Extra Fiction Thursday: Quarantined, a novella, Chapter 6 and 7

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn fiction, Fiction Thursday1 Comment

*Warning: This week’s chapter deals with the topic of miscarriage.

Normal disclaimer: The fiction I share here is not usually the final draft. It also isn’t normally the first draft. Either way, it is edited and rewritten before the final “publication” as an ebook on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

If you’d like to catch up on the story you can do so HERE.

I welcome feedback, suggestions and corrections.

Chapter 6

The bundle in Maddie’s arms, swaddled in a blue and white hospital blanket, had been so tiny, motionless. Liam wanted to run out of the room and never look back, but he knew he couldn’t. That was his baby in there, in  his wife’s arms; his baby who hadn’t lived. His legs felt like lead weights as he stepped across the room, nodding at the nurse who looked at him with concern and compassion, tears in her eyes.

The nurse’s hand on his shoulder was warm as he moved to stand next to the bed, looking down at Maddie. Eyes still on the small, lifeless face peeking out from the blanket, Liam sat next to his wife, sliding his arm around her as she cried. Maddie’s hair was soft against his face as he buried it there to try to hold the tears in.

“I thought it would be different this time,” she said through the tears. “I thought this time we’d make it.”

The three other miscarriages had been early in the pregnancies and one of them had been what the doctor’s called a blighted ovum – an empty sac, or a baby that never grew enough to be picked up by the ultrasound.

Liam kissed the top of Maddie’s head and closed his eyes. “I know, Maddie. I know. Me too.”

And he had thought they’d be bringing a baby home. The nursery had been ready, the baby clothes purchased, the crib set up. When the doctor told them that the placenta had ruptured and the baby wasn’t going to survive Liam’s ears had started ringing. When he learned Maddie might be lost too, colorful lights mixed with blackness faded across his vision.

A deep breath and a head shake had kept him from hitting the ground, but the doctor still took three long steps toward him and grabbed his arm to steady him.

“Please, Mr. Grant. Sit. We’re going to do everything we can to save your wife.”

In the midst of grief was joy that Maddie had survived; that even if he couldn’t carry a baby home with him, he still had Maddie. Sitting in the dimly lit den in the back of the house, he chewed at the nail on his thumb as he remembered that horrible day and the days that followed.

There was no denying those first few months had been beyond difficult. Maddie was stoic most days, angry others. Then there were the days she spent sobbing almost uncontrollably behind the closed bedroom door, unable to get out of bed and face life, or even face him. He comforted Maddie as best as he could, tried to be gentle, tried to understand her grief and most of all he tried not to burden her with his own grief.

He had to be strong for her. She wasn’t capable of helping him heal when she couldn’t heal herself; he knew that. He also knew he should have relied more on God to heal them both, but he was angry at God; furious that God had not only let him down, but most of all that he had let Maddie down.

All Maddie had ever wanted was to be a mother. Blow after crushing blow eviscerated that dream.

Liam blamed God.

He had been raised to believe God wanted his people to prosper not suffer, that he loved them. If that was true, then why had this so-called compassionate God let Maddie suffer so much and so often?

After the loss of the baby, who he and Maddie named Abrielle, Liam buried himself in work at the public relations firm he’d been employed by during that time. When he wasn’t working, he did his best to make Maddie happy — making her dinners, making sure she had quiet time, and not pressuring her to go back to work at the small magazine she’d been working at.

She was never happy, though. She didn’t want to take the medicine the therapist had suggested. She didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t answer phone calls from her parents or come out of her room for visits by Cassie or her friends. She didn’t want him to hold her and tell her it was going to be okay.

 Many days it seemed like it was him she wasn’t happy with. He finally  gave up trying to make her happy. Maybe he should haven’t have given up. Maybe if he hadn’t, she wouldn’t have wanted the divorce.

He stood from the loveseat in the den and paused at the window, looking out at the side yard, barely lit by the half moon. He rubbed his chin, biting the inside of his lip.

“I want a divorce.”

Those had been her exact words and she’d said it without even flinching, other than a small muscle jumping in her right eye, right above the small scar she’d gotten when she fell off her bike at 8-years old. Liam had used to kiss that scar, then her cheek, on his way to her mouth.

He hadn’t really wanted a divorce, but he had known in that moment it was what Maddie wanted.

She felt he’d never been there for her, that he had abandoned her.

If she felt that way, there was no changing her mind, no matter how many times he reminded her of how often he had been there.

He shook his head and drank the last of his soda down.

Maybe after the divorce, they would find the healing and peace neither of them could find when they were together.

***

Maddie poured herself a glass of milk and squeezed in a large helping of chocolate syrup. She knew it wasn’t right, but during stressful times she reached for comfort food and that comfort food was usually full of fat and sugar.

Walking to the back deck she flopped in a lawn chair and guzzled the milk, looking out at an empty backyard, a backyard she had once thought would house a swing set, a tiny kiddie pool, and a sandbox.

She could still remember the conversation she’d had with Cassie after the loss of Abrielle.

“What is wrong with my body? Women’s bodies are supposed to grow babies! It’s natural! That’s what all the books say! I guess I’m just not natural.”

Cassie — beautiful, sweet and fertile Cassie, pregnant with baby number three — shook her head and reached out to take her hand.

“Maddie, that isn’t true. There isn’t anything wrong with you. If there is a medical reason you can’t carry a baby to term the doctors will find it. Having a medical reason for the miscarriages doesn’t mean you’re not a real woman.”

Maddie had known Cassie was right, but she still struggled with toxic thoughts, thoughts that told her that her body had failed her, but more importantly, Liam. She’d seen Liam with his nieces and nephews. She knew he’d be a wonderful father and she’d wanted to make him that father. It had never happened, though, and no matter how many times someone told her it wasn’t her fault, she knew it was.

She leaned back in the lawn chair and closed her eyes against hot tears.

It was her fault Liam wasn’t a dad.

It was her fault their marriage had fallen apart.

What had happened to her? When had she become so miserable? When had she become someone that even she wouldn’t want to be around? No wonder Liam had jumped at the opportunity to divorce her.

He needed someone who had as much passion for life as he did, who wasn’t miserable and depressed and cold.

“God,” she whispered, her eyes still closed. “How did I get here, at this miserable, lonely place? Why did you abandon me here?”

A tear slipped down her cheek and she brushed it away quickly with the back of her hand, choking out a small laugh. Maybe you’re asking why I abandoned you, huh? She shook her head. I don’t know anymore, Lord.  I don’t know where I’ve been or even who I am.

She pulled her knees up to her chest, bowing her head against them, letting the tears flow.

Father, help me let Liam go, so he can be happy again.

Chapter 7

Tiny fingers and toes, pudgy arms and pudgy legs. Cassie kissed Tyler’s newborn nose, tears streaming down her face part from exhaustion but also joy.

“I can’t believe he’s here,” Matt whispered near her ear and when she turned her head, she saw that her husband’s face was streaked with tears too.

There were days it felt like Tyler had been born yesterday, not the 13-years it actually was. Thirteen years. So much had happened during that time. Two more pregnancies and two more children, her retirement from social work, Matt’s campaign. . . . How had it all gone by so fast?

There were times Cassie thought she should have done more with her life by now, but there were other times she was happy with where she was. She’d decided to send the children to a small, private Christian school the year before last when Matt’s national profile had increased. She began volunteering there regularly, helping the children at the school sign out library books or teaching them art. Best of all, she was able to see her own children throughout the day, keep an ey on them and make sure they weren’t approached by anyone from Matt’s political world. So far, the media had left the children alone, even when they hadn’t left her alone.

