I stood. Corinne looked up at me with her placid brown eyes, expecting me to say something more. But at that moment Dante and Chloe appeared, led in by a tall man whose dreadlocks reeked of patchouli oil. I went to find them some food.

The corn harvest started after breakfast, and Chloe, Dante and I headed into the field with our burlap sacks along with everyone else. The work reminded me of my teenage days, planting the vineyard whose fruit I never tasted. I studied the kids for signs of the resentment I’d felt. But they loved the novelty of it, and anyway, all the other kids were working, too; they didn’t want to be left out. We were halfway down our first row, when Chloe asked me if we could invite her daddy and Lucia to come live with us in Selu.

“We’re not going to live here.” I dropped another ear into a burlap sack. “We’re going home in a few days.”

“I don’t want to go home,” Chloe said. Read more »

It was a hot day and the corn went on forever. By the afternoon I was sweating, my hands were chafed and my legs ached. Afterward, while the kids got lessons in how to make corn-husk dolls, I wandered off by myself into the shade along the creek. Read more »

The kids had indeed been fed, and hardly seemed to have missed me, though in few minutes Chloe rushed up to grab my knees with her applesauce-covered hands. I was just in time to get the last of the tomato and basil salad to go with my corn.

Leif had already slipped out by then. In fact, after our first night in Selu I hadn’t talked much to him. He showed up in his hut long enough to start the fire for us, then he left. It wasn’t hard to figure out he was sleeping with a woman – or women – elsewhere in the commune. Read more »