Randomly Thinking: Hot weather, outhouse races, and The Birds!

On July 8, 2021July 8, 2021 By Lisa R. HowelerIn Randomly Thinking8 Comments

I have been writing down little tidbits for Randomly Thinking but have not had much inclination to finalize them. It’s either been too hot or too rainy or I’ve been too tired. But this week I needed some cheering up and figured others might too.

***

I read a short romance this past week and in the book the main character gets dumped and not just dumped anywhere. He gets dumped at church.

I sent a note to the author on Instagram.

“I’m not done with the book yet but Cynthia dumped Joe at church. At church. Girl is brutal.”

I told my husband about this dumping scene, and he asked if I planned to dump him during the upcoming weekend when he got baptized. I told him, “Absolutely.”

I was like, “Yep. As soon as they bring you back up out of that water, I’m going to stand up and pump my fists and say, ‘Yes! Glad you got Jesus because you ain’t got me! I’m out looooser!”

We’ll be married 19 years in five more days. I’m lucky he still appreciates my odd sense of humor.

***

Smalltown life is interesting. In a good way. Mostly.

A couple of weeks ago we attended the town dairy festival, because we live in a town where they still celebrate dairy (even as our dairy farms are being forced to shut down).

It poured the entire parade. The local high school band couldn’t perform so the parade was mainly fire trucks, a few floats that focused on dairy consumption, a herd of Jersey cows from a friend of mine being led through town, and the color guard. When the fire trucks came through we figured that was the end because that’s usually what is at the end of a parade around here — a ton of fire trucks from all over the area, blowing their horns and sounding their sirens. This time, though, the parade restarted. Like the color guard came around again as if we were in a time loop.

My son called out, “Oh no! They’re stuck in a time loop! You have to try to get out! Try do something you didn’t do the first time around!”

It was hilarious. To me and my family anyhow. I’m so sure those around us were that amused, but who knows. A lot of people have lost their sense of humor these days.

What I’m really looking forward to is the outhouse races in August. They are held during Founder’s Days. I’ve always heard about the races but never been privy to them. Privy. Get it? Privy . . . Yeah. I know. That was bad. But anyhow, I’m looking forward to the day and will be sure to take some photos of it for all of you.

They don’t race to the outhouse, by the way. They build outhouses and people carry them while one person sits inside and they literally race them down the street. I’ve lived in this area my whole life and have never seen an outhouse race. But now we live right here in town so it’s my chance. What a disappointment last year, our first year here, when the event was canceled due to You Know What.

There is also a contest where someone is crowned the winner of the toilet seat cover painting contest. The paintings are very professional, so don’t let the name fool you. They hang the winners up in the local diner. The one with the stuffed six-foot black bear that overlooks diners.

***

It’s been hot the last several days. Hot and muggy mixed with afternoon thunderstorms. Little Miss and I snuck off to my parents to enjoy the above ground pool by dad installed many years ago, originally for my son. We like to take Zooma the Wonderdog with us but it’s hard to keep an eye on her while we are in the pool. She likes to run across the small dirt road, into the field by the pond, which wouldn’t be bad if cars didn’t fly up and down the road extremely fast. I’m always worried she will get hurt.

I had an extra lead to keep her tied to the pool so she would be close to us but it turned out to be very short. I finally gave up and let her roam but then called for her every five minutes to make sure she hadn’t gone into the road.

She was hilarious because she would sit by the pool, panting, looking innocent, for the longest time and then I would go back to swimming with Little Miss, pop up a few minutes later and she was gone. She’d wander back when I called her though, always looking innocent, wagging her tail. I feel like she’s saying to me, “What? I’ve been here the whole time. Why are you looking at me that way?”

***

Speaking of heat, I told my husband the other day that he shouldn’t mow the lawn around 3 because it was the hottest time of the day.

“No. Noon is the hottest time of the day,” he informed me, very confident.

“No. Around 2 or 3 is the hottest time,” I informed him.

