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Tilde is the story of a sensitive young artist coming of age during the Great Depression. She is also bi-polar at a time when there was little understanding of, and no treatment for the condition.

It's the era of the Charleston and the Lindy Hop; of Al Capone and Prohibition; of Greta Garbo and Charles Lindbergh; of bank failures and Hoovervilles. It's a story of lives destroyed, and of hopes that rise from the ashes.

Available at Amazon in paperback and Kindle.

Also, as a Barnes and Noble Nook.

           Tilde wished they would stop. She was so tired. They all should be in bed, and she was in bed, but she could hear Clara and Liesrl and cousin Gunther running around the apartment, the girls giggling and shrieking, Gunther saying, "I'm gonna get you!"
          Mama thought he was such a good babysitter, but that was because he didn't charge anything. "Oh, you're so good to me, such good cousins, how could I charge you anything?" He was so respectful to their faces. "So mature for seventeen," Mama would say.
          But he was different when they left. "The cats are gone, little mice," and that was the signal for Liesrl to shriek and Clara to giggle and all of them to play hide and seek and tag, and for Gunther to tickle them and hold them on his lap.
          But Tilde didn't want to play. She was tired. She was over the measles, but she was tired from it still. "I want to sleep," she mumbled, burrowing her face into her pillow and pushing the ends of it up over her ears.
          But it did no good. They had run downstairs and into the shop, but she could still hear them through the heat vent. She raised herself up and shouted, "Be Quiet!" into the vent.
          She noticed brown stains on her hands and sniffed. Chocolate. Suddenly she remembered the chocolates she'd stolen from the shop and hidden under her pillow. They must have melted. She lifted the pillow and, sure enough, her hands had smeared chocolate all over the underside of the pillow.
           Papa would be angry. "You can eat all you want, but don't be getting chocolate on the sheets," he'd say. But he only said they could eat as much as they wanted because he didn't know how much they really ate. That's why they hid them under their pillows.
          Tilde went into the bathroom and ran water into the sink. Her hand left chocolate stains on the white porcelain tap, so she rubbed that off with her wet hand before shutting the water off and drying her hands.
           There was still the problem of what to do about her pillow. She went back into the bedroom she shared with her sisters.
          The pillow was a mess. She noticed one raspberry cream that had only melted a little. It was her favorite, so she put it in her mouth and savored the tangy sweetness while deciding to switch her pillow with one of her sisters.
          Clara had done that to her last week, so she deserved it, but Clara was twelve, three years older than Tilde and much bigger and stronger. Clara might not tell, because then Tilde would tell on her, but Clara would pull her hair.
          Liesrl would tell if she noticed the swap, but she was only seven and might not notice. In fact, Tilde could probably persuade Liesrl to hide chocolates herself, and then, when Mutter found the stains, Liesrl would act guilty.
           Tilde switched her pillow with Liesrl's and hoped Mutter wouldn't notice the stains on the sheet. Then, feeling thirsty after the chocolate, she slipped out of her room and into the parlor, where mutter had set out a tray of fruit and a pitcher of water for a snack.
          Tilde poured herself a glass of water and set the pitcher back down.
           Gunther's knife lay on the table beside a long strip of skin he had peeled from an apple. It was a trick he liked to do for them, to show he could take the whole peel off in one piece. Then he'd lecture them, "You must never touch this knife. It's very sharp. Too sharp for little girls." He'd feint at them with the knife, and that was their signal to shriek and run. "Yes, run, but never run with a knife." And then he'd lay the knife down.
           And there it was: a pretty thing, with a mother of pearl handle and a thin, short curved blade. The whole thing was tiny, too small for Gunther's hand. He used it to cut fruit and slices of sausage and sometimes cheese. He always carried it with him in a little leather pouch.
           Tilde listened carefully. They were laughing downstairs, but sounded farther away. Probably they'd gone into the back room where Papa made the ice cream and the lady hand dipped chocolates once a week.
