Wading Home: A Novel of New Orleans by Rosalyn Story

Author:Rosalyn Story [Story, Rosalyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General, New Orleans (La.), Family Life, Hurricane Katrina; 2005, African American families, Social aspects, African Americans, African American, Louisiana
ISBN: 9781932841558
Publisher: Agate Publishing
Published: 2010-09-01T10:00:00+00:00

14

How long had he been here? A day? A year? He stared through closed eyelids toward beaming light. Was it the sun? It couldn’t be, for the surface where he lay was soft and cool and the place smelled of something pungent, like alcohol, or antiseptic. He tried to open his eyes to let in the stream of brightness, but as hard as he tried, his eyelids, dream-thick and heavy with sleep, would not part.

He drifted back into the dream, then again into a milky wakefulness, then into sleep again. He had no idea how long he had been in this place, but as he lay against the coolness, he couldn’t remember when he had last been anywhere else. His mind, it seemed, was a thing acting of its own will, a ship drifting into strange waters without a steering hand.

He was standing on a rooftop, looking over something resembling a river. Or a creek? He wasn’t sure. No, it had been a street. Only there was so much water (and so little street), more than he’d ever seen. Walking with a full sun beating against the back of his neck, throat gritty as sand, leaving heel tracks in roadside dust. Walking, walking. Hungry. Head feeling woozy. The sharp burn of sun and vibration in his feet as trucks screamed by.

Soft hands, softer voices. Women turning him over in bed.

He tried reaching a hand forward, but nothing moved. He tried to turn his head away from the light, but nothing moved.

Slowly, the name of his son gathered in his frail mind and he tried to call it out. But the word seemed trapped somewhere in his throat, fully formed in his mind, but resisting his tongue.

And then he slipped further back. Way back before his son was born, when he was a boy himself, before he’d ever heard of New Orleans. And another name came to mind. Again, he tried it out on his tongue, but it was like pulling a tooth from his mouth. His chest heaved as he tried to force the words from his lips. And finally the words came: John Michel.

Or as his father had always called him, The Frenchman.

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