I looked it up online and found this answer from The Farmer’s Almanac: “The hottest time of the day is around 3 p.m. Heat continues building up after noon, when the sun is highest in the sky, as long as more heat is arriving at the earth than leaving. By 3 p.m. or so, the sun is low enough in the sky for outgoing heat to be greater than incoming. Sometimes the hottest time is earlier because a weather system moves in with cool air early in the day.”

It was nice to finally be write about something scientific for once.

***

We watched a couple classic movies this past week. One of them was The Birds. This was a movie I avoided watching for my entire life based on something that happened in my childhood. My mom was outside mowing the lawn one day when I heard the lawn mower shut off and she came running inside.

“The birds!” she cried. “The birds are attacking!”

She was swiping at her hair with her arms over her head and shaking her head.

“It was just like that Alfred Hitchcock movie! It was crazy!”

It turns out some barn swallows were swooping down on her while she was on the riding mower just like, yes, The Birds. She believes they were trying to protect their nests. Whatever was happening, her declaration forever solidified in my mind that The Birds was a movie not to be watched.

But I finally did watch it and despite the fact the birds were super fake, it was pretty traumatizing to see and did leave me very leery of any birds gathering. One day, several years ago, at our old house I walked out to the back door and the entire back yard, our neighbors’ roof, and their backyard was full of birds. Had I seen this movie before then, I would have been even more freaked out than I was that day.

***

We had our first real thunderstorm experience on the hill in our new house last Tuesday night. The storm raged for three hours. Lightening lit up the sky from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. and thunder rattled the house. It was absolutely crazy. We lived in a literal Valley before we moved here, so we were somewhat shielded from storms there. When we did get them, they were fairly quick and mild. We rarely heard loud cracks of thunder there.

The worst storm I remembered there involved insane wind and a tornado touching down a few miles away. Two hundred foot, hundred-year-old trees were ripped out of the ground in our town and scattered like matchsticks. Then there was the year it rained for a week.

The entire downtown flooded and destroyed homes and businesses. It was surreal. There used to be marks on the walls that marked where Hurricane Agnes hit in 1972. Those records were obliterated by Hurricane Sandy, something I thought I’d never see in my lifetime.

***

As I was preparing this post last night, we had a power outage, something that also happens more often where we live now. It’s sort of odd, though. We will have power outages after you would think you would have them. In the winter we had one after the major snowstorms moved through. Last week we had weird storms all week long and no power outage, other than a few seconds. This power outage came in the middle of a very hot day and wiped out power for most of our county (which is about 6,000 people. Yes. That is how small our county is) for about eight hours.

***

I made a mistake recently of asking someone I don’t know to review my book. Monday she messaged me cheerfully on Instagram that she had reviewed the book. She acted like it was something to be excited about. I have been trying not to look at reviews but I did, against my better judgement, and saw she had left me a two star review and proceeded to shred my book, inferring things that weren’t even there. I was a bit in shock that she had made it a point to tell me to go look at the review (essentially). I suppose she wanted me to know how bad and evil she thought my book was and I doubt she was prepared for the message she got back from me, asking her if she was so worried about me being a “bad Christian” how did she think she was being a good one by making sure I saw a mean review. The power outage was welcome because I was obsessing over this girl and what had made her think she was so above everyone else and was really considering messaging her again. It wouldn’t have helped anything anyhow. She felt how she felt and it can’t be helped. The outage made me take a breather and pray for forgiveness instead of figuring out how to blast her again.

***

So those are my random thoughts for the week. How about you? Any random thoughts to share? Let me know in the comments.

Sunday Bookends: Giraffes, lions and goats. Oh my.

On July 4, 2021July 3, 2021 By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings9 Comments

Welcome to my weekly post where I recap my week by writing about what I’ve been reading, watching, writing, doing, and sometimes what I’ve been listening to.

Friday night I crawled into bed around 11:30. On one side of me was a 6-year old little girl with sun burnt cheeks and nose, clutching a stuffed baby giraffe and clearly asleep. Next to her was a friendly kitten who had already extracted a series of pets from me. In the space where my feet should have been was a Shetland sheepdog mix and the feet of the aforementioned child.

