Suffragettes

Early drafts from my novel.
Uptown 110th street stop. Followed her into the park. She walked across to Harlem Meer. She sits on a fallen stone in the shadow of Fort Clinton near the footpath and begins to play. Her case open to collect coins. I am watching from the shade, a stand of trees growing near the lake. White […]
She heard her sister cry out from her bedroom on the second floor, a heart-rending shriek. “Zil! Zil!” she wailed. Zilpah ran up the grand curving stair to her sister’s room. She eased the door open to see Shek sitting up in bed, a cutout of silver moonlight illuminating her dark silhouette. “It’s mama, Zil!” […]
She had lost him, she knew that definitively. She hadn’t understood who he was. She hadn’t understood him at all. It was only when she saw him pointing the revolver at the car, risking his life for her, that she saw his courage. There was an aura of destruction emanating from her, spreading out like […]