Now we are in Part II of the Hurricane Katrina family saga. The Rosenfelds survived the storm. Catch up on the last episode at the link below:
The story continues below this point:
Chapter Ten 👇
They pass through New Roads without stopping.
The road curves gently, the way it always has, tracing the long, quiet bend of False River. The water is still, reflecting trees that seem unbothered by storms or news or time. The levee holds. The houses stand. Lawns are cut. Flags hang slack in the late heat.
Frankie watches it all from the passenger seat, unsettled by how intact everything looks.
No sirens.
No debris.
No helicopters.
Just a gas station open for business. A man hosing down his driveway. A woman pushing a cart across a parking lot as if the world hasn’t split open less than a hundred miles away.
Jeremy drives with both hands on the wheel. He hasn’t said much since they left Baton Rouge. The kids are quiet too—tired in a deeper way now that the danger has passed. Noah rests his forehead against the window. Eve counts telephone poles without speaking. Jacob watches the road ahead, already measuring distance, already translating movement into plans.
The turnoff comes just past a stand of trees, easy to miss if you don’t know it’s there.
Frankie does.
The house sits back from the road, exactly as she remembers it—low, wide, weathered but steady. The paint has faded. The porch sags slightly at one corner. The yard is trimmed, but not fussed over. Nothing ornamental. Nothing new.
Dottie Lemoine is already on the porch when they pull in. Her husband, Leon, stands just behind her, one hand braced on the railing. They are both younger than they look—sixties, on paper—but the years have settled into them unevenly, carving deeper lines than time alone would account for.
Grief has weight. It bends people forward.
Dottie steps down carefully, one hand lifted in greeting, the other hovering as if she’s not quite sure what to do with it. Leon follows more slowly, his smile practiced, steady, worn smooth from use.
“Francine,” Dottie says, the name landing gently, firmly, as if calling her back into place.
Frankie steps out of the car and is held immediately—arms around her shoulders, a kiss to her hair, the familiar scent of soap and something cooked earlier in the day.
“You hungry?” Dottie asks, already scanning the children, already counting heads.
Leon shakes Jeremy’s hand, then pulls him into a brief, awkward hug. Not the kind that lingers. Not the kind that breaks. Just acknowledgment.
“Come on inside,” Leon says. “Y’all must be tired.”
Inside, the house smells the same. Oil and lemon. Something simmering. Old wood. Familiar dust.
Shoes come off by habit. Bags are set down. Dottie moves toward the kitchen without waiting for help. Leon reaches for the thermostat, then thinks better of it and leaves it alone, knowing he can’t please both his wife and daughter.
Frankie stands just inside the doorway, taking it in.
The house hasn’t changed.
They have.
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