The story on the opinion page of the Post last year had questioned her involvement with the school. If Senator Matt Grant’s children attended a Christian school where his wife also volunteered, could he be trusted to treat all of his constituents fairly? What about the Muslim children? Or the Buddhists? Or even the Jewish?

“How will Grant’s faith influence his oath of office to represent all of his constituents?” the columnist asked.

“It won’t,” Matt told a reporter who posed the same question at a press conference a few days later. “My faith is what inspires me to care about all of my constituents. I believe God created them and called for me to love them as he has loved me and them.” He told her later he had smiled easily, winking at the reporter good-naturedly, even though inside he had felt unsettled by the question. “And you, Jim. He has called for me to love even you.”

The critics continued to squawk, though, and after that Cassie decided to no longer read or listen to the news. She tried instead to focus all her attention on her children and family. She had buried herself in volunteering, in reading, in her Bible study, in anything to try to drown the critical voices of the world out.

She was beginning to realize now, though, that she’d also drowned out Matt and her marriage, subconsciously pushing aside anything she thought might threaten her family’s safety. Pouring herself a glass of milk she leaned back against the counter and winced. Did she really think being close to Matt was a risk to their safety? If anything, being closer to him should have been a comfort in a sea of chaos.

If she had been feeling like she had been in a sea of chaos, alone on a storm-tossed ship in the middle it, then how had Matt been feeling? He’d been the one at the brunt of it, the one taking the hits and, in almost every way, the one shielding the rest of the family from the blows.

Walking into the living room, sipping the milk, she watched Matt in the backyard with the children, tossing a rubber ball between each of them. He tipped his head back and laughed when it bounced off Gracie’s forehead and she tumbled backwards, giggling. Tyler picked it up and tossed it to Lauren, who quickly dropped it, giggling too much to hold on to it.

 Lauren bent to pick it up and Matt lunged for it at the same time, snatching it from her then gently bouncing it off her forehead, sending her into another fit of giggles. Cassie couldn’t hear what they all were saying, but she knew the children were finding whatever Matt was saying funny by their laughter and wide grins.

Cassie hadn’t seen Matt this relaxed and joyful in at least two years, probably longer. She watched him as he tossed the ball, his muscles still well defined and toned after all these years, visible underneath the t-shirt pulling against his stomach as he lifted his arms to catch the ball, stop it from sailing over the fence into the neighbor’s pool.

An ache filled her chest, moved up her throat, threatened to spill tears down her face. She bit her lip, trying to hold back the emotion but it didn’t work. Tears pooled in her eyes, streaked her cheeks and she let them roll, knowing they were as full of joy as they were sadness. She was so grateful for this time with her family, with Matt, but she was also sad that she hadn’t tried to have more of it in the last couple of years.

Matt deserved so much more from her. More of her attention, more of her comfort; simply more of her. She needed to stop holding back and lower her walls. She needed to be sure she was supporting him in every facet of life.

Running for re-election may not have been something she wanted, but it was something he wanted. He was running because he felt it was not right for the people who had voted for him, but his family.

“Lord, help me to be what Matt needs me to be for him,” she whispered, wiping another tear away. “Help us to both lay down what we want for what you want. For what you need us to do in this time.”

***

On the tenth night of quarantine, still with no sign of illness, Liam headed to bed early, shutting off his phone and laptop around 10 p.m. He slid under the covers, emotionally and physically drained. He was glad, though, that he hadn’t yet experienced any coughing, muscle aches, or sore throat. His mind was racing, filled with thoughts of work, thoughts of what this virus might mean to his parents, his older aunt and uncles, and anyone else whose health might be more vulnerable.

 His thoughts were also filled with Maddie.

She was sitting in the room down the hall, but she might as well have been thousands of miles away with all the interaction they’d had this past week.

Matt was right.

Liam still loved Maddie.

Sadly, it was growing more obvious that Maddie didn’t feel the same way about him. The anger she had for him radiated off her each time they passed each other in the house. He didn’t even try talking to her. She’d spoke her piece. Her mind was made up about their marriage.

To her it was over, and he needed to accept that.

Sleep had finally begun to slip over him when he heard a soft knock on his door. He rolled over and closed his eyes tighter, ignoring it. Ignoring her. Another knock. He pulled the blanket up around his shoulders.

The door squeaked open and then footsteps, soft across the floor.

What did she want? He was too tired for another fight.

“Liam?”

Maddie’s voice was barely audible. He ignored her again.

She spoke a little louder. “Liam?”

Silence.

She sighed in the darkness and he felt, rather than saw, her turn back toward the open doorway.

He rolled his eyes. “What?”

Silence fell over the room and he heard a breath drawn in sharply and slowly let out again.

“Will you hold me?”

He rolled over, squinting in the darkness, trying to make out her face to decide if she was serious or not.

“What?”

“Just hold me. Nothing else.”

Was this some kind of trick to lull him into a false-sense of security? He squinted again, trying to see if she was holding a weapon of some kind.

“Please?”

She seemed serious.

Very.

He heard a vulnerability in her tone he hadn’t heard in a long time.

“Um . . . yeah. Okay.”

She lifted the sheet and comforter, sliding next to him, her body warm, her feet cold. Her feet had always been cold, and she’d always slid them up his legs to warm them, making him squirm but laugh at the same time. There was a time he’d asked if she needed the rest of her body warmed up too and there was a time she’d say ‘yes’ and he’d snuggled close and nibbled at her earlobes.

He wasn’t going to ask if she needed warming up this time.

Surprise opened his eyes wide as she laid her head on his shoulder, a hand on his chest over his heart and closed her eyes.

They laid in the dark listening to each other breathe until she whispered: “I tried to stay away from the news but it’s like watching a train wreck. I can’t seem to look away.”

His voice as soft. “I know.”

“People are scared.”

“Yeah.”

“They’re convinced they’re all going to die.”

“They’re not. Fear does crazy things to your mind.”

Silence settled over them again.

She laughed softly again. “Yeah. Like that time you had that spider on your arm when we were driving to my parents and you almost drove us into a river.”

Liam snorted a laugh. “Well, spiders are scary, what can I say? All those legs. . .” He shuddered. “It’s just creepy.”

Silence stretched between them again.

“Liam?”

He stared into the darkness, at the light of the streetlight bleeding in under the blinds. “Yeah?”

“If this kills one of us —”

“Maddie, this isn’t going to kill either one of us. I already told you we don’t even know if my test is positive. And most of the cases are mild, especially in our age group. We’re not in the highest risk age group. Okay?”

“But if it does . . . ” Maddie took a deep breath and spoke fast as she exhaled. “I want you to know . . . I’ve always loved you. Even when I didn’t like you.”

Liam laughed softly.

“Thanks. I guess.”

“And, Liam?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry you thought you had to fix me. Only God can fix me.”

Crickets chirped outside. A dog barked somewhere down the street. Liam closed his eyes and let out the breath he’d been holding.

 “Yeah. I know.”

He laid his hand over hers, the one laying on his chest.

“Maddie?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry you thought I didn’t care. I did care. I’ve always cared.”

He had been trying not to be aware of her body warm against his, of the smell of her shampoo, of how soft the skin on her arm as he trailed his fingertips down it, of how her closeness made his heart rate increase.

But he was aware of it.

All of it.

Much more than he wanted to be.

He slid his other arm under her and she slumped into him as he moved his hand slowly up her arm, resting it just below her shoulder. He squeezed it gently then lightly touched his lips against the top of her head, her closeness suddenly intoxicating. “I love you, Maddie. Despite it all. I love you.”

He listened to her breathe and for a moment he thought she had fallen asleep.

 “I’m so tired. . .” she whispered against his neck, her breath warm. He could tell she was fading fast.