My arms and face, chest and back of my neck were hot to the touch. Events of the day raced through my mind, most of them good a couple of them could have been bad, scary and life changing.

It had been a full day and I was beat, but glad to have experienced it all.

We started the week planning to take a few day trips for my husband’s vacation. Instead, hot and muggy weather and a series of thunderstorms throughout the week kept us home until Friday. We’d also planned to visit my 88-year old aunt that day, taking my dad (her brother) with us. I talked to my aunt Tuesday and by Wednesday she was in the hospital. In the end my dad went to see her while we went to Animal Adventure Park, which is the park in Harpursville, N.Y. that became famous a few years ago when everyone in the world, it seems, was waiting for April the giraffe to give birth and then watched her do just that.

My aunt is doing better but we are not sure when she will go home or if she will go to rehab. They believe a severe urinary tract infection caused her to become disoriented. By the time my dad got to see her, her mind had cleared, luckily.

It’s been two years since we’ve been at the adventure park, so my daughter had forgot a lot about what they had to offer, but she had a blast. She’s an animal enthusiast so she liked to talk to the animals while she fed them. She was most fascinated with the goats, which I found odd since we can see goats just about anywhere around us. We do not, however, see African lions, African penguins, giraffes, and monkeys around our home. I am most fascinated with the giraffes because they are so friendly and tall. We’re not allowed to pet them but people are allowed to feed them carrots. It is very hard not to pet them when they reach up over the fence with their large heads.

April, who we loved visiting when we first went there, passed away this April. She was euthanized after a long bout of arthritis made it difficult for her to stand any longer, which is, of course, something giraffes need to do to survive. A member of the staff chatted with me about it and said how hard it was. The owner of the facility, Jordan Patch, asked the entire staff for their opinion before the final decision was made and it was very hard on all of them, she said.

There is a statue in honor of April and her son Azizi in the front of the park. Azizi was sent to another facility and passed away from a severe stomach issue sometime this year, or last. April’s other son Tajiri, the one everyone watch being born, is still at the facility, along with his father Oliver. They also have two other giraffes, Jahari (I am sure I have that spelled wrong) who they think may be pregnant and Desmond.

I honestly thought we might never be able to leave there. My daughter wanted to go around and around again and again, but mainly wanted to keep feeding the goats. Even my son enjoyed conversing with the goats. His biggest fascination, however, was the monkeys. He loves monkeys and I have no idea why. One species of monkeys had just had a baby two days before we were there. The squirrel monkeys had also recently had babies and they looked like little aliens.

We enjoyed watching them feed the lions. The male lion and the lioness had a small tumble about four feet away from us, which was pretty cool to watch. They have a mix of African lions and Timbavati White Lions.

Little Miss was also able to hold a joey, or a baby Kangaroo (for a fee of course) and thoroughly enjoyed that, even when it almost scratched her eye out.

I will probably share some extra photographs from the day there in a post later this week.

What I’m Reading

I finished a book by Elizabeth Maddrey called So You Want A Second Chance. It was what some call a “billionaire romance” but it was much different than other such romances. There was less focus on “oh he’s got money and she doesn’t” and more focus on the couple who had known each other years before and reconnected after the man has a heart attack. This couple was also an “older couple” in their 50s instead of the younger couples these books usually feature. It was nice to see a book focus on the older generation (since I am slowly becoming a member of that group).

I am still reading The Cat Who Knew A Cardinal by Lillian Jackson Braun and I also went back to finish Maggie by Charles Martin which I abandoned months ago because it was pretty depressing.

For fun I am reading Ready to Trust by Tina Radcliffe, a Love Inspire Romance.

What I’m Watching

Since my husband’s vacation was mostly sweated and rained out (hot temps and then thunderstorms, as I mentioned above) we watched old movies and shows most of the week.

We watched two classics I had never seen, The Birds, and Double Indemnity.

I also watched episode seven of The Chosen and loved it, especially the interaction between Quintis and Jesus. You can watch the episode on The Chosen app, which you can download to your phone or tablet, and then cast to your TV, or watch right on your phone or tablet.

