Page 17 - Homestead By Ann Newhouse

Staring at the newspaper cutting headline, it read ‘Arson or Accident.’ It showed a picture of what looked like a whole town on fire. The paper was very old, and the rest of the article was almost unreadable. I tried to see the date on the newspaper, but it was badly faded. I switched my attention to a letter in the bundle. It seemed to be from a woman to a close friend. She was telling her friend of her delight at giving birth to a baby boy. She then sympathetically apologised to her friend, saying she had heard the devastating news of her prematurely losing her own baby. Also, a boy. She was fully understanding of the pain she must have been going through. An old tatty photo was enclosed of a new-born. The letter was signed by someone named Shelley.
There was another newspaper cutting . . . naming a business couple, Jed and Shelly Pincher, who were devastated at the disappearance of their baby, believed to have been kidnapped. It was the same name mentioned in the previous letter I had read . . . Shelly Pincher, the woman who was celebrating the news of their new baby, to her friend. As none of these letters had dates, I wasn’t sure which one had been written first. None of this made any sense to me.
Yet another newspaper cutting, told the story of a businessman who had seemingly committed suicide; or was it, murder?
I continued reading the last letter. In very bad script, a person begged someone called Margarete not to blame herself but advised her to clear her conscience and tell about the deceptions caused between their husbands before the fire. The signature at the bottom had been torn off, but I could just make out, what looked like the letter ‘a’ at the end. I was confused as to why my mother would keep these letters and then pass them on to me? Who were these people? What are they to my mother? My mother’s name was Martha? Why did she feel it was so important for me to have them? The light left the sky and the moon peeped through the sparse clouds as I put the papers away and prepared to settle down for the night. My head hurt at all the information I had just learned and couldn’t make sense off. It was not the Coyotes that kept me awake that night.
It seemed like I had been walking for many days, as I took account of the depletion of my food and water supply and the soreness of my feet and body. I could feel the panic starting to grip me. I looked to the sky and called on my mother to look down on me and keep me safe. After all, she was the one to blame telling me to go out into the world. My mind wondered back to the shack I called home. I wondered if anyone had found my father’s body yet, and my mother’s grave. People would put two and two together and get five, thinking something horrible had gone on. They would not be wrong. At least I couldn’t be blamed for any wrongdoing, as nobody really knew I existed.