           She set down her water glass and picked up the knife. The handle felt so smooth, and was just the right size for her hand. She wasn't stealing it, she just wanted to hold it for a bit.
           And then she heard them on the stairs and ran for her room.
           "Ah, Tilde's up: I saw you, Tilde," said Gunther.
           Tilde dove into bed and hid under the covers. She held very still, even when Gunther and her sisters burst in.
           "She's not asleep," said Gunther.
           "No," said Clara, bouncing on Tilde's bed. "Tilde's faking, Tilde's faking."
           "I'll tickle her awake." Gunther took Clara's place on the bed and pulled the covers down. She scrambled to get away from him, but his hands were all over her.
           "Stop it!" she said.
           "What's this?" Gunther's hands were on her chest, holding her there while she struggled to get free. "Not much there yet. Clara has nice little buds growing, don't you, Clara?"
           Tilde saw Clara toss her head with a prideful smirk. She felt Gunther's hand moving down between her legs.
           "No!" she screamed, kicking him as hard as she could. The knife bounced on the mattress, where she must have dropped it. She picked it up. "Leave me alone."
           Gunther laughed. "Ooh, Tilde's going to stab me with my little pen knife. I'm so scared. Give it back, little thief."
           He lunged for the knife. Tilde pulled it back, trying to keep it out of his reach. And while her arms were raised, he lifted her nightdress.
           Tilde felt her refusal harden like an iron shield. He would not do this. She made her hands into fists and pummeled his face, his chest, his neck.
           "That's enough, Tilde! Stop right now," said Gunther when a lucky blow hit his nose. But he didn't let her go, and she wouldn't stop, couldn't stop, would never stop, kept hitting him and hitting him.
           Suddenly hot liquid squirted into her face and Gunther dropped her. He stood up, puzzlement in his face and blood pumping from his neck. Tilde was already drenched in it.
          "What have you done?" he said, pressing his hand to the wound.
           Liesrl broke into sobs.
           Gunther staggered from the room, leaving a bloody trail behind him.
           Clara looked at the knife in Tilde's bloody right hand. "You killed him."
           "No," Tilde said.
           "You stabbed him with the knife."
"I was just holding it."
           "They'll send you to the electric chair." Clara took a step toward Gunther, paused, looked back at Tilde. "Hide it in the wall." And then she ran after Gunther.
           Tilde knew exactly what she meant: The hole in the wall, the one behind the picture over.
           Tilde dragged a chair over and stood on it to reach the picture, a framed print of a cottage surrounded by roses and set beside a stream. She slid it to one side, exposing the broken plaster beneath, and pushed the knife through a space in the lath. It disappeared with a thunk inside the wall.
           She got down from the chair.
           Liesrl had collapsed onto the floor and was sobbing and screaming.
           "It's all right, Liesrl. You're all right."
           When she wouldn't stop crying, Tilde left her there and followed the trail of Gunther's blood down the stairs, through the shop, and into the street.
           Clara was standing just outside the open door of the shop. Gunther lay half way down the block on the sidewalk beneath a street lamp. The whole front of him was very red, and he wasn't moving. His eyes had a vacant look. A handful of people stood around him.
           "Why aren't they helping him?" Tilde asked.
           "They tried," said Clara.
           Tilde walked toward him, the cement sidewalk cold beneath her bare feet. Could Gunther see her? His eyes were open.
           "God in heaven," said a man, crossing himself.
           "Don't let the child see this," said Mrs. Grunwald, stepping between Tilde and the corpse.
           "That white hair and skin, and there's blood on her. I thought she was the Angel of Death."
           "It's just Tilde from the ice cream parlor. Are you all right, child? What happened?"
           Before Tilde could think of what to say, Clara interposed.
           "A man broke into the store to rob us. Gunther tried to stop him."
           She went to Tilde, put her arms around her, and they both burst into tears.

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