fiction stories

Fiction Thursday: Rekindle Part 5

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 1 Comment

You can catch up with the previous parts of this short story HERE.


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 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.

From there it had been 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 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 six months 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, like public opinion, were fickle and ever changing and some days nothing a congressman did could make anyone happy. Matt had only been a congressman for two years but he felt like it had been ten. 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. Instead he fell back on the couch again, remote in hand. He surfed streaming services, suggested shows and movies scrolling by his eyes, but he wasn’t really seeing any of it. His mind had slipped back to two 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 during that time.

“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 congressman, overshadowing it. The fast pace of the 24/7 news cycle was one of the only good aspects of it. It meant a story that was in the forefront one day, was gone by the next day 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. The negativity was coming at him from every side in a hyper-political atmosphere that was beginning to suffocate him.

His phone rang and he glanced at the ID before answering it.

“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?” Liam asked.

“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 not expert on women,” Liam started.

“Uh, obviously,” Matt snorted.

“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,” Liam answered. “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 sat up, propping his elbow against his knee. “Liam, I’m sorry I was so focused on the election, on me, 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 realizing how out of touch I’ve been with what really matters; you and Maddie, the kids. Cassie. When I decided to run I pulled all of you —”

“Matt,” Liam said. “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.”

Matt heard his brother sigh on the other end of the phone.

“Yeah,” Liam whispered. “It’s doing the same for me.”

Fiction Thursday: Fully Alive, Chapter 5

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 1 Comment

This is a continuing fiction story.

If you would like to read the other parts of Fully Alive, please click HERE.

If you would like to read other fiction by me, please see my short story Quarantined, here on the blog, my book A New Beginning on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and my continuing story The Farmer’s Daughter here on the blog.


“What do you think you’ll do, Yeshua? Save a girl who is already dead?”

The men laughed.

“What a fool!”

“Who does he think he is?”

“Oh, don’t you remember? He is the son of God.”

More laughter.

“If you hadn’t stopped to talk to that unclean woman, maybe she’d still be alive.”

“Go, we don’t need you here! She’s gone!”

“Clear this house so only your family is here.”

Jairus woke with a start. His memories of that day lingered in his mind as the fog of sleep faded.

It had been two years since Josefa had been raised from the dead. There were some parts of the story he wondered if he had imagined, yet he heard the voices in his dreams each night, seconds before he drifted off to sleep. Josefa often told him the same happened to her.

She wasn’t sure if her memories were dreams or her dreams were memories. She often asked Jairus about the day and what he remembered.

Sometimes Jairus answered, other times he waved her away, told her to go outside and play with her friends, be a child, enjoy life. There was only so many times he could talk about it, still unsure of what had happened and what he should believe.

He thought about the day at the temple. The day the man had reached up, asked Yeshua to heal his hand. Jairus could feel the anger coming off the other synagogue leaders, rabbis, and teachers.

“He would not dare to try his antics on Shabbat,” Rabbi Avigdor whispered bitterly, his face was twisted in disgust.

When Yeshua had told the man to step forward a hush settled over the leaders in the temple. Yeshua turned and looked at each man, as if searching for just one there who might have compassion on the man.

“You know healing is forbidden on Shabbat,” one of the leaders said curtly, as if to answer his gaze.

“Is it lawful on Shabbat to do good or to do evil, to save a life or to kill?”

The leaders pulled their gaze from Yeshua’s and looked at the stone floor, their sandals, anywhere but at the man they had allowed to speak within their walls and now seemed to be challenging them. They fell silent, unwilling to answer him.

Jairus could only watch in surprise. He saw anger mixed with sadness flicker in Yeshua’ eyes before Yeshua turned away from the other leaders to face the man.

“Stretch out your hand,” Yeshua said firmly.

Jairus could tell it pained the man to reveal the withered hand as he lifted it toward Yeshua.

 Yeshua laid his hand over the man’s and when he withdrew it, the marks that had been there were gone. A murmur of shock rippled throughout the crowd of men who had been watching.