We watched three or four episodes of Lovejoy as well.

What I’m Listening To

I am listening to an audio book by David James Warren (which is actually three authors) from the Rembrandt Stone series. I don’t listen to audiobooks very often. I prefer reading books but I signed up for a book tour for the fourth book in this series in August so I have a lot of reading to do before I get a copy of that book. I’m enjoying it so far. It’s a time-travel mystery/thriller

What I’m Writing

I am working through revisions and edits of Harvesting Hope for the next month since it comes out on Amazon on August 12, so that’s mainly what I wrote this past week.

On the blog I shared a Tell Me More About post with author Robin W. Pearson.

So that’s my week in review. What have you been reading, doing, watching, or writing lately? Let me know in the comments.

Special Saturday Fiction: Harvesting Hope Chapter 20

On July 3, 2021July 1, 2021 By Lisa R. HowelerIn fiction, Fiction Friday2 Comments

If you are a new reader here, I share a chapter from my WIP each Friday, and sometimes Saturday, on my blog. There are typos, grammatical issues and even plot holes at times because this is a first, second, or third draft that hasn’t gone to my editor (eh, husband) yet. If you see a typo, feel free to kindly let me know in the comments. Sometimes the error has already been fixed on my copy, sometimes not.

Catch up with the rest of the story HERE. Don’t feel like reading the book in a series of chapters each Friday? Preorder the book HERE. Do you want to read the first book in the series? Download it HERE. (It is free on Kindle through today.)

Chapter 20

“Hey, Trooper. How you holding up?”

Jason looked up and watched Brittany walk into the emergency room exam room, her usual jovial and flirty behavior greatly subdued.

“You here to sew me up?” he asked with a grin, his hand still holding the gauze the nurse had pressed there before she left to consult the doctor.

Brittany laughed. “No. Sadly, that is not one of my specialties. I just came to see how you were doing. Emotionally more than physical.”

He shrugged a shoulder, frowning. “Eh. I’m . . . well, hanging in there, I guess.”

She sat back on the exam table next to him and leaned her shoulder into his. “We win some, we lose some, okay? It’s not a reflection of how good we are at our job. Sometimes crap just happens.”

Only she didn’t say crap, because that Brittany didn’t tone her language down for anyone.

Jason stared at the pattern of the linoleum on the floor, Anne’s voice echoing in his memory. He knew Brittany was trying to comfort and encourage, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that if he had been more careful, he would have understood what Anne was saying and could have saved John too.

“Okay, Mr. Tanner.” The nurse stepped back in the exam room, bringing the tangy citrus smell of her perfume with her. “The doctor is on his way in. He’s going to do the sutures instead of the glue. He says that cut is too deep for the glue, so I had to grab more threat. Sorry for the wait.”

Brittany winked and slid her hand over Jason’s, intertwining her fingers with his. “That’s okay. I was keeping him company. I’ll hold his hand while the doctor stitches him up.”

She punched Jason playfully on the upper arm. At least he thought it was playful. Maybe Brittany was trying to be more than playful. Her fingers were tightly wound around his. If she was trying to be more than playful, he didn’t have the mental capacity to worry about it at the moment. The only subject on his mind, other than his need to apologize to Ellie, was hearing from Cody, finding out for sure that John was in the house and if Anne was okay.

The doctor came in next and after a greeting, wiped more blood away, cleaned the wound while Jason grimaced, and started the stitches. Jason’s phone rang on the third stitch.

“I’ll get it,” Brittany announced, snatching it from his hand.

Jason didn’t like her assertiveness in this case, but at least she wasn’t holding his hand anymore.

“Yeah, Cody, it’s me, Brittany. The doctor is sewing him up, so I thought I’d answer for him. I was on a transport to the hospital when I heard about the fire and that Jason was here. I thought I’d check on him.” She paused. “Yeah. Okay.” Her playful tone morphed into a more serious one as she nodded and listened to Cody talking. “I’ll tell him. No, I will. You know that. I’ll make sure he knows. Okay.”

