Everything here is free of change.  We know better than to expect otherwise, which is why what happened scared but did not surprise me.

“Elena!” Lucinda screamed, and though I could not see her yet, for I toiled out back, I recognized her voice even at this unaccustomed pitch.  She beat upon my door.

“They are coming!” she yelled and lunged at me as I stepped into the street.  I must have looked as if I would question her, but time ran short so she anticipated me:  “The army,” she said.  “They are coming to recruit boys.”  They are coming, she meant, in their trucks to steal away the sons ages twelve and up, whom mothers might never again behold.  People darted franticly around us, but Lucinda held my gaze and stared at me deeply.  It is an historic look that has repeated itself too often, passed from woman to woman, from one who must plead to one who has privilege; it is the look of a mother begging, expecting, that her fellow female will behave as one.

“Take my children,” Lucinda pleaded, pressing her two boys into my arms.  She turned then and fled without pause for she trusted me and knew my heart.  She had nothing and therefore no place to hide her children.  I would hide them for her. 

This excerpt is from:
Our Samuel

Written by:
Ellen Urbani

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