“Blasphemy!” Avigdor spat, his body visibly trembling with anger.

“I refuse to stand here and watch this man mock our laws and our traditions. Levi, Micha, Moshe, come with me.”

 Jairus pondered in amazement at the man flexing his fingers, staring at his hand in shock and wonder.

“My hand!” the man’s face was wet with tears. He took Yeshua’ hand and kissed it. “Thank you. Thank you.”

“Jairus!” Avigdor shouted for him from the doorway.

Jairus looked away from Yeshua and the man as Avigdor jerk his head toward the front steps.

He followed the rabbi into the bright sunlight and heat of the day.

“Jairus, tell me you don’t believe the blasphemy of this man?” Avigdor snapped at him.

Rabbi Levi didn’t wait for Jairus to answer. He was incredulous. “Must we again listen to another self-proclaimed messiah?”

“We will not. But too many people – they are already following him,” Avigdor said sharply. “We can not let his man lead our people out of the will of God.”

Levi shook his head and put his hand behind his back.

“But what can we do? How can we stop him?”

Jairus stood outside of the group, tugging at his beard.

“I think we should wait – see what else he says. He may stumble eventually,” he offered finally.

“Wait for what? For him to lead a revolt against us or even worse cause more issues with the Romans?” Avigdor growled. “Jairus, don’t be foolish –“

“Maybe he’s right,” Rabbi Micha took his turn to speak, holding his hand up as if to pause their racing thoughts. “The people will eventually see that this Yeshua isn’t who they think he is. They’ll eventually see he brings them empty promises. If we leave him alone he will eventually  stumble and make a fool of himself.”

“He already speaks blasphemy. He already mocks our ways,” Avigdor snapped. “What more should we wait for?”

Rabbi Levi put his hand gently on Avigdor’s shoulder. “Shabbat is almost over. Let us try to calm ourselves and pray. We won’t help matters yelling and screaming when we are so fired up. We will return to this topic after Shabbat, when we’ve had time to clear our heads.”

Levi was often the voice of reason and the one who could calm Avigdor, but this was one time Jairus wasn’t sure it would work.

Avigdor shook his head, looked at the ground for a moment and then looked at Levi.

“You are right, Levi. I will bring this up again after Sabbath,” he said, still with an edge to his voice, but now calmer than before. “But I can not promise you my opinion will not be the same.”

Jairus followed behind the men then paused and looked back at the door of the synagogue. Yeshua and the man he had healed were walking through the doorway.

“Rabbi, how can I ever thank you?” the man was asking, tears streaking his cheeks.

Yeshua stopped walking and turned toward the man.

“Honor your God each day. Have no other gods before him. Love others as you love yourself.”

The man kissed Yeshua’ hand, which was clasped in his own.

“I will do my best,” he told Yeshua.

“That is all God asks of you,” Yeshua said softly, a smile tilting his mouth upward.

He turned and as his followers came around him they all walked together into the crowd, which swallowed Yeshua from Jairus’ view.

“Josefa! Can you come to the stream to play?”

Her friend Caleb peered at her through the curtain of her sleeping quarters window.

 She rubbed the sleep from her eyes.

“After chores, yes.”

The sun was high the sky when Josefa finally took off her sandals and placed her feet in the stream near the olive trees. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the cool water against her skin.

Caleb leaned close to her and whispered in her ear. “I heard another story about demons and Yeshua’ followers.”

“Caleb. Stop that. There is no such thing as demons.”

“There totally is! They said Yeshua’ follower named Matthew spoke to the man and said there was a demon in him. The man who told me said the man with the demon spoke funny and fell to the ground.”

“Like this!” Caleb fell on the ground and his face twisted up while he jerked around with his arms against his chest, flailing back and forth.

He jumped up and stuck his tongue out at Josefa and shook his head back and forth vigorously

Josefa put her hands up as if to push Caleb away from her as he continued to distort his face, bursting into laughter.