She slid her finger over the screen and laid the phone on the top of the exam table between them.

He already knew what she was going to say before she said it. Her blue eyes glistened under the fluorescent glow.

“The fire marshal found John. In the kitchen. Near the stove. Preliminary investigation shows the fire was an accident, but she’ll know more later.” Brittany slid her hand over his again, squeezing gently. “Cody wants me to tell you that this isn’t your fault. You didn’t know John was in there. You’re a good man and a good firefighter. And he wants to make sure you call him if you need to talk. He’s also going to call later today and check on you and would appreciate a text when you get out of here for an update on the cut.”

Jason nodded, tight-lipped, jaw tight. He tried to speak, to thank her for the information, but no sound came out. He swallowed hard, finally got the words out. “Thanks, Brit. I appreciate it.”

She kept her hand tight on his and laid her other hand on his arm, leaning her head against his shoulder while the doctor continued sewing. “Anytime, bud. Anytime.”

***

Cody had told her Jason was at the hospital being stitched up. He’d also told her what the fire marshal had found, and that Anne Weatherly was being examined at the hospital. They’d know more about her condition later that evening.

As Ellie walked through the emergency room entrance, she felt a case of deja vu, only this time she knew Jason was okay and had only needed a few stitches for a cut on his forehead.

The situation could have been very different. One wrong step, a few more minutes of delay in the house, and she could have been here to identify a body. Of course, that task usually fell to family members, not ex-girlfriends.

Glancing at the front desk, she stifled a laugh. No way. It couldn’t be. What kind of crazy schedule did this woman have? Or maybe she was the only receptionist the hospital employed. Maybe this woman simply lived somewhere down the hall. Or pulled her bed out from under the desk in between visitors.

Whatever.

She didn’t have time to worry about the work schedule of a purple-haired stranger. She simply needed to find out where Jason was.

Wait. Purple hair? Didn’t she have blue hair last time? No. It was purple then, too. Wasn’t it?

Not that it actually mattered.

“Excuse me.”

The woman didn’t look up from the computer, per her usual customer service performance.

“May I help you?”

Fingernails clipped across the keyboard.

“I’m looking for Jason Tanner. He was brought here a couple of hours ago.”

“You family?”

“No, I’m —”

The woman pointed past Ellie’s shoulder, her gaze still on the computer. “Waiting room. Across the hall.”

“I understand, but —”

The receptionist pointed again.

Ellie rolled her eyes toward the ceiling and sighed.

In the waiting room, she pulled out her phone and saw a message from Molly.

Molly: I didn’t know whether to message you or not, but did Lucy tell you about the fire at Weatherly’s?

Ellie: Yes, I’m at the ER, waiting to check on Jason.

Molly: He texted and said it was just stitches, so we’re back at his place waiting for him.

Ellie: I’ll update you when I know more.

Molly: Thanks. Love you, El.

Ellie: Love you too, Molly.

She spent the rest of her wait scrolling through social media posts, crinkling her nose at the outfit of some 20-something-year-old celebrity she’d never heard of.

She had no idea why she’d ever signed up for Instagram anyhow. Probably because Judi had told her to so she could follow Judi and all her city-based adventures.

Speaking of Judi . . . What had she been posting on her account lately?

She searched Judi’s name and found a photo of her with an attractive-looking man at the top of her feed. A click on the photo showed the picture had been posted more than a month ago, a few days before Judi had arrived on Ellie’s doorstep.

Ellie read the caption.

“Life is better when you’re out on the town with your seriously hooooot co-worker. Kiss-kiss-hug-hug, peeps.”

Someone with the username lifeisahighway was tagged.

Ellie clicked the name and a series of photos of the man with his arms around barely stressed women or posing sans shirt popped up. The latest photo had been posted yesterday and was him being straddled on a couch by a woman with long red hair, his hands grasping her waist, his face buried in her cleavage.

“Nothing like a sex-filled weekend in the Hamptons,” read the caption.

Ellie cringed. “Gross.”