“Sleep. We can talk more in the morning.” He looked at the ceiling, barely visible in the darkness from the orange glow of the streetlight outside. “It’s not like we’re going anywhere.”

She slept but he couldn’t. Not now with her tucked against him soft and warm, kicking his thoughts into high gear. He hadn’t expected her to come to him for comfort. He hadn’t expected it, but he welcomed it and loved having her so close, even if that closeness was only physically.

 Had she meant what she said? That she still loved him?

Maybe it had been the stress and worry talking. The exhaustion even.

The only thing he was sure of was that those words had sparked a warm, comforting fire in the center of his chest. He closed his eyes, savoring the feel of her hand over his heart, trying to switch his brain off, knowing he’d meant it when he’d told her he still loved her.

Faithfully Thinking: Press into him

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, Faithfully Thinking30 Comments

I’ve been dealing with depression recently. I go through these spurts from time to time. When I go through them I feel completely unqualified to be sharing about the need to draw closer to God, since I know I’m doing such a poor job of it myself. Maybe, though, I need to be honest when I’m failing at this trusting God stuff, or feel like I’m failing. After all, I know I’m not alone.

One reason for my social media break is that I often run to forums about my health or depression issues to attempt to find solutions instead of running to God. As I have struggled this week with wrong thoughts, I have really been feeling like God has been telling me to press into him.
I’m not exactly sure what that means, but I’d guess he means I need to trust him and not my circumstances.


I feel him asking me to trust him and not people on the internet or my own means.


I heard a clip of a sermon yesterday by Pastor Steven Furtick who suggested that when we are telling God “Hey, I’m trying,” he is telling us “I don’t need you to try. I need you to trust.”

But there have also been other outcomes, that weren’t my choice, that has strengthened me and taught me and taken me down life-giving paths I never would have chosen on my own. I need to remember those when my days are dark, my heart is heavy, and my mind is jumbled with worries and stress.


This week when I have awoken in the night with a weird symptom and that pounding, suffocating, and overwhelming fear that hits me, I am trying to press into God’s goodness, his desire to prosper me, not harm me, to draw me through the bad moments when I want to be lifted out of them.
So I often I base how well my day is going to go on if I think I had a good nights sleep. God is bigger than a bad night of sleep. I need to trust that I can have a good day whether I’ve had a good night of sleep or not because ultimate rest comes in ultimate trust that God’s got this, no matter what “this” is for each day.

More encouraging or thoughtful words under the theme “Faithfully Thinking”:

The Blessing

Didn’t I Tell You to Let Me Handle It?

The Battle Belongs to the Lord

This Isn’t What I Pictured

Reminding Myself of My Word of the Year

More encouraging words from other bloggers:

Every Breath Counts by Bettie G

Random Thoughts: Week of August 29

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings8 Comments

Welcome to Random Thoughts for the Week, where I share . . . well, random thoughts or events from throughout the week. Feel free to share your own random thoughts in the comments!

  • I was so proud of the header I shared on my first Random Thoughts last week because I put the clip art together in my own design. My bubble was burst when I showed my son yesterday and he said “That brain is backwards. The brain stem is coming out of the mouth. How did you not notice that?”
AAAAARRRRRGH!

Public school is looking like a better option more and more lately (that being said, homeschool sessions start Wednesday here). Also, I redesigned my header, obviously, and now the brain stem isn’t coming out of the head’s mouth.

  • From my son: “We’re all born dumb, stupid and frail. In other words, we’re born a politician.”

  • Here are a couple phrases or words I will be glad to never hear or read again my entire life: social distancing, quarantine, face masks, or Fauci.
  • I was watching a movie on Netflix with Blythe Danner and Sam Elliott. No spoilers, but they kissed and my children walked in at that moment and screamed “Old people are kissing!!!!” while pointing at the screen. Next weekend at Sunday dinner I’m asking my parents to kiss so they will be traumatized even more.
  • I’ve always had a crush on Lou Diamond Phillips. I don’t know if this is a random thought or a confession.
  • Our kitten only likes to lay on my chest when I’m wearing a bra because the bra makes my chest more like a shelf. That’s all I’m going to say about being a woman and getting old.
  • My son, while playing Amish Paradise by Weird Al Yankovic asked “Whatever happened to all the Amish around here?” He had a good point. I haven’t seen any Amish in our area in years and we used to. We at least saw some Menonnites. Readers, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to research what happened to all the Amish in northern Pennsylvania. Let me know and I’ll include it in my random thoughts next week. (This is just a joke. I really can look that up myself.)
  • I won’t be surprised if all this COVID craziness reveals a few things for people, including the fact that colleges are over priced and many students can get the same education online for much less. Also that we need to focus more on skilled labor training.

  • I spent part of my Sunday Googling the phrase: “How did my cat get so fat?” How did I get to this point in my life?
  • I’ve been jokingly calling our cat Fatty and Fatso but stopped this week when she gave me one of those “I Will Kill You In Your Sleep” expressions. I had a feeling she was thinking: “I don’t call you fatty, lady, and I could, so back off.”

  • My mom recently told me that my dad told my grandfather, her dad: “I want to ask permission to marry her but if you say ‘no’ we are going to get married anyhow.” If you knew my dad and my grandfather you would know why this is a pretty surprising statement by my dad. To explain a little: picture one of those stereotypical stern Southern fathers in any movie or book and that was my grandfather. Picture the fairly polite, quiet, shy Pennsylvania farm boy and you have my dad. I guess he really wanted to marry my mom.
  • — Looking through and old journal app again I found another winner from my daughter.

Me to Little Miss : “I don’t want to cook dinner … I’m tired.”

Little Miss: “Well, then what are we supposed to eat? Air? Um… no… there is just oxygen in the air.”

That’s about the time I decided I needed to stop letting her watch any educational shows. She was almost five when she said this. Jesus, please help me prepare now for her teenage years.

So, how about you? What are your random thoughts for this week? Let me know in the comments.

Sunday Bookends: Missing libraries and suddenly changing leaves

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, Sunday Bookends8 Comments

Sunday Bookends is my week in review, so to speak. It’s where I share what I’ve been up to, what I’ve been reading, what I’ve been watching, what I’ve been listening to and what I’ve been writing. Feel free to share a link or comment about your week in the comments.

What’s Been Occuring (yes, this is a referrence to Gavin & Stacy if you’ve ever seen it. If not it is on BBC America, or Britbox on Amazon.)

What a shock to my system when I looked across our backyard at the beginning of last week and watched yellow leaves fall to the ground in a gentle breeze. It’s not even September and our leaves are already changing color. By the end of the week, the maple tree by the garden shed was transforming from green to a deadish looking orange, raising concern within me that we will have yet another dull autumn to make the world seem even more dark and morose this year. Who knows, though, nature has surprised me before.

This year has given us a lot of hits and one of those has been the closing of the libraries. This has sent me down a path of depression because I was so excited to be able to visit our local library once we moved here but instead we are told we can only call in and order books. If I want to order books, I can do that online. I like to visit the library so I can actually touch the books, read the descriptions, decide if I want them and simply enjoy the feeling of being surrounded by so many portals to other worlds on the shelves.

I paid our water bill the other day and as I pulled out of the street the borough hall is on I looked down at the library and thought about going in. Then I realized we aren’t allowed to just walk in and look at the shelves and I felt a catch in my throat about it all.

If you’ve noticed a lot of typos in my replies to your comments lately, it’s because I’m often holding a sleeping kitten on one arm while I’m trying to respond. I seem to be little Scout’s personal bed and she rarely takes in to account that I need to move for such things as cooking dinner, cleaning up messes, letting the dog out or using the toilet facilities. She looks quite shocked each time her bed moves for one of these, or any other reason. She’s definitely growing fast and I know that one day she might not want to cuddle with me so I need to enjoy it while I can. My other fear is that one day in the future she will want to still cuddle with me and she’ll be so large I’ll be suffocated under all her fur.