“Then the man yelled back at Matthew and told him he lived there now and he wasn’t leaving, but Matthew said ‘You have no place here, demon and in the name of the most high God I command you to leave.’”

Caleb pointed at an imaginary man and made a stern face to imitate Matthew.

“In the name of the —” He stepped closer to Josefa as he continued to point. He lifted his chin and looked sternly at her down his nose. “The most high Gawd! Be goooone!”

Josefa put her hand over her mouth and giggled until the sound of footsteps startled them both.

Caleb’s older brother, Enoch, scowled down at them.

“Who do these men think they are?” he snapped. Acting as if they have authority to mess with the possessed?”

Enoch knelt next to the stream to fill his wineskin, shaking his  head.

“No one asked you, Enoch,” Caleb said, rolling his eyes.

Enock snorted. “These are the words of children. Stories. That’s all they are. Only a baby like you would believe them.”

Caleb stood, hands clenched into fists. “That’s not true! I heard them talking about it in the market. That man named Matthew called a demon out.”

Caleb made a weird face again and staggered toward Enoch. “’I am a servant of the devil!’ That’s what the man said.”

Enoch stepped away from his brother, turned his back to him and tied his bag closed.

“And, besides, Yeshua raised Josefa from the dead!” Caleb’s voice was loud and defiant.

Josefa’s cheeks flushed red.

“Caleb . . .”

“What?” Caleb said. “He did! You should tell more people! They should know the truth about Yeshua and his followers and who they really are.”

“You speak foolishness, Caleb,” Enoch said.

Enoch turned toward Josefa and she caught his gaze, his deep green eyes watching her. The palms of her hands were warm, moist and her heart pounded hard and fast in her chest.

Enoch smirked and stepped toward her. “Is this true, Josefa? Is it true what people are saying? Tell me, Josefa, daughter of Jairus, what did Yeshua really do?”

Her heart pounding in her ears almost drowned out his mocking words.

She kept her eyes down, looking at the olive branch in her hand. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Why? Because it’s a lie, right? What your family said happened is a lie isn’t it?”

Josefa turned to look at Enoch, her face warm.

“He asked us not to speak of it —”

Enoch laughed. “Of course, he did.” His smile faded, he stepped toward her and towered above her. “Because nothing happened.”

Caleb was furious. “They were already holding a time of mourning for her, Enoch! You don’t know! You were out with the sheep. But it’s true! I was there! I was crying!”

Enoch shook his head and tied his wine skin to his belt and reached for his staff.

“She was probably just asleep. You cry over everything. You’re still a boy.”

“She wasn’t breathing. I saw her! I touched her!”

Josefa looked at Caleb. She hadn’t known he’d been with her.

“You were there?” she asked softly.

Caleb’s cheeks were red now.

“Yes. I came because I did not want to believe it. I didn’t want to believe you were gone. I was there when Yeshua came with those men and then he told us all to leave.”

Enoch’s haughty laugh interrupted their exchange.

“Of course, Yeshua wanted everyone to leave. So, he could pretend Josefa was really dead.” He ruffled Caleb’s hair, but Caleb slapped his hand way. “Okay, little one, I’m leaving you and your friend to your childish tales. Take care of mama while Joseph and I are gone to find the lost sheep.”

He paused and looked at Josefa, half turned away from her.

“Take care, Josefa. I don’t believe you were truly dead, but I am glad you are still alive.”

“Thank you, Enoch.”

Her voice softened to a whisper. “But I was dead.”

The sound of a passing cart drowned out her voice.

Enoch walked around the children and called out to his older brother.

“Joseph wait for me!”

“Why didn’t you tell him?” Caleb asked as Enoch and Joseph disappeared down the road.

“I don’t know. Yeshua said to tell no one. I wasn’t sure —”

“But so many already know, Josefa. They know the truth about what happened to you. If it was me, I wouldn’t be ashamed. I’d be excited to let everyone know that I had been dead but now was alive.”