She scrolled further down his feed and stopped at a photo of him with Judi. They were standing on the patio of some restaurant. He was one step behind her, his hands resting on her thighs.

The caption drew a gasp from Ellie. To say it was crude and beyond inappropriate was an understatement. His description of what he planned to do with her sister clearly crossed the line of pornographic.

She scrolled further down the feed, but didn’t see any other photos of him with Judi, only other women, most of them cuddled up against him, a few even in his bed, sheets draped over them, yet making it clear they weren’t wearing clothes under those sheets.

At the sound of voices in the hall, she looked up, the phone still in her hand, her mouth still slightly open, denoting her shock over what she’d seen. Through the doorway, she watched Jason stop in the hallway next to the receptionist’s desk and turn to a blond woman next to him.

Ellie couldn’t hear what they were saying from where she was sitting, but the woman’s expression exuded compassion and her mannerisms were those of someone who was familiar, very familiar with him.

The woman patted his shoulder in one move and in the next her arms were around his neck, her lips against his cheek. The embrace and kiss were brief. In less than 30 seconds she was gone, and Jason stood in the hallway alone, watching her leave.

Ellie glanced to her left, wondering how smoothly she could move out of Jason’s eyesight if he turned toward the waiting room. He didn’t, though. Instead, he pulled his ducked his head down, pulled on his John Deere cap, and walked through the exit doors. Craning her neck, she looked through the wide windows in the waiting room, her gaze following him, curious if he’d follow the blond woman to her car.

She stood and walked to the window, almost afraid to look.

A truck was idling in the hospital driveway and for a moment she thought it might be the woman, picking him up. She watched Jason climb inside and then realized, as if a fog had lifted from her, the person driving the truck wasn’t blond and it wasn’t a woman. It was their friend, Matt McGee and obviously off duty as a Spencer Valley Police Officer.

Relief swept over her, but only briefly, because then she remembered how the woman had hugged Jason and pressed her mouth to his cheek. Who was she? Was she someone Jason had been seeing? It’s not as if Ellie could say anything. She was the one who had broken it off, the one who had pushed him away no matter how many times he had tried to apologize.

She slid her purse strap over her shoulder and walked into the hallway.

“That guy you were looking for just left.”

The receptionist’s voice mixed in with the sound of her nails clicking across the keyboard. As usual, she didn’t look up from the computer while she spoke.

“Thank you,” Ellie said with an amused smile. “You’ve been very helpful.”

Fiction Friday: Harvesting Hope, Chapter 19 Part 2

On July 2, 2021July 1, 2021 By Lisa R. HowelerIn Fiction Friday1 Comment

I will be looking for people to provide advanced reviews of the book on Goodreads, so if you are interested in that, let me know. I will send you a free copy of the book to read in full for that.

To explain why there is a part two to last week’s chapter: originally this section was going to be a prologue to the book (I posted it on here originally a few month ago), but I’ve decided to drop the prologue and move it down here (right with the scene where Jason arrives at the fire scene and before Ellie talks to Lucy) to help the story flow better. Tomorrow I will share Chapter 20, which will focus on what happens after the fire.

Chapter 19 Part 2

A few minutes later, smoke curled down Jason’s throat, choked him, burned his eyes, reminded him he didn’t have a clue what he was doing, and he should have waited for back up.

He couldn’t stop, though. He had to keep walking, one boot-clad foot in front of the other, gloved hands feeling the wall.

A life depended on it.

“Help . . .” Ann’s voice quivered with panic, barely audible.

“Don’t move, Ann. I’m coming. Keep talking to me, okay?”

She was in the kitchen. He knew that, could tell where her voice was coming from, but he couldn’t see beyond the thick black smoke to reach her. Was he in the living room or the dining room at this point? It should be the dining room, but where were the tables and chairs?

A series of coughs to his right changed his direction. He kept walking, slammed his arm off a door frame, glad the fire suit was padded. Air puffed into his mask from his oxygen tank, but the smoke still stifled, making him gag. Maybe it would overtake him before he could get to her. The coughing had stopped. He needed her to cough, to make some sort of sound.

“Ann?”