This past week didn’t leave a lot of time for reading mainly because my head and body hurt too much to read or I was taking care of children whose heads and bodies also hurt. We caught some sort of short-lived (thankfully) summer cold. Of course my mind immediately jumped to “the virus” when my daughter started coughing in the middle of the night after spending the day at her grandparents swimming and looking for frogs in their pond. My mind didn’t go there when her nose was running earlier in the day because I assumed she had walked into something she was allergic to in the filed. ‘Tis the season for ragweed after all. But when she started coughing and couldn’t sleep that night, keeping both her and me awake, and when she developed a fever in the morning, I started making plans for how to get her tested.

We called the pediatrician’s office at the end of the next day and the pediatrician on call answered our question about summer cold’s going around with an affirmative and said our daughter’s illness seemed to be following the pattern of the common cold and not “The Virus.” The particular virus everyone is talking about seems to develop first as the dry cough (which my daughter had in the middle of the night), a sore throat (which she also had), a headache and then a fever. For her, and then later my son and me, the illness developed first with feeling “off” and achy for a little while, but also with runny noses, nasal congestion and a low grade fever.

Her fever reached 102, inching toward 103, but came down easily with some children’s Motrin. The bottom line was that the pediatrician suggested to continue our at home treatments, keep an eye on her, see how she was in a few days and then call again if it seemed worse or to be more like the pattern of COVID. We never had to worry about that because the next day she was better and she’s only been left with the sniffles which are acting more like allergies than anything else.

My son and I are still sneezing and blowing our noses and I’ve been battling a sinus headache (which I’ve actually been battling off and on all summer because of the high humidity.) but we are on the mend and bracing ourselves more sinus issues when the temperatures begin to drop in preparation for Fall.

What I’m Reading

On the first night of Little Misses’ illness I didn’t fall asleep until 4:30 a.m. I had felt so good earlier that day and even felt pretty good while she was crying because she couldn’t breathe through her nose and waking me up every hour. After giving up on the sleep idea, I read some of The Cold Dish (the first in the Longmire series) by Craig Johnson. When I finally fell asleep in the wee-hours of the morning I dreamed of killers out in the snow somewhere in rural Wyoming.

This book is definitely not my normal read and maybe that’s why I like it. It’s not your run of the mill mystery. The characters are well developed, especially Sheriff Walt Longmire, the main character, and his friend Henry Standing Bear. There is even a bit of romance thrown in as Walt, still struggling to face the grief of his wife who passed away four years before, begins dating Vonnie, a woman he’s known for a few years. The book draws you into the various relationships and mysteries gradually, dropping hints here and there about relationships before fully revealing them. One of those relationships is with Longmire’s daughter, Cady, who so far is only mentioned once or twice in passing but you begin to realize something isn’t right with their relationship in the way he keeps trying to reach her by the phone but she isn’t picking up.

I have watched some of the show based on these books and there are definite differences. For one, in the show Henry is played by Lou Diamond Phillips (yummy) the Philapinno-American actor who seems to often be typecast as Native Americans because he looks like one. In the books, however, Henry is not really a dreamy 50-year old; he’s a larger, bigger and more complicated man who served in Vietnam with Walt.

I enjoy Johnson’s writing style, but of course, being a self-proclaimed prude, I could do without some of the more colorful language. Of course, if I was a real “prude” I probably wouldn’t be reading the book at all.

I haven’t tried starting or continuing any other books this week. Hopefully some of the sinus pressure will lift this next week and I can read a little more.

What I’m Watching

To avoid politics and try to deal with our summer cold, we’ve been watching a lot of comedy, including comedians from Drybar Comedy. I especially liked Zoltan Kaszas (would love to know the story behind that name) and Matt Falk. I’m sharing one of my favorite Matt Falk bits with you and will let you look Zoltan up because this blog post is getting a bit jumbled with links.

What I’m Listening To

My brother was nice enough to let me know that Needtobreathe had a new album out. I knew part of the album was out, but not that all of it had been released, so I’m going to be listening to more of that this week. So far, it’s pretty good, but I do miss Bo Reinhardt, one of the founding members who left earlier this year.

What I’m Writing

I’m deep in revisions of the novella Quarantined and am trying to write all the scenes that are in my head for The Farmer’s Daughter as fast as they pop up, which has been fast this week. I may go back during editing and delete half of those scenes I write anyhow. I’ve already eliminated one I really liked because I felt like it won’t work with the final draft of the story, but we’ll see. It might serve as my segway into book number two, The Librarian. I hope to have Quarantined ready for publication sometime at the end of September and The Farmer’s Daughter ready for the first part of January 2021.

Not that any of you probably care but in my head the books of the series will be The Farmer’s Daughter, a novella The Farmer’s Son, The Librarian, The Farmer, The Pastor’s Wife, and possibly The Editor.

Somewhere in there I have planned a novella or novel called Related by Blood, which will continue the story of Hank from A New Beginning and deal with his relationship with his son Jackson once Jackson is an adult. A friend told me I have to drop all my other books and write this one first because she wants to know what happened to Hank, but we will see what happens.I would love to also finish Fully Alive at some point but I’ve flipped that story on it’s head with a new idea so that may take a bit.

On the blog I shared some Random Thoughts, a new feature for the blog, wrote about missing members of my family (I‘m Seeing Ghosts Today) and lamented how I’m having a hard time lately pretending life is grand. I also shared chapters from Quarantined and The Farmer’s Daughter.

If you haven’t noticed, I am trying out a new design with a new header I designed on Canva.com.

Photos from our week

Just forget about it

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings8 Comments

“Just forget about it.”

That seems to be the suggestion today.

“Stay off the news!”

“Watch a comedy!”

“Pretend all is right with the world!”

There have been a lot of issues swirling around us that I’ve been trying to pretend aren’t happening right now.

Burning cities.

Calls for blood and death on police.

Politicians who want us to believe “it was a peaceful protest” while we watch buildings burn.

Families broken.

Children abused.

Innocence lost.

“Forget about it.”

“Read a book.”

“Hug the kids.”

“Go on a walk.”

“Pet the kitten.”

“Nothing to see here.”

If only my brain would stop screaming me out of the peace I’m pretending I have.

Fiction Friday: The Farmer’s Daughter, Chapter 22

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn fiction, Fiction Friday5 Comments

I’ve enjoyed working on this story. I’ll be honest that there are some weeks I’m behind on writing and I’m not sure I’ll be able to pull off a chapter for Friday, but I work on the novel anyhow because I deserpately want to escape from the real world right now. I need to focus on something other than the news. As much as I try to stay away from it, the news seems to creep in – either by over hearing someone complain about it or reading the letters to the editor from the local paper or a family member mentioning it in passing. So right now I have my fiction world to live in and then when I’m in reality (don’t worry, I’m still in reality 90 percent of the time *wink*) I’m planning for homeschool that starts next week.

As always, this is a work of fiction in progress. What I share on the blog is not the final draft of the novel or novella I’m working on. I reread, rewrite, and rework the stories a few times before I finally publish them on Kindle or Barnes and Noble. I also try to fix typos, plot holes, and punctuation issues in the final draft and have it proofed and edited. If you see errors in the chapters I post on the blog, feel free to send me a note on my contact form (link at the top of the page) so I can make the corrections, if I haven’t caught them aready.

To catch up with the rest of the story click HERE.