Josefa flicked at the water with her fingers and stared at the pools rolling into each other.

“But what if no one believes me?” she asked.

“But what if some do?” Caleb countered.

Fiction Friday: The Farmer’s Daughter Chapter 1

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 10 Comments

I have shared a little of this story in the past, but have been working on it over time and will be working on it again as it goes on. As with other stories, this is mainly unedited so typos and left out words are definitely a possibility.

To find more of this story click HERE.

I also shared part of a novella I am working on yesterday.

A New Beginning will be accessible for a little longer on the blog since I don’t know when I’ll have reliable internet to upload it to Kindle. Quarantined, the short story I wrote, is also available in full at the top of the page.



Chapter 1

“You have got to be kidding me!”

Molly Tanner’s life was stuck in proverbial cow poop in the same way she was standing knee-deep in literal cow poop.

She had imagined so much more for her life but here she was pulling hard on a rope connected to the harness of a Jersey cow, trying to convince the animal to move the 300 yards from the cow pasture to the barn, when she could have been traveling the world or exploring all life had to offer while working an exciting job somewhere exotic.

This battle of the wills, which so far the cow named Cinnamon was winning, had been going on for fifteen minutes and Molly had had enough.

She lowered her head and looked Cinnamon directly in the cow’s right eye. “Listen here, girl, it’s time to get in that barn. I’m tired. It’s been a long day of milking and cleaning out all that mess you and your friends make. And I’m not done yet. I still have to help Mom bake cakes for the church rummage sale next week. You know how much I hate that bake sale, so come on, give me a break, okay?”

Across the field, at the top of the hill, Alex Stone, the Tanner’s farmhand, casually leaned back against the door of the barn, chewing on a piece of sweet grass and watching Molly struggle.

“Whatdya think she’s doing down there?” he asked, nodding in Molly’s direction, arms folded across his chest.

Molly’s brother Jason spoke from inside the barn. “Looks like she’s arguing with Cinnamon again.” He poured a bucket full of slop for the pigs into their trough, then set the bucket down and walked over to stand next to Alex.

“Should we help her?” Alex asked.

“Probably.”

Jason leaned against the door next to Alex and accepted the piece of sweet grass Alex handed him. The men chewed together and continued to watch with amused expressions, neither making a move to help.

If Cinnamon felt any remorse for her actions, she wasn’t showing it. She chewed her cud and turned her head toward the empty field behind her, then swished a fly off her backside with a flick of her tail. Molly groaned and tightened her grip on the rope.

“You are going into that barn for milking,” she hissed through gritted teeth. “I will not be defeated.”

In the same moment Molly pulled, Cinnamon jerked her head back and with that movement ripped the rope from Molly’s hands, sending her staggering, off-balance, to one side before she tripped over a pile of manure and fell, face down in the cow pasture. A scream of frustration gurgled out of Molly as she pushed herself to her hands and knees and sat back in the mud, glaring at the cow.

Well, if this isn’t apropos of where my life has ended up in the last few years, I don’t know what is, she thought bitterly.

Jason shook his head. “Good grief,” he said, tossing the sweet grass to the ground and turning to walk back into the barn. “She’s a mess. You’d better go rescue her.”

Alex grinned, his gaze drifting over the mud clinging to Molly’s figure, glad Jason didn’t know he was admiring the view. “Yeah. I guess you’re right. She is pretty pathetic right now.”

He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Hey!” he shouted. “What’s going on down there? We’re ready to start the milking! You gonna get that cow up here or what?”

Alex’s voice booming across the cow pasture brought a curse word to Molly’s mind, which she immediately felt guilty about. Though it wasn’t the worst curse word she could have said, it wasn’t in her usual verbal repertoire. She’d been used to one annoying older brother her entire life, but five years ago Jason had invited his college roommate Alex to come work on the family farm and now it was like she had two annoying older brothers, always ready to harass her.

She stood, trying to wipe the mud from her clothes, and grabbed the rope again. “If you’re so impatient then you get this stubborn cow moving!” she shouted back up the hill.

