Reborn Read Online Free PDF

looked at my paint-speckled arms and hands. “I’ll go to the river and clean up.”
    “No. There’s no need for that. There’s plenty of water inside. Besides, it’s time you started using modern conveniences.”
    After putting the paintbrush to soak in a can of water, I followed Melba to the house. Outside her back door, on the ground, I saw a line of red powder like outside the shed door. This one looked dingy, as if it had been there a while. Melba didn’t step on it, so neither did I—in fact, I was very careful in the past few days not to disturb the line she’d put down by the shed.
    Mouthwatering aromas greeted me inside the doorway, filling my senses with comfort and warmth. Melba led me down a narrow hallway to a small room she called a washroom.
    “You can wash up in here,” she said and stepped aside.
    The tiny room held shiny golden furniture, but what caught my attention was the mirror… more specific, my reflection. My hair was a shaggy mess, curled up at the ends, barely touching my shoulders. Melba had said the cut suited me, and that I’d fit right in with others my age—although I hadn’t seen anyone else since I’d arrived out of nowhere that day on the broken street.
    “What about a shave?” When I didn’t answer, she came in and rummaged through the only drawer, in a cabinet below the washbasin. “You can use this.”
    She held a pink object up to me with three blades sticking out of the end.
    I took the strange-looking device and stared at it.
    “It hasn’t been used,” she said reassuringly. Then she chuckled. “Of course, why would I think you knew how to use a razor?”
    After Melba showed me how to use the razor, the taps, and the golden seat she called a toilet, she left me to my privacy. But I heard her mumble as she walked through the doorway, “It’s like he was just born.”
    The paint scrubbed off my arms and hands easily with soap and a cloth. And after I finished shaving, my chin was as smooth as a peach-blossom petal, and also not nearly as tanned as the rest of my face. I ran a hand through my hair, deciding the look wasn’t so bad, since I couldn’t remember seeing myself any other way.
    Furniture crowded the little bungalow. Framed portraits covered the walls. I made my way toward the succulent odors wafting through the place and found Melba in front of a stove.
    “Come in and have a seat,” she said, sounding more cheerful than she had earlier.
    I sat at a round wooden table set for two and gazed at the room. The window was covered in decorative objects, like colored glass shapes, wooden carvings, and small bundles of herbs.
    Melba pulled a knife out of a large washtub set into a counter and cleaned it under the tap.
    “The house isn’t usually this messy,” she said with a wave of her hand, while facing the stove. “But I haven’t been myself today. You see, today would have been my twenty-fifth anniversary.”
    After a short quiet spell, she turned with a smile on her face, as if forcibly planted there for me, and a platter of food in her hands, setting it to one side of the table.
    The roast beef had been carved and placed in the center of the platter. A medley of vegetables surrounded the meat: carrots, turnips, green beans, and whole onions. A bowl of gravy and a plate of butter were already on the table.
    Melba took a seat and dished up my supper, serving me a generous helping. She held out a basket of biscuits; I took two.
    “So, I’ve been thinking,” she said as she drizzled gravy over her own meal. “It’s time you met more people, went out in the car, maybe. You might see someone who knows you and maybe trigger a memory.” She stuffed her mouth with potato, dripping gravy down her chin, and looked at me. “Do you have your driver’s license?”
    I stared back, wondering what she meant.
    “Right,” she said and took another bite. “Well, whether you do or don’t, you obviously don’t remember. I think you should get behind the