Child of the Storm Read Free Page A

don ’ t run that way. Still, I suppose that ’ s a good thing they ’ re close. ”
    “ I think so, ” Marie said softly. “ Celeste sees so much more about things
than we see. And such a sweet child. ” She smiled at
Celeste.
    “ Hopefully, not too
sweet to stand strong. ” Odette said. “ We hope for the best and expect less in
return. Don ’ t be na ï ve. When life is
tough, you endure. If you have the power to change something for the good, then
you use that power. ”
    Celeste
wasn ’ t sure who this was meant for — maybe for her, but her mother took it
onto herself as she always did. Always bore the load, even when it pressed her
down.
    Marie
sighed. “ I endure the best I can. Only now and
then you need a little time away from it all. ” She looked at
Celeste and sang softly as if sharing a secret.

 
    “ Falling
star, Falling star,
    Fall on me , Fall on me
    Fall down once, Fall down twice,
    Make me shine, Make me shine . ”
               
    Celeste ’ s eyes laughed for her mother as they
always did when she sang that song. A passed-down song. Passed from mother to child, time and again — from
too far back to know the names. Family members lost to time, lost from memory,
except maybe in that simple song. A long line of women singing that song down
the years, passing it forward with maybe just a little something of themselves
in it, like something inherited; the shape of the eye, the length of the hand. A musical tone. A shade of brown.
    “ What ’ s it about? ” Marie asked, nodding to the book on
the table by Celeste.
    Odette
answered Marie, but her gaze was on Celeste. “ About a man finding
his way home, but finding it the long and difficult way around. ”
    Marie
sighed.

Bears
    Her
sixth birthday would stand tall enough in her memory to be seen, clear as could
be, from decades after. She ’ d look back on that three part day from low valleys of days that weren ’ t so good.
    In
the morning, Celeste sat on the porch with her mother, stringing beans. She was
good at that and as thorough as she was with weeding because a bean with the
string left in by carelessness was an awful thing to chew and could ruin the
rest of the dinner for her. Marie ’ s hand settled over
Celeste ’ s where they busied themselves among
the beans. That settling said, Be Still .
Then her mother ’ s long pointing finger told Celeste to
look up. Look out there beyond the Climbing Oak . Celeste did and saw a
bear standing plain as day in a break in the underbrush where the woods began.
The bear was looking at them but set off again once it caught Celeste ’ s eye. Celeste might have let loose a
stream of excited chatter but Marie ’ s touch said, Wait.
    A
cub appeared and came to a shuffling stop where its mother had just been and it
likewise took a good look at Celeste. But its mother grunted and the cub
remembered to keep up, and was gone. The cutest thing Celeste had ever seen.
Nothing could ever be as cute as that cub, but she would never get to keep it
for herself. “ Yours to see but not to own, ” her mother reminded her.
    Later,
she sat in the Climbing Oak with her brother and told him about the bears,
knowing he had seen them before. She climbed up without help, just to tell him.
He was thirteen and would retreat to the branches of the tree to dream and look
far off to a future he wanted. When Celeste came climbing up, he cautioned her,
but she wouldn ’ t be scared off by talk of nasty falls
and broken necks. She had something to tell him, and having done that, was
cautioned again. “ Don ’ t go near the bears, ” he told her. “ Especially not a cub when its mama ’ s around. ” She agreed, though
she also imagined there was wiggle room in that agreement.
    They
climbed down when they saw Bernard roll an empty barrel into the yard below. He
set it out like a table and gathered up three stand-ins for stools and set them
around it, but rather than set it for a meal, which it was too