Odette Sinclair

Grandma Odette wasn’t just Daddy’s mama; she was a whole presence. The kind of woman you felt before you ever saw her. Folks in St. Martin Parish used to say Odette Sinclair walked with the ancestors. They said when she stepped out on her porch at dusk, the wind shifted like it was greetin’ her. They said she dreamed in colors nobody else could see.

To me, she was just Grandma. But even at six, I knew she was different.

Odette had skin the color of pecans and long silver hair she braided every mornin’. Her eyes were somethin’ else; pale brown, almost golden, like she had sunlight trapped behind her pupils. When she looked at you, it felt like she saw more than your face. She saw your truth. She saw your fear. She saw your future if you wasn’t careful.

She kept her house full of things Mama didn’t approve of such as jars of herbs, bowls of river stones, candles in every color, and old photographs of women who looked like her but lived long before her time. She had a Bible too, but it sat right next to a book of Creole remedies and a stack of handwritten dreams she kept tied with twine.

Mama hated all that.

She said Odette was “playin’ with spirits,” said she was “inviting trouble,” said she was “confusin’ the child.” But Odette never argued. She’d just smile that slow, knowing smile and say, “Marlene, God made more than what’s in them pews.”

That made Mama’s jaw tighten every time.

Odette didn’t push her beliefs on nobody. She didn’t brag ’bout her gift. She didn’t charge folks for helpin’ them. But people came anyway; neighbors, cousins, strangers from two parishes over, all knockin’ on her door askin’ for guidance. Some wanted dreams interpreted. Some wanted comfort. Some wanted to know if the thing they felt in their bones was real.

Odette always listened first. She said listening was the oldest kind of medicine.

When she talked, her voice had that soft Louisiana drawl, warm but edged with somethin’ ancient. She’d say things like:

“Baby, the land talk if you quiet enough.” “Dreams ain’t just dreams they messages.” “Fear make folks blind, but truth don’t care ’bout fear.”

Daddy believed every word she said. Mama believed none of it.

And me? I was caught right in the middle.

Odette took to me quick. She said she saw somethin’ in me the first day we arrived; somethin’ familiar, somethin’ old. She’d watch me play in the yard, watch how I paused when the wind shifted, how I stared at the water like it was speakin’. She’d nod to herself like she already knew what was comin’.

One evenin’, she called me over to her porch. I remember her rockin’ slow in her chair, the cicadas hummin’, the sky turnin’ purple.

She said, “Anaïs, you got the sight. Same as me. Same as Eulalie. Don’t let nobody shame you outta what God gave you.”

I didn’t understand it then. But I felt it deep, deep down.

Mama must’ve sensed Odette was tellin’ me things, ’cause she started keepin’ me close, makin’ sure I didn’t wander too far. She didn’t want Odette “fillin’ my head with foolishness.” But it was too late. Odette had already planted somethin’ in me; a truth Mama couldn’t pray away.

Odette wasn’t afraid of my dreams. She wasn’t afraid of my gift. She wasn’t afraid of me.

And that made Mama afraid of her.

Looking back now, I realize Odette was the first person who ever told me I wasn’t wrong. I wasn’t cursed. I wasn’t strange. I was part of somethin’ bigger; somethin’ rooted in the women who came before me.

Odette Sinclair was the beginning of my becoming.