In the Time of Peacocks
by
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Cate whirled. All arms and legs, seven-year-old Natty scrambled out of a booth, fell on her and locked his arms around her waist. She felt such a surge of emotion that she could not name it--bliss, she would think later. But then Jami cried out. What did she say as she jerked him away and stormed out the door? "Don't you touch my boy, you monster!"
That's what she said. Cate fell to her knees, leaned forward and pressed her palms against the scarred floor. She heard her choked sobs, and felt the wetness gush down her cheeks and drip onto her bosom as she came upright. Then she heard Gloria's voice, felt her grip on her arms, got to her feet and stumbled outside.
"Let me drive," said her friend when they got to the car.
Cate slid behind the steering wheel. "I'll be all right in a minute."
She calmed, dried her tears, took a deep breath and turned the key in the ignition. Her mind was thick with thoughts--little Natty holding her, Jami screaming 'monster,' the humiliation of being publicly scorned by her daughter. Checking the rear view mirror, she put the car in reverse and backed out.
She felt the thump.
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About the Book
It is 1949 in a seaside town in Mexico, and Caterina lives happily as a cherished daughter of a wealthy family. She has only one worry: she has no early memories of her childhood. Increasingly, strange images drift into her mind—a gazebo, a farm, a blonde woman. She has no idea that she is really someone named Cate Miller, who was kidnapped from her Indiana farm family ten years earlier. In her fifteenth year, her life changes again. This time she will remember the past.
Cate survives an automobile accident in California that kills her Mexican parents. The police uncover her true identity and return her to her biological family, who gave her up for dead years ago. Against a backdrop of social change, Cate, who is tied to both the past and the present, struggles to achieve her dreams. A Catholic, she believes in the tenets of her faith with childlike obedience—but as she learns more of life, she finds a less orthodox route to the divine through the poems of Federico García Lorca.
About the Author
Lynne Handy is a freelance writer and poet. She holds an undergraduate degree in history from the University of Texas at Dallas and a graduate degree from the University of Illinois School of Library and Information Science. She is a member of the OLLI Writers Café, Kentucky State Poetry Society, and the Association of Writers and Writing Programs. Now retired, she lives in Champaign, Illinois, where she is writing her next novel, a mystery about murder and mayhem in the north woods.