Higher Ground Read Free

page. He must’ve been outside for at least part of the storm. The action shots are like something out of a sci-fi apocalypse movie: rain blowing sideways, trees bent, and unforgiving skies.
    There’s photo after photo of destruction, but then midway through, there’s the journey of restoration and healing. When I reach the end, I flip back to the beginning, stare at the dedication, and cry alone in a dark apartment as the small bulb in the closet spotlights my plight. It’s a journey through time I didn’t want and wasn’t prepared for.
    “Violet?” Wade’s voice, raised in worry, calls out through the rooms, and a moment later, he’s hovering above me, staring down at me. “Jesus, you scared me. I thought something was wrong.” Upon closer inspection, he sees that something is. He drops to his knees beside me and looks down at the open book in my lap, the scattered notes, and the pictures on the floor. His arm pulls me closer, and I bury my face against his chest.
    I’m not sure how long I cling to him and cry silent tears. Eventually, he shifts to sit close enough to hold me. His body tugs away from mine for a moment, and I look up in time to see him pluck the picture I discarded earlier from the center of the pile in front of us.
    “Is this you?” he asks.
    Because it’s a shot of my profile and my lips are on someone else’s, it’s hard to tell. It’s something Wade’s never seen, something captured years ago by a wild boy with a camera.
    My fingers loosen on the book when he pulls it away from me. He glances quickly at the dedication, closes it to read the cover, and then asks the question that will change everything.
    “Who’s Oliver?”

Chapter Two
    Then
    Summers in New Orleans were the same every year: hot, sticky, and boring. Predictable was another good word. Each one was forgettable.
    My parents, professors at Tulane, would take the whole family on a one-week vacation to celebrate the end of the regular school year and then teach a few summer classes. My grandmother, Miss Verity, would keep busy with “visitors.” My older sister would stay gone, working or spending time with her boyfriend, and my little brother would do his best to stay in the background.
    But the last summer of my youth was different.
    We celebrated my seventeenth birthday in Miami with my mom’s sister and her family. Cake on the beach and the warmth of the hot June sun on the sand between my toes were nice. When it was time to go, I begged my parents for an extra week. Van asked, too, and they let both of us stay.
    The day after we got back to New Orleans, he started his therapy sessions. Mom and Dad tagged along, which was good because they were the ones who needed help in the first place.
    Miss Verity suggested I get a job to keep me busy, so I left the house every morning to catch the St. Charles streetcar by 9:00. Faced with true freedom for the first time in my life, I did what any teenage girl would do: I wandered down Magazine Street while eating granola bars, people watched, and inquired within whenever a Help Wanted flyer presented an opportunity. It didn’t happen often, though.
    Most days, I ended up on the outer edges, leaning against a tombstone in the back section of Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, with a dog-eared copy of a Poe anthology and a one-hitter to keep me company. The graveyard was always nearly empty from when it opened until the tours began at 10:00. The grassy section in the back wasn’t popular, anyway.
    It was enough time for a few hits and a short story or two.
    My peaceful ritual was interrupted one random Tuesday in mid–July, when the sound of percussion started in the distance and moved closer until it sounded like Bourbon Street. I left my book and sealed bottle of cranberry juice in the grass to follow the melody through the maze of concrete and artificial flowers until I reached the front section.
    I’d heard of jazz band burials and had seen a parade on Canal once, but I’d never