Sweat pooled in areas Alex didn’t even know it could pool as he stacked haybales, shoveled manure, and laid straw in the stalls. He had decided the harder he worked the more he could take his mind off how stupid he’d acted two nights ago. It was also taking his mind off the way Molly kept watching him with a concerned expression. And off Molly in general.

It was two days before she finally said something. She stood next to the wagon, hands on her hips, head tipped, and raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been quiet this week. You okay?”

He stacked another haybale. “Yep. Fine.”

“You sure?”

“Yep.”

She caught her lower lip between her teeth and let it out again. “Are you mad at me?”

Alex lifted a haybale, then set it down and looked at her with a furrowed eyebrow. “No. Why would I be mad at you?”

“I don’t know. You’ve barely talked to me the last couple days.”

Alex stretched to place the haybale on the top of the pile, turned toward her and used the bottom of his t-shirt to wipe sweat from his face. The move revealed smooth, tanned skin below his belly button and just above his jeans, which made Molly draw in a quick, sharp breath.

She looked away quickly so he wouldn’t notice her staring.

He finished wiping his face and dropped the edge of the shirt, placed his hands on his hips and shrugged again. “I’ve just had a lot on my mind. I’m not mad at you.”

Molly wasn’t sure if she should ask what he’d had on his mind or not. Maybe he would think she was prying.

She cleared her throat, shifted her weight to her other leg and kicked at a pebble on the barn floor, focusing on it instead of his blue eyes with flecks of green. She felt like she was in high school again. Why couldn’t she just talk to him like an adult, like she had for the last five years, instead of acting like something had changed between them?

“Oh. Okay. Well, good then. I’ll let you get back to work.”

Alex’s gaze drifted through the open barn door and followed the path of a car pulling into the driveway. He nodded his head toward it as Molly looked at him. “Looks like you have a visitor.”

Ben’s black BMW looked out of place among the beat-up farm trucks and tractors, with the silo that desperately needed a new coat of paint as a backdrop. In fact, Ben looked out of place in a pair of khakis, a dress shirt, black dress shoes and a pair of Ray Ban sunglasses.

He stepped out of the car, looking in her direction as he slid the sunglasses off and smiled.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” she said back as she walked toward him. “What brings you to Casa De Tanner?”

He laughed, that deep throated laugh that used to send a tingle of excitement through the center of her chest.

“Your parents actually. They invited my parents for dinner and told them to bring me along. I guess they all felt sorry for sad Ben sitting around without any friends.”

Molly held her hand up to block the sunlight and watched Ben’s dad pull his modest gray sedan behind his son’s luxury car.

“Oh, okay. Well, I had no idea. It will be nice to have you.”

Ben lifted a hand briefly in greeting to Alex who was now standing in the doorway. “Alex, hey. How’s it going?”

Alex nodded briefly, his jaw tight. “Fine.”

“Looks like you’ve been working hard today.”

Alex rolled his tongue along the inside of his cheek, contemplating biting it to keep himself from saying what he really wanted to say. “Uh-huh. Farms are like that. The hard work and all.”

Ben cleared his throat and made a clicking noise with his mouth like he was trying to think what to say next. “Yep. Well, anyhow . . . good luck with that. Talk to you later.”

Alex turned back toward the barn, his eyes narrowing and his muscle tense. “Yeah. Talk to you later.”

Annie stepped onto the front porch of the farmhouse, an apron around her waist. “Alex,” she called. “why don’t you head up and get a shower and come back for dinner. It will be a bit before it’s ready.”

Alex paused and leaned one arm against the barn door. “Ah, no. Thank you, though. I’ve got some more bales to stack before it gets dark. Take a rain check?”

“I’ll hold you to it. Just make sure you get something to eat, okay? I don’t want you making yourself sick out there.”

Annie turned her attention to Ben and his parents. “Sylvia, Richard. Hello. Ben, good to see you again.”

Ben and his parents followed Annie into the house and Molly turned to watch Alex walk back into the barn. She felt a pang of disappointment that he wouldn’t be joining them for dinner. He was a regular sight at their table but there were days he’d missed, of course, so why did it bother her so much he wouldn’t be at the table tonight?

***

“That was an amazing dinner as always, Mrs. Tanner.”

Annie cleared away Ben’s dish and reached for Molly’s as well. “Thank  you, Ben. That’s nice of you, but please call me Annie. We’re both adults now.”

Ben laughed softly, pink flushing along his cheeks. “Of course, Annie. Old habits die hard.”

Annie winked. “Similar to how we can’t ever seem to call our teachers by their first name even when we’re adults.”

Everyone agreed that was true and laughed, sharing their own similar stories before everyone wandered to the living room to sit and chat.

Molly found her eyes wandering out the side window, toward the barn, wondering how Alex was, if he was okay. After several moments she excused herself to the front porch to think, letting Ben and her parents catch up and discuss politics, the weather, religion, and probably ten other things people aren’t supposed to talk about in mixed company. Luckily, Robert and Annie could talk about those topics with Ben and his family because most of the time they were all on the same page.

She sat in one of the chairs facing the ban and looked for Alex, to see if his mannerisms had changed, if he seemed any less tense than he had the last couple of days.

“Someone looks thoughtful today.”

Ben’s smile was something between Hollywood heart throb and boy next door. Once upon a time that smile would have made Molly lightheaded and giggle. Those days were long gone and she wondered if he knew that or if someday she’d have to tell him.

  Ben sat in a matching chair across from her. Her grandfather, Ned, had made the matching chairs as a 25th anniversary gift for her parents. Molly was glad she had chosen one of them instead of the porch swing that held way too many memories for her involving the man standing across from her.

Ben was a man now, something that Molly needed to remember. He wasn’t the boy who had broken her heart all those years ago and he’d already apologized for that. She needed to let it go.

Ben had changed, he’d grown, he’d matured, emotionally as well as physically. His jawline was more square now, his shoulders more broad, his face revealing almost a decade of hard-learned lessons which luckily hadn’t stolen any of his good looks.

“Have you found an apartment yet?”

Ben nodded as he took a drink from his glass of water. “Yep. Moving in next week. It’s about a block from my office.”

Molly ran her hand along the smooth wood arm of the chair as movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. She glanced across the yard at Alex walking back into the barn then turned her attention back to Ben.

“What about you, Molly? Have you thought about getting your own place?”

Molly thought back to her conversation a few days earlier with Liz about moving in with her to help with the baby. “Yeah, actually. I have.”

“You’re old enough to live on your own now, you know?” Ben winked and set the glass on the small wooden table between the chairs. Water droplets from condensation dripped down the side of his glass, reminding Molly how much the humidity had spiked in the last couple of hours.

She sighed and smiled, knowing he was teasing but feeling a twinge of annoyance. “Yes, Ben, I do realize that.”

Ben’s smile faded. He must have sensed the tension in her response. “Listen, I’m just teasing. Don’t take me seriously. I know you like to be closer to the farm so you can help.”

“Oh, Ben, I know you’re kidding.” She waved at him in a dismissive gesture. Her aggravation wasn’t really directed at him. It was at herself for never actually making a change and letting her life grow stale and predictable instead.

 “I do like being close to the farm but, yes, I am looking at finding my own place soon. It won’t be too far away, though. I still plan to keep working on the farm. For now, anyhow.”

“For now?”

Molly shrugged. “I should probably figure out what I want to do with my life at some point.”

Ben leaned back in the chair, propping his ankle on his knee and laying an arm casually across his ankle.

“Isn’t this what you want to do with your life? There’s nothing wrong with working a farm.”

“No, there isn’t but sometimes I wonder if there is something else out there for me.”

“Like what?”

