The flight attendant told Augusta Montrose that she would have to remove her purse from her lap and put it on the floor before the plane took off. She realized the man wasn’t joking when he stood in the aisle waiting, moving on only when her granddaughter grabbed the bag and shoved it under the seat in front of her—no place for a purse. She’d wanted to explain that it was her first time on a plane, that she was petrified. Not about the flight itself but the eventual arrival at their destination. When she’d left New Orleans all those decades ago, she’d vowed never to return.
She should have known she’d be called back one day, that the city would never let her rest, even thousands of miles away. She’d learned early on about a certain unfairness in life. Some folks struggled disproportionately, carrying things that others couldn’t even lift. The Montrose women had taken on an overbalance of grief, but the way Augusta saw it, they’d been given what they were owed. And they were strong enough to endure it.
The women in her family lived solitary lives, generations of them under one roof, adapting to their isolated ways, doing fine, they all believed. They were a private kind of people, had to keep others out to keep the secrets in.
But recent events had changed them, shaking up the house, rattling the women within. And it was all because of her great-granddaughter. She didn’t know yet for sure, but she sensed love was the cause of the girl’s recent behavior. This, Augusta understood. She’d swapped one life for another because of love. Because of what had happened all those decades ago in New Orleans. It’s what Montrose women did. And love was why she’d had to tell them her story...all of it, from the beginning. She’d held on to these words for years, stuck in her head, unsure how to share them, and now, she’d finally set them free.