Firefly Cloak
Sheri Reynolds
(Reviewer - Coletta Ollerer)
2006 Crown Publishing Group
ISBN: 0609610082

A girl abandoned by her drug-addicted mother finds her again.

Associate Reviewer Coletta Ollerer writes:

Tessa Lee is one of those saddest of all people, a child abandoned by her mother -- Sheila, a distracted & self-absorbed addict. She left them alone in a campground with their grandmother's telephone number written with permanent marker on the bare back of Tessa Lee's younger brother, Travis. “She [Sheila] hoped that God understood she'd had to leave. If she'd stayed behind, those children would've sucked her dry.” (p. 145) When she left Sheila wrapped the two sleeping children in her robe, gaily printed with scurrying fireflies. Tessa Lee had always loved it & called it her firefly cloak. She clung to it & wore it as often as she could; it reminded her of her mother.

The authorities alerted grandmother Lil who came & rescued them & took them into her small trailer where she lived with her husband, Lewis. Both pragmatic realists, they took on the new responsibilities with good humor & waved goodbye to their dreams of a carefree retirement. They grew to love the children & the little family became a close & happy one despite the yearning the children experienced for their mother.

One day, seven years later, a relative came to tell Lil he had seen Sheila working in a side show in a town just two hours away. He presented Lil with a picture of her daughter on a flyer from the show. Tessa Lee was not supposed to have heard them but she did. She took the flyer & disappeared for a few days in search of her mother & the side show. She found Sheila in a window dressed as a mermaid & confronted her. The sight of her daughter sent Sheila on an emotional race to escape. “the girl outside in her firefly cloak called her ‘Momma,’ recognized her, just like that. Damn her.” (p. 39)

Sheila was scared to death at being confronted with her past, the past she was trying so hard to put out of her mind. She ran away & the following day Tessa Lee could not find her. Lil had no idea where Tessa Lee had gone & was very worried. She knew someone could easily take advantage of Tessa Lee's youth & inexperience. However, Rash, a young green-haired denizen of the area who Tessa Lee had met advised her, “Call your granny and tell her to pick you up from the arcade.” (p.54).

We are given a glimpse into the life of Sheila lost in her hopeless world of addiction. She woke one morning lying on the ground in the rain. She wanted to get up & find shelter but she felt very weak &, in addition, didn't know where to go. “Her head felt big and swollen, a monstrous thing about to break, an egg with a dinosaur inside it. She kept her eyes closed, but there was light behind them, and she could almost see through her eyelids, two eyes looking at her.” (p. 54).

Firefly Cloak is a gripping story revealing the angst, sadness & terrible loneliness inflicted on the family of an addict. No one understood Sheila's choices, certainly not she. When she found herself alone once again she thought, “There was no reason for her to stay, but she couldn't go. Someone else was running her show.” (p. 276) Someone else was always running her show.

More from Sheri Reynolds:
Rapture of Canaan -- An Oprah's Book Club 1997 Selection
A Gracious Plenty
Bitterroot Landing
(07/02/06)

Coletta
2006©Coletta Ollerer
A RebeccasReads.Com Associate Reviewer

Reviewer's Bio:
I have always enjoyed writing. As a teenager I submitted to magazines like Seventeen, & was politely rejected. As a young mother, I had several poems published in The Chicago Tribune. Born in Chicago in 1932, I still live in the area. Since I retired, I have had some success on the Internet with my book reviews, stories & poetry. I enjoy historical fiction mostly, but will read anything uplifting, informative & fun. When I'm not reading & writing, I'm making jewelry, sewing needlepoint, & painting.