Molly held her glass between two hands, rubbing her thumbs along the top of it. Her eyes drifted toward the open barn door, focusing on Alex has he lifted more hay bales. She wondered what was on his mind while he worked, why his eyebrows were furrowed and his jaw set tight.

He must be almost done with that load. He’d been working all afternoon. He’d shed the button up shirt, hanging it over the fence outside, and his white tank top was stained with dirt and sticking to his skin. Sweat glistened across the back of his neck and across his biceps. He probably smelled awful, but to Molly he looked amazing and she was having trouble remembering what Ben had asked her.

“Um . . .Hello?” A soft laugh from Ben snapped her back into the moment as she realized she still had no idea what she would do with her life besides farming. “Honestly, I have no idea yet.”

Watching Alex instead of talking to Ben was rude and she knew it. She needed to focus her attention on her visitor.

“So, have you figured out what you’re going to do about Angie and Amelia?”

Ben paused as he drank his water and grinned. “Well, you’re a bit more blunt than you used to be.”

Molly laughed, warmth rushing to her cheeks. “Oh. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to —”

Ben waved his hand, smiling. “No. It’s fine. But, no, I haven’t decided what I’m going to do yet. I know I can’t keep burying my head in the sand, though. I can’t keep pretending this situation isn’t looming over me like a dark cloud.”

“Don’t you want to know what she’s like?”

Ben looked confused for a moment.

“Amelia, Ben. Don’t you want to know what she’s like? She is your daughter.”

Ben cleared his throat and shifted forward slightly then leaned back in the chair. Red had colored his cheeks and the tops of his ears. “Um, yeah. I do actually. I’m terrified, though. What if she hates me? Even worse, what if she likes me and I screw it up?” He winced. “And then there’s Angie. I know she hates me so that will be plenty awkward.”

A warm breeze brushed Molly’s face and she looked up to see the dark clouds she’d been expecting finally inching toward the farm.

“It will be awkward, yes, but if I was in your shoes, I couldn’t imagine spending my life with that huge ‘what if’ hanging over my head. I’d also hate to think of you having to face Amelia in the future and answering her if she asks you why you never tried to meet her.”

The lines along Ben’s eyes crinkled as he stood from the chair and stretched his arms over his head. He leaned against the porch railing, sliding his hands in his front jean pockets.

“You always were good at driving a point home.”

Not always, Molly thought as she watched Alex lift his tank top off, wipe his face and chest with it and toss it into the back of his truck before reaching for the button up short sleeve shirt and slid it back on it again. He stood in the doorway of the barn, his back to her as he buttoned it.

Ben coughed against his hand in an attempt to grab her attention.

“So, Alex has been here awhile, huh?”

She looked at him, but her mind was clearly somewhere else for several seconds.

“Huhm? Oh, yeah. About five years. He was Jason’s roommate in college.

“Seems like a good guy. Hard worker.”

“Yeah. He is.”

Ben jerked his head toward the barn. “How long have you had feelings for him?”

“What? I don’t ha —”

“Your cheeks are flushed, Molly and you haven’t been able to take your eyes off of him the whole time we’ve been talking.”

Molly coughed nervously. “It’s not that. It’s just, he seemed down today so I was just wondering if he was okay.”

Ben raised an eyebrow and smirked. “Uh-huh. I see.”

“What? I’m serious.”

Ben nodded, his expression still serious, his eyes focused on hers. “I hope he’s good enough for you.”

Molly pulled her gaze from his and looked at the porch floor, shaking her head slightly. “He’s just a friend.”

“We’re not dating anymore, Molly. You don’t have to lie to me.”

He stepped closer to her, reached down, and briefly touched her under her chin, bringing her eyes back to his. “More importantly, don’t lie to yourself. That look in your eye when you were watching him? It speaks the truth about how you feel about him. If you care about him, tell him. Don’t be like me.”

The sky opened up after Ben and his parents left and soaked the ground, bringing much needed rain to the wilting corn crop in the field. From her bedroom window, Molly watched Alex walk to his truck, climb inside and drive away, thinking about what Ben had said.

Was she lying to herself about how she really felt about Alex? She chewed on a fingernail as the truck disappeared down the road toward Jason and Alex’s house, knowing she was. Her feelings for him were definitely developing into something stronger than friendship. It sounded so cliché, but most days he was the first person she thought of in the morning and the last person she thought of at night.

She rubbed her eyes. They were dry and red. She needed sleep. It was early, the sun had barely set, but she had a long day ahead of her, including a trip to the hospital after milking to check on Liz.

As she crawled under the covers she felt relief about one thing at least — she wouldn’t have to tell Ben she didn’t have feelings for him anymore. It was clear he already knew.

Extra Fiction Thursday: Quarantined, a novella, Chapter 5

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, fiction, Fiction Thursday1 Comment

As always, this is a work of fiction in progress. What I share on the blog is not the final draft of the novel or novella I’m working on. I reread, rewrite, and rework the stories a few times before I finally publish them on Kindle or Barnes and Noble. I also try to fix typos, plot holes, and punctuation issues in the final draft and have it proofed and edited. If you see errors in the chapters I post on the blog, feel free to send me a note on my contact form (link at the top of the page) so I can make the corrections, if I haven’t caught them aready.

Following along with the story and missed a week or want to follow along? Find the other chapters HERE.

Have some thoughts on the story itself? Let me know in the comments.

Chapter 5

Cassie climbed under the covers and flopped on her back to stare at the ceiling, moonlight cutting a square across it from the window.

What was with all of Matt’s weird questions tonight? The situation with Liam and Maddie must be rattling him even more than she realized. She rolled to her side, fluffed up her pillow, hugged it and tried to get more comfortable.

It wasn’t working.

Her mind was racing too much.

Maybe Liam and Maddie’s situation was rattling her too.

She was thinking about them and their marriage, and viruses and if her family was safe and how to get groceries if they had to shelter in place for even longer and the media and what they’d be saying for the rest of the week with Matt and his staff having still worked for a week after they knew they’d been exposed to a contagious virus and  . . . .

She squeezed her eyes shut, sucked in a deep breath, and held it for several seconds before letting it out again. She had to calm down. What was that one relaxation technique she’d heard about again? Breathe in six seconds, hold five? Or was it, breathe in seven and hold six and then let it out for the count of four or was it letting it out for the count of seven? Oh, forget it. Trying to remember the technique was making her even more anxious.

She closed her eyes and tried to focus on one worry at a time instead.

She couldn’t deny that there were days she regretted agreeing with Matt that he should run for the senate in the first place. They both had such high hopes six years ago; hopes that they could make changes for the voters who had put their faith in Matt, while not being changed themselves. But it was impossible not to be changed by the influences of Washington, D.C. Nothing in this city was like the small upstate New York town Cassie had grown up in and it was also nothing like Stevensville, Ohio where she and Matt had lived before he had been elected.

Stevensville, Ohio was small. Very small. Like everyone knows your name and your business small. It was also still her and Matt’s home in the summers when they left the city behind for much needed breaks. Only that break wouldn’t be coming this year. Not with all the craziness about viruses and quarantines and freezes on travel. Cassie wanted to cry but she was afraid to because once she started, she might not stop. She was homesick for New York and Ohio, for her own family, for Matt’s family, for the familiar she’d left behind when Matt was elected six years ago.

She sighed and opened her eyes, looking at the other side of the bed where Matt slept most nights of the week, unless he was working late and then he stayed at John’s apartment, closer to his office. She touched cool sheets, thinking of how many nights they’d laid here next to each other, back to back, rarely speaking because she knew he needed his sleep, because she knew he needed to get up early in the morning, because she didn’t want to burden him anymore than he was already burdened.