He heard nothing but the crackling of the flames licking up the wall, across the ceiling of the kitchen.

“Ann?”

His foot hit something solid, almost sent him sprawling. He regained his balance, crouched, moving along the floor, his line of sight demolished by the smoke. He yanked the gloves off, felt the floor, cool to the touch. His hand bumped against warm, soft flesh.

A hand.

Now an arm and a shoulder. He shook the shoulder gently.

“Ann, it’s me, Jason Tanner. Can you hear me? I’ve got to get you out of here. Are you hurt?”

A soft cough from the direction of the body told him she was at least alive.

“I’m going to lift you and we’re going to get out of here, okay?”

He couldn’t fling her over his shoulder. She was too fragile at her age to be carried like a sack of potatoes. Instead, he slid one arm under her legs, the other behind her back, carrying her like he might a small child. Her head fell against his shoulder as he lifted her.

“John.”

“No, ma’am. It’s Jason. You’re going to be okay.”

“John . . .”

She was lighter than a sack of potatoes, that was for sure. There was almost nothing to her.

Standing he looked through the smoke to where he knew the back door was. He couldn’t carry her through there. It was already engulfed in flames. He pressed his back against the wall and slid along it, slamming into the Hoosier cabinet. He knew that meant he was only a few steps from the kitchen doorway.

If he hadn’t visited this home so many times over the last year, he wouldn’t have known that the kitchen led to a small hallway, the dining room into the living room and then a foyer to the front door

He winced when his hip slammed into the dining room table. Ann moaned and he pulled her tighter against him, breathing hard. Above him flames crackled, wood snapped, the fire ripping across the ceiling, shredding the wooden beams between the floors.

“John . . .”

“We’ll be out soon, Mrs. Weatherly.”

But he wasn’t really sure of that. He had thought the living room was right in front of him, but now he was bumping against walls he didn’t remember being there. Had he turned wrong and ended up in the laundry room instead? Or maybe even a bathroom. He felt out with a gloved hand, touched a wall, then something hard, metal. The washer. He was in the laundry room. The laundry room that didn’t have a door or window.

He turned around slowly, making sure Ann’s head stead safe against his shoulder. Smoke poured from below and above him now. With the fire spreading across the top floor, he wondered how long it would be before it fell down on him.

“Jason!” Cody’s voice boomed from somewhere to his right. He felt for the wall, moved forward a few steps and stopped when his foot kicked into a doorframe.

“Jason! Are you in there?!”

“I’m coming!” His breath fogged up the shield of his helmet as he spoke.

At least had the sound of Cody’s voice to follow because he was even more blind that he had been before. “Move, Tanner! The roof is coming down!”

Shuffling he tried to ignore the crackling and snapping above him. In front of him red and orange roared along the wall, blocking his exit. He took a deep breath, curled his upper body around Ann and kept moving. After a few steps, he felt a hard pull on the front of the turnout gear, hands yanking him forward into bright light and cool air.

“Guys!” Cody shouted next to his ear. “We got a patient!”

Ann was lifted from his arms, and he stumbled forward off the front porch, pulling at the mask, falling to the ground on his hands and knees as he gulped fresh air into his lungs. Behind him he heard the snapping of wood and the shattering of glass. The top floor had caved in. Hands snatched him under his arms, dragged him forward across the grass, further away from the burning house, as he continued to gag and gasp for air.

“Did Denny get out?!” he yelled as soon as he could breathe again.

He looked up, his vision blurred by sweat and smoke.

Denny was guzzling water a few feet away by the fire truck, pouring it over his head and then drinking again. Two other firefighters, James Lantz and Duane Trenton, stood above Jason, breathing hard, wiping sweat and soot from their faces. Jason realized they were the ones who had dragged him across the yard. Cody hooked an arm under Jason’s, helping him to his feet.

“No one is sure where John is. Denny was in looking for him, but the flames pushed him back. See any sign of him?”

Jason shook his head, taking the fresh bottle of water Denny offered him. “I could barely see anything in there. Ann was in the kitchen. If anyone else was in there I couldn’t see them.”

