. No doubt in my mind.”  Shaherazade and I turned at the same time, like well-trained marionettes. The woman’s face, framed with gray chin-length hair, was vaguely familiar. She sat very straight and there was a stillness about her. She was looking at me with just about the same amount of concentration I was giving her. At…

Another Mystery Deepens

dragged myself out of bed at the ungodly hour of nine A.M. The sun was shining as it has been for the past few days, the temperature miserably cold. Yesterday, someone had posted a notice about a free clinic at EcoSurvival Village this morning. I decided on the spot that it was time to visit the good doctor, something I had planned to do months ago, but I never found the right excuse.  The road up to ESV was dry, the short drive beautiful. I was already feeling better by the time I entered the meadow at the edge of the forest and saw the rough-hewn buildings that make up the core of the Village. Astonished is the only word I can use to explain my reaction to the progress which has taken place there. The three or four buildings that stood there this summer had become a dozen. Most…