But she missed him. She missed him holding her and them talking about their future, instead of him telling her about the stress he’d been under that day and then falling into a fitful sleep. She missed his hand on her cheek as he moved closer late at night, a small, mischievous smile that signaled he wasn’t ready for sleep yet.

She missed long, slow kisses, roaming hands, but as much as the physical, she missed the emotional connection they’d once had. The connection when Matt wanted to talk with her before anyone else, when he didn’t want to make a decision unless he’d asked her, and when she’d known so much about his day, his job and his life that it was as if they were thinking like one person.

“Cassie, are you sure you’re okay with this?” he’d asked eight and a half years ago when he’d considered running for Senate.

“Yeah. I am.”

That’s what she’d said, but she really hadn’t been sure she was okay with it. She was okay with Matt wanting to help the people of his small hometown and the surrounding counties by becoming a senator from Ohio, but she wasn’t really sure she was okay with the lives of their entire family being upended. She’d given up her social worker career four years before, deciding to spend more time at home with the children. Matt’s career as a lawyer had exploded and from there he’d become involved in county politics and then state politics. When the state’s Republican party came to him and asked him to run for the senate, he’d turned them down at first. But after several meetings, a few months of consideration, and talking to Cassie, his parents, his sister and brother, and his pastor, he’d decided to step into an already contentious race for the seat.

From the moment he’d announced to the day he won the seat the lives of the Grant family had been a whirlwind. After the election, the moving began. Tyler had been 7 at the time, Gracie 3 and Lauren was born in Washington. Every effort was made to ensure that the children and Cassie would see Matt as much as possible, despite his job, but there were weeks they still barely saw him at all.

The idea of having the family living close had been a good one, but the execution of it had started to fail within six months. Meetings, conferences, sessions that ran late into the night, and media-made emergencies were constant, taking over every aspect of Matt and Cassie’s life. Matt still made every effort to attend baseball games, dance recitals, and Saturday mornings at the park, in addition to balancing his responsibilities as a senator, but that left little to almost no time for him and Cassie.

For the most part, Cassie was okay with being the last in line for his attention. She preferred he spend as much time as he could with the children during their formative years. This was a season of life, not a new normal. Time for them, as a couple, would come later, when things slowed down.

If things slow down, Cassie thought, panic suddenly gripping her, like a heavy weight in the center of her chest. If Matt gets reelected we could have another six years of this and maybe even another six after that. . .It’s already been six, I don’t know if I can take another six.

She shuddered, pulling the covers up around her, even though it wasn’t that cold in their bedroom. She tried to imagine six more years, or even more, of accusations against her husband, and sometimes even her, in the press. She tried to imagine six more years of barely seeing her husband; of feeling like her husband’s nanny, even though she loved her children desperately; and of constituents confronting her husband when they were out in public, complaining about this or that change he’d promised he’d make if elected but still hadn’t been able to.

Tyler would be graduating high school at the end of six years. So much of his life had already been consumed by Matt’s position. Would he have to endure it during his high school years as well?

Cassie knew it wasn’t only the quiet life she and Matt had led before he’d entered politics that she was homesick for.  She was homesick for time alone with Matt. She was tired of sharing him with his staff, his fellow congressmen, his constituents, and the press. She was tired of feeling like she was second in line for his attention, even though she knew he didn’t mean to make her feel that way.

Who knows, she thought, feeling sleep finally settling on her. Maybe this quarantine will be good for not only Liam and Maddie but for Matt and me. Maybe I’ll actually get him to myself for once.

***

The election had been brutal. There was no denying it. Worse than the campaigning, the traveling, the long days, had been the media coverage. Non-stop negative stories aimed at destroying Matthew Eben Grant before he could even open his mouth. The media machine was out of control. There was no denying it, especially after that first month of campaigning when one of the state’s biggest newspapers had questioned his staff’s lack of diversity. Those questions had led to him refusing to answer questions of his campaign staff’s ethnic backgrounds and horrified when a newspaper had called the head of his campaign his “one token person of color,” as if she hadn’t been qualified for her job simply on the merits of her professional experience.

From that story it was a quick jump to combing through Matt and Liam’s social media accounts, searching for anything that would sink them in the political arena. One rogue satirical Tweet from his college days, labeled as sexist by feminists, dominated headlines for a few days, but as it always was with the current 24-hour/7-day a week news cycle, the press had turned it’s hungry eyes to another candidate, another subject to devour. the following week.

The polls showed Matt losing and big, right up until election day, but the night of the election the numbers had come in fast and furious late in the evening. Matt had won by a landslide. Apparently the silent voters, the one who didn’t want to be yelled at or condemned for their opinions, had come out in droves and sent a hard message home to the incumbent and his political party: “We’ve had enough of the status quo and of corrupt politicians with empty promises and even emptier apologies.”

Matt knew, though ,that in less than a year he could be in the same boat and it could be his rear end with the boot of the voter against it as they shoved him out the door. Voters preferences were fickle and ever changing and some days nothing a senator did could make anyone happy. Matt had only been a senator for six years, but it felt like it had been 100. Now he had a small idea why so many presidents went gray while in office, though thankfully he didn’t have the same pressure as a president.

He yawned, stretching his arms out as if he intended to stand up and head up to bed, but he didn’t stand up. Instead he fell back on the couch, remote in hand. He surfed streaming services, suggested shows and movies scrolling by, but he wasn’t really seeing any of it. His mind had slipped back to five and a half years ago, to near the end of the election when the news stories were at their worst. He was being called a racist, anti-woman, anti-this, anti-that. He had lost count of all the names they had called him.

“Is this even worth it?” he asked Cassie one night in bed, snuggled close against her.

“If you can get in there and really help facilitate some change, then, yes, it’s worth it,” she assured him.

But then the win came and with it came more news stories, personal attacks against him and his family. The worst came when one of his staff members brought him an article about Cassie, accusing her of being fired from her previous job.

He was furious. “Where did they even get that story? Cassie was never fired from her job. She left to support me and be with the children.”

Scanning the story, he saw a former co-worker of Cassie’s was quoted and offered only summations, not facts. Still, the headline suggested the accusations were true. It wouldn’t have upset Matt as much if it had been about him instead of Cassie. He’d grown accustomed to being accused of inappropriate acts or offensive words, or anything else the press could come up with, but Cassie?

Cassie was off limits.

Only she wasn’t off limits.

She wasn’t off limits because he had made her fair game when he’d decided to accept the party’s urging to run.

He’d dragged her out into the open and essentially thrown her to the wolves.  

The story had been pushed to the side quickly in a few days with another news story, about another politician, overshadowing it. One of the only good aspects of the 24/7 news cycle was how fast paced it was. It meant a story that was in the forefront one day was gone by the next and even though the story on Cassie had faded fast, he still felt incredible guilt about how much he’d exposed his family during this process.

He’d always wanted to protect Cassie. Now he didn’t know how to. In a hyper-political atmosphere that was beginning to suffocate him, the negativity was coming from every side.

His phone rang and he glanced at the ID before answering it. He let out a sigh of relief when he saw it wasn’t John, a member of the Senate or the press trying to reach him.

“Hey, bro,” he said to Liam. “You hanging in there?”

“Yeah. Locked myself in my office. You?”

“Yeah. Feels weird just to be sitting at home.”

“A good weird or a bad weird?”

“Both.”

“Things okay with Cassie? The kids?”

“Kids are doing great. They don’t know much about what’s going on. Cassie’s . . . okay, I guess. She seems tired.”

“Is she mad at you for all this?”

Matt laughed. “She doesn’t seem mad, really. She just seems like Cassie. She’s cooking for the kids and me, cleaning, checking on her parents.”

“Did you ask her if she was okay?”

“Yeah, she said she’s fine.”

