The Children of Propria's House
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It was happening again. Nobody was yelling, but the looks were there, and the voice that sounded like everything was going wrong and it was somehow all her fault. Sitting on the floor of the laundry room off the porch, picking up the kittens she wasn't supposed to hold yet because they're still too young, Natalie could hear the sound of clean pots and pans being slammed away in their cabinets, and her grandmother's sharp sighs.
Elizabeth was already on the backyard swing set her daddy had sunk solid in concrete chunks under the sand. The chain felt cool and rough against her pudgy hands, and smelled the good smell of rust wet from last night's rain, and it made the inside of her fingers and palms orange with little brown speckles. Sometimes that awful look was there at the kitchen window, and Elizabeth kicked the wet ground under the swing and pumped harder and harder to get her eyes above window level. When she couldn't see that look, the feeling it put in the bottom of her stomach went away, too, at least a little. Natalie picked up two of the stuck-eyed baby cats, one in each hand, and sniffed the musty cat-fur and the almost-gone sharp flea powder smells together. She waited to hear the squeak of the rusted faucet and the splash of the water running in the kitchen sink, then she scooted up the stumpy pine tree by the back porch to sit on the boards she called a tree house and wait for the voice that says, "Get down from there, you'll get your clothes all filthy and your hands will be sticky, too." Nathan sat propped up on his bed, with his sneakers off so he didn't get footprints on the chenille spread, and picked up Volume Number Six of his treasured twelve-volume set of history, adventure and story books that had belonged to Mamma when she was just a little girl. He turned to the pages near the back of Book Six where he could somehow see in his mind the deep-colored wind-filled sails and hear the oars slapping waves and the Viking warrior hammering out commands, the same way he had been able to see and hear those sights and sounds back in the time when he would read to his mother, after she had first gotten sick and she lay all day in her bed and listened and understood and saw what he saw when he shared with her his favorite stories. ********** A needle-sharp, sleeting snow had started to fall, and Sabrena had virtually made the car crawl through the mess to the small suburban mall where Natalie's last two gifts could be found. "I hate making you come out in all this," Natalie apologized as she ducked out of the car and made her way across the parking lot to catch up with Sabrena, who had already turned and started to walk back toward her. And then everything happened too fast for Natalie to sort out. Sabrena was lying on the ground with her leg twisted under her and her eyes rolled up so the whites looked big and a puddle of blood was starting to form in the icy slush by the hem of her jacket that didn't quite fit. And that nice man was there who asked 'Is she ok?', and Natalie had yelled, 'Get an ambulance, you idiot, she's not ok at all.' And then they had sped through the streets of the village with the sirens screaming and the lights flashing and the straps pulled tight across Sabrena's chest to hold her in place on the curves. The phone rang a third ring in Natalie's ear as the glass booth closed in on her and the spiraled metal cord lay cold against her neck. Finally, Propria's voice was there on the other end of the line, and Natalie struggled to keep her voice steady and firm. "There's a problem," she said flatly when Propria greeted her with a 'Hello, Merry Christmas, did you find what you went to get?' "Sabrena's hurt," Natalie blurted out. "The doctor here said she's ok, but I don't know about the baby. There was blood everywhere. I think you should get here right away. Please."
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About the Book
More a fantasy than a fiction, The Children of Propria’s House depicts a haven for two families of children whose mothers have died, so they have been placed in the care of an amazing foster mother who is an odd bird, indeed. Along with her own daughter, Cameron Cloud, Propria Mason provides the children of the Milano and Everette families, both broken by the destruction of death and dysfunction, with a home unlike any other. For the children of Propria’s house, life is conducted not so much as it is in present day reality but as it could be lived in an environment that is consistently responsible, respectful and considerate by nature.
However, the six youngsters, ranging in age from five to nineteen, deal with experiences and emotions that are very much a part of being a young person in the real here and now. In the shelter of Propria’s protective wing, they make their way through a little child’s confusion over her mother’s death and the rage of young girls whose loss of their mothers has left them empty and vulnerable to shame and rage. Under her eagle eye, the children learn to handle sibling rivalry, tangles with truth and temptation, roaring hormones and hungry hearts in a way that brings healing, not more hurt and harm, into the process of growing up into life in the real world.
Although they have begun their lives as the children of Propria’s house through the agony of death striking close, this remarkable blended and bonded family works together to build a home that is a nest of nurturing care for the new life growing within it. In doing that right before the reader’s eyes, they share with us all a word of hope that we can begin again, and do things differently this time.
About the Author
Nanci Haigler Flynn was born in central South Carolina and grew up in North Carolina and the Shenandoah Valley of western Virginia, where she and her younger sister lived in an orphanage for three years after their mother died in 1958. Ms. Flynn followed her Bachelor of Arts degree in literature and communication from Illinois Benedictine College (now Benedictine University) with five years of independent graduate study in the field of human communication behavior. As a retired litigation assistant and consumer/child/family advocate, she is now an active voice online in mental health, spiritual interests and news chat rooms. There she seeks to facilitate clear, respectful communication as a means of effectively exchanging data, ideas and opinions on the internet, in much the same way as her title character promotes healthy, loving family relationships in The Children of Propria’s House.