Towhee Freshwater

Towhee Freshwater is a character in the Melisende Dulac Series.

Biography

Towhee is a nickname given to her by her brother Emile. Originally, he was the only person to use it, in a teasing but playful way. "Because she chirps and has crazy eyes like a spotted towhee." After the family annihilation she insisted everyone call her Towhee and refused to answer to her given name, Odelia.

Within her family, Towhee was especially close to her father and to Emile. As a first-grader, she made a small, glazed ceramic disc at school with #ilovedaddy inscribed in the surface. Her father Clark often wore it as a pendant. When it was discovered with a decomposed body in a shallow grave at the Hensley Asylum for Infirm Ladies and Needful Girls cemetery, it's presence helped with the preliminary identification of the body as Clark's.

Since the deaths of her family and the disappearance of her father, she has been fostered by Dearth and Virginia Newland.

Towhee drives a blue 1985 Ford F-250.

Description
Her hair is a different color each week, green, blue, pink, or even all three. (Left alone, her hair is dark brown.) Sometimes she ties it back in a prim bun, others she gels up into a sharp Mohawk. Her shoulders and chest are as broad as a weightlifter’s, tapering down to a narrow waist and spindly legs. She has russet eyes, another reason Emile called her Towhee.

Legal Problems

In the spring of 2018, during her junior year of high school, Towhee set fire to the high school computer room. In exchange for a guilty plea, she was placed in a diversion program that required she pay restitution to the school, plus a fine and court costs. Successful completion of the diversion program, which included completing five hundred hours of community service and full restitution to the school, will result in suspension of the fine. If she stays out of further trouble, her record will be expunged on her eighteenth birthday.

For her community service, she was assigned on the Hensley Asylum cemetery relocation project. Her wages from Bouton Funerary Service, where she worked performing landscaping and odd jobs, were garnisheed to pay the restitution.

Vital Statistics

Date of Birth: 12 October 2000
Foster Care: 2/21/2009 with Dearth and Virginia Newland
Date of Death: —

See Family Trees for family relationships.

Character Affiliations

• Clark Freshwater, father
• Dorothy Freshwater, mother
• Emile Freshwater, brother
• Virginia Newland, foster mother
• Dearth Newland, father father
• Melisende Dulac, friend

Points of Interest

• Freshwater Knoll

Appearances

• Memory Garden