Matt heard a small laugh on the other end of the phone.

“What?” he asked. “No. Don’t even say it. You think ‘I’m fine’ is code for something else.”

“You know I’m no expert on women,” Liam started.

“Uh, obviously.”

“But I am learning during this that apparently when a woman says she’s okay, she’s really not,” Liam continued. “I didn’t know that Maddie was struggling, Matt. I just thought she hated me, that I was doing everything wrong, but I think she feels — I don’t know. Abandoned? She pretty much told me she feels like I abandoned her.”

Matt sighed, laying on his back, staring at the ceiling. He slid his arm behind his head. “In what way did you abandon her?”

“Staying at work too much, for one. She says I worked more so I didn’t have to face us losing the babies.”

“Did you?”

“No, I . . .”

Liam’s voice trailed off and then there was a brief silence. “Yeah,” he said finally. “Yeah, I did. When you asked me to be your press secretary I jumped at it because I knew I would be so busy I wouldn’t have to think about losing the babies, about that empty hole in the center of my chest.”

Matt grimaced as he sat up, propping his elbow against his knee. “Liam, I’m sorry I was so focused on the election, on me really, that I didn’t notice all you were going through.”

“Dude, I’m not trying to make you feel guilty. I didn’t even admit to myself how much it was bothering me.”

“I know, it’s just — I’m really starting to realize how out of touch I’ve been with what really matters in the last few years; you and Maddie, the kids. Cassie. When I decided to run, I pulled all of you —”

“Matt. No. You were doing what you felt was right. And it wasn’t just you who decided to run. We all decided. As a family. We knew this could be rough. Yeah, it’s a little worse than we expected with all the extra political drama going on these days, but we are still in this together. It’s okay. We’re all okay. Well, we will be okay, one way or another anyhow. None of this is your fault.”

Matt flopped back on the couch again. “I know it isn’t. But I still feel . . . guilty. I don’t know. What I do know is that all of this, this forced slow down, has opened my eyes up to what I’ve been missing lately. I don’t like that our family, or our country, is going through this, but it’s putting some things in perspective for me.”

Liam sighed on the other end of the phone. “Yeah. It’s doing the same for me.”

Random Thoughts for the week of August 23

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings7 Comments

I’m going to try a new feature this week, which I’ll probably share a couple of times a month: random thoughts. I stole this idea from my husband who sometimes does this for his weekly column in the newspaper. His random thoughts are shorter than mine because, well, I just ramble too much (hence the blog title: Boondock Ramblings.).

— I found this gem from the journal app on my phone. It was from last year so Little Miss swould have been almost 5. To set the scene, I was making my grocery list for that week.

Me: “Oh. I forgot to add veggies to my list.”

Little Miss: “Oh no, I know I get those when I wear too tight pants.”

Me: “What? Oh. No, honey. I said I forgot the veggies.”

Her: “Oh… well, now I gave away one of my secrets.”

— Most of the people who wait on me at our local dollar store are less than friendly. They were less than friendly before masks but now I can’t tell if they are smiling (doubt it) or scowling at me (pretty sure).

I try to joke with them, be friendly, but they just keep sliding my purchases into bags and acting like I’m not even talking. Most of the people at the stores in our town are pretty friendly so their behavior is unusual for me. it was the norm where we used to live.

I have often heard of people in more urban areas always being miserable (not the lovely folks who read my blog of course) and I can now see why.

I mean, who would be cheerful if everywhere you go people are grumpy? Except, we can choose to be cheerful even if people are grumpy to us and I did. I told the woman ‘thank you! Have a good day!” and I sang a familiar worship song on the way to my van. No use letting her dampen my spirits.

—- The other day I was watching a movie and Little Miss was in the room. A character uttered a bad word. I hadn’t been expecting it and told Little Miss: “Never repeat that word.”

“That word?” she asked. “Oh. That’s the word you said the other day.”

Ouch.

Must have been a stressful moment because I don’t remember saying it, incidentally. It’s not in my usual repertoire.

— I love having kids who are so unspoiled that they are excited when I bring socks home from the store. “Socks!” Little Miss declared Friday reaching into a Dollar General bag. “Oh, thank you!”

She then proceeded to try each one on, deciding if the peach colored ones were softer than the blue or purple ones.

“Oh my. These feel so soft on the hard floor. Not so much on the carpet, but on the hard floor they make my feet feel soooo soft.”

Eventually she put all five on at once and said they were even more amazing when worn all together. Who knew buying socks would be so exciting for her?

— Our town is so small that just about everyone I bump into has lived in our house at one time or another. Okay, so only two people I have run into so far. One is the secretary at the borough (town for people outside of PA) office and the other is our neighbor.

I have a feeling I will bump into quite a few more, though, because eight children grew up in this house at one time. Looking at the three bedrooms upstairs I couldn’t figure out how so I asked the lady at the borough office. Apparently there were four bunk beds for four boys in my daughter’s room and her room is the smallest in the house. I really can’t picture four bunk beds in there.

The girls were in my son’s room and the parents were my husband and my room. And back then they only had one bathroom. I contemplated this whole idea of a family of 10 in this house when we first moved in and mentioned it to an older neighbor who bluntly informed me “Well they didn’t have all the s*** we have now.” So, there you go then. That was blunt.

— Kittens are super warm.

— Dogs are also warm.

— Warm pets aren’t the best thing in hot weather, especially curled up on your chest.

— Josh Turner has a new album of covers. That’s exciting for country music fans

— Going off social media does wonders for your brain and your energy. Eliminating news adds even more happiness to one’s life

So there are some random thoughts for this week. What are your random thoughts? Let me know in the comments section.

I’m seeing ghosts today

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings10 Comments

I found this piece in a journal app on my phone that I haven’t really been using lately. It was written a year ago today. I’m not sure why I never shared it anywhere before.

I’m seeing ghosts today

Today I looked around the corner of my parents house and out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw her sitting there. She was in the glider, rocking it by pushing one foot against the concrete floor, hand against her chin like it always was when she was thinking. She was looking out at a blur of green and brown – the barn and the freshly mowed field. Everything was a blur since her eyesight had started failing years before.

“Whatchya doing, Grandma?” I might would say.

“Oh, just enjoying the cooler weather,” she’d say.

“Not contemplating world domination then?”

She’d laugh fully, head back, and squint at me from the shaded place she was sitting.

“No, no. I wouldn’t want that,” she might say.

And she would rock and then Leonardo, the fat cat someone dropped off at my parents’ no-longer used barn, would climb up and sit next to her. She was the only person he’d let pet him, pressing his little form against her thigh as she stroked him and rocked and enjoyed the cool weather.

Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw another ghost, brushing a cat, then turning to water a plant.

“Whew. Sure glad for this cooler weather,” she’d say. “Lordy Lordy. It’s been hot, girl.”

She’d take a swig from her bottle of Diet Pepsi, the one she shouldn’t be drinking, and sit back on that same glider Grandma and used to sit on and look out over the green hills, the dirt road weaving between them.

“Sho is purty today, ain’t it?” She would ask, exaggerating her southern accent for fun.

“Sho is,” I’d say.

Together we’d look out over the fields, my dad’s garden, the children chasing each other, the dog chasing them, the cat lounging on the deck railing and we would sigh a contented sigh.

I’m seeing ghosts today because they’re all gone – Grandma, Dianne, even the cats. But somehow it’s like they’re still there – the shape of them – the feel of them – the sight of them out of the corner of my eye.

Sometimes it’s like they’re still there – on the fringe of it all, the chaos of life, the struggles, the joys, just sitting on the glider, rocking it back and forth, enjoying the cooler weather, never fully gone; wisps of a reality I’ll touch again one day.