He couldn’t have seen anything. What if John had been in there? Somewhere on the floor near his wife?

He sucked the water from the bottle down in one gulp, then quickly looked up at the firefighters still battling the flames, trying to save the house even though they all knew it would be a total loss.

“Breathe in.” Brittany pressed an oxygen mask against his face and hooked the band behind his head. “Sit.”

Brittany wasn’t afraid to order the first responders around if it was for their own good and sometimes even when it wasn’t. Jason sat on the ground, legs bent, popping his arm on his knees as he breathed deep, coughed, and breathed deep again.

Ann’s pleading voice inside the house replayed in his mind as he sucked fresh oxygen into his lungs. “John.”

Horror shivered through him. Oh God. No.

“Cody!” He pulled the oxygen mask off his nose. “John’s still inside!”

He leapt to his feet, but Cody pivoted fast, pressed his hands against Jason’s chest. “Slow down, big guy. You aren’t going anywhere. The second floor’s collapsed. There’s nothing we can do.”

“She tried to tell me. Mrs. Weatherly. Ann. She — she couldn’t breathe, must have passed out, but she was calling for John. I didn’t understand. I should have —”

Cody shook his head. “Let’s not jump to conclusions. Maybe John is at the store or somewhere else. You couldn’t have carried them both out, anyhow.” He placed both hands on Jason’s shoulder. “Look at me, Tanner. If John’s gone, it isn’t your fault. You did all you could. We’ll know more when the fire is out and the fire marshal gets here.”

Jason nodded, pressed the mask back to his face and breathed in deep, glancing to his right and watching the paramedics attending to Ann as she laid prostrate on her backon the stretcher.

Part of him knew Cody was right.

He couldn’t have carried both Mr. and Mrs. Weatherly out of that house, but if he had only stopped to listen, to understand what Ann had been saying, he could have tried. He could have pushed forward a few more feet, found John if he was in there.

He raked a hand through his damp hair, clutched at it, and let out a long breath into the oxygen mask. His mind raced.

Maybe John Weatherly hadn’t even been home when the fire broke out. Maybe he’d pull into that driveway any minute in his old blue 1970 Lincoln Continental and be perfectly healthy and alive. Jason slumped back against the side of the fire truck, fought the emotion grasping at his throat. Something deep in his gut told him John wasn’t going to pull into that driveway.

Not today.

Not ever again.

He was inside that house, now almost down to the ground, flames shooting up from what was left of the first floor.

Ann hadn’t mistaken Jason for her husband.

She’d been trying to tell Jason her husband was still in the house.

His jaw tightened as he heard the ambulance siren wail, saw the red lights swirling. It took him back to nine months before, to that rainy day in the lower field, when it had been his dad being loaded into an ambulance. He had felt emotion stuck in his throat that day in the lower field too and he had swallowed it down hard, shoving the fear of losing his father tight inside the same hollow spot in his chest where he’d shoved his heartache over Ellie walking away.

He hadn’t had time for emotion then, and he didn’t now. He shoved his guilt over John right against his shame from that night with Lauren Phillips, right against the grief he still felt over the loss of his grandfather, right against the hurt he’d caused Ellie.

Writer Tip: Use a thesaurus, but prudentally or you might get submerged in superfluous jargon

On July 1, 2021 By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musingsLeave a comment

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This post wasoriginally posted on Lisa R. Howeler’s blog, Boondock Ramblings.

There are two kinds of writers: writers who overuse the thesaurus and writers who are afraid of using a thesaurus.

Okay, fine.

There are actually three types of writers, with the third type being the writer who actually knows the proper way to use the thesaurus, but those writers don’t need my advice today, so I’m pretending they don’t exist (even though I have slowly become one of those writers, but only with a great deal of practice.)

I was once afraid of the thesaurus. Somehow, I thought I should have all the words in the universe in my head already.

It wasn’t only my pride keeping me from using one, however. I also avoided thesauruses because one of the biggest lessons we learned in journalism 101 when I was in college was K.I.S.S.

No, our professors were…

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