Excerpt from Red Hands, a novel by Colin W. Sargent.

By Colin W. Sargent

Searching for the mother and son I had tried to know, I drove to the Old Orchard Beach library. I’ll never know if I would have been able to find the courage to do what they had done. If every assumption I’d ever had were ripped away from me—if I were in mourning for myself and my life—could I travel a world away and hide in plain sight the way they had? She told me she felt that everyone in the world was either watching her or watching for her. I tried to imagine Iordana walking in to register her son “David Daniels” for school. Think of what it took to accomplish that. Maybe Iordana walking in alone. That first day. Imagine her practicing being poised for their questions, Catalin coaching her: “You’re tensing up. Stop looking suspicious.”

“Easy for you to say. I am!”

Imagine her mind running wild. “Where is his birth certificate?” “What is your Social Security number? Are you a US citizen?” “Where does the father work?” “Where do you live?” “What school bus stop will he be using to board?” “Do you want to sign your son up for the lunch supplement?”

Approaching the reference desk, I asked the librarian for the Old Orchard Beach High School yearbook for the Class of 2000. As I took it to a table in the corner, I felt her eyes following me. Now I was the one under suspicion.

I expected to see nothing, or “Not Pictured”. But I was wrong. There was Dani, standing tall on the basketball team. Had Iordana ever blended into the crowds to watch him? For an instant I imagined Ior-
dana’s story never being told–erased, like so many victims of conflict. She’d never come to Maine, never spoken to me, never gagged on my burned haddock, never shown her heart.

Then I caught my breath. Feeling Iordana looking on, I slowly turned the page to David Daniels’s senior class photo. He stares out from it. “David Daniels. Dave.” His chosen inscription: “The truth is only what
someone chooses to believe.”

“Death to the Dracu gGandson!”
In terror, Iordana Ceausescu of Romania disappeared in secret to Old Orchard Beach with her son while the world searched for them. in secret, she lived among us for five years. Drawn from 800 hours of unique interviews with iordana. Colin W. Sargent’s Red Hands—“an astounding account of the Romanian revolution in the voice of Ceausescu’s daughter-in-law.”
–Martin Goodman in the Morning Star