Her father always saved news for telling at the supper table. Violet was bursting to ask him what news he had heard, but she knew better.

It was the first Monday of the month, and he had just returned from his monthly trip into the village. “Child, come inside before the storm arrives,” her father, William, said, approaching from the barn, where he had just put away Bessie and the wagon. Violet watched as it hit the tops of the trees in the forest and came on with a steady sweep. She opened her eyes, and she could see the rain approaching. It was as though the tempest called to something deep and wild within her. She took a deep breath, feeling the storm as it moved in. And when a storm had come to save them from starvation, she had danced in it. It had stormed just before the beginning of the two-year drought that had nearly destroyed her family’s farm. It had stormed the day before her cousin Tara’s wedding, where Violet had kissed a boy for the first time.

It had stormed the night before her brother was born, and four years later it stormed the night before he died. Violet stood in the middle of her father’s wheat field, closed her eyes, and threw out her arms as if to embrace the storm.Įvery great or terrible moment of her life had been presaged by a storm, and Violet had learned to accept and embrace change as part of life. It brought with it the smell of distant rain. The air seemed heavy and charged, and the wind had begun blowing from the east with a singular intensity of purpose.

Violet Eyes by Debbie Viguié