She turned and tugged on the rope again, silently pleading for Cinnamon to move.

Boots thumped heavy in the mud behind her as she pulled. Alex reached over her shoulder, taking the rope and Molly watched in disbelief as Cinnamon dutifully dropped her head and walked forward.

“Are you kidding me?! I’ve been trying to get her to move for 20 minutes! What did you do differently?”

Alex looked over his shoulder and smirked. “I guess the ladies just like me.”

“You wish,” Molly grumbled loud enough for him to hear, even though she knew what Alex had said was more than true. She’d watched more than one woman in town follow him down the street like a cow looking for her feed. He certainly wasn’t hard on the eyes, but his obnoxious personality left a lot to be desired.

Mud and manure squished under Molly’s feet and slid off her clothes as she plodded toward the barn, frustration seething through her.

“Molly, why don’t you just head in and get cleaned off?” Robert Tanner said to his daughter as she stumbled through the barn doorway. “You can start helping your mom with those cakes. Alex, Jason and I can finish up the milking.”

“I think I’ll take you up on that offer,” Molly said. “Maybe I can even manage a shower before bed for once.”

Jason’s face scrunched in disgust as he leaned close to Molly and sniffed. “That would definitely be a good thing. You smell like the pigs.”

Molly shot a glare at her brother and turned to walk back toward the house.

“And you smell like the gas that comes out of their behinds!” she shouted over her shoulder.

“Always have to have the last word, don’t you?”

“Yes!”

“Whatever!”

“Whatever back at you!”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Robert said. “Now the last word is mine.”

Walking back toward the house, trying to wipe dirt from her face, but instead only wiping more onto it, Molly paused to look out the fields of the farm. The green of the corn was starting to peek up from the soil and soon they’d be harvesting it, if the rain would ever stop. It would be the third year of harvesting without her grandfather, the first since he’d passed away.

Molly had been sure that by now, eight years after graduating high school, she’d be out on her own, with her own career, her own life. Instead, she was still living on her parents’ farm in rural Pennsylvania, still sleeping in her old room, her mother still cooking her meals and washing her clothes. Working on a farm was all she’d ever known and all she’d ever wanted, at least until a few months ago when she’d started to wonder what else the world might have to offer a 26-year old with no college degree and little knowledge of the world other than how to milk a cow and sell produce at her parent’s small farm store.

She walked into the chicken coop to look for eggs she knew her mom needed for the cakes.

The eggs retrieved, she paused outside the chicken coup and watched the sun begin to slip behind the hills hugging the Tanner’s 250-acre farm. The sunset, a mix of orange with a streak of pink, made the fields of the farm look almost mystical. She knew she’d never get sick of this view, of these sunsets at the end of a long day.

Her mom’s laughter startled her and she turned to see her mom standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips.

“Good grief, what happened to you?” Annie Tanner asked her daughter.

Wearing faded blue jeans anda red and white checkered button up top with her hair pulled back in a ponytail, Annie looked much younger than her actual age of 47.

Molly sighed and looked down at her own mud and manure covered clothes. “Cinnamon happened to me, I guess you would say.”

“Being stubborn again?” Annie asked.

“Of course.”

“Well, are you going to stand there all day or are you going to bring those eggs into the house and head up for a shower?”

Molly sighed. “Sorry. I was just admiring the sunset.”

“It’s beautiful,” Annie agreed. “But I need to get those cakes started. A sunset will wait. Mavis Porter won’t.”

Molly inwardly cringed at the mention of Mavis, the woman who had overseen the Spencer Valley Methodist Church rummage sale for 20-years straight. Mavis had a knack for making anyone feel less than, her thin face pursed into a permanent look of disapproval. Molly hoped she wouldn’t be roped into manning the baked goods table again this year. Mavis seemed to think it was ironic to have the fat girl guarding the cakes and cookies at the annual rummage and bake sale.

“I can’t believe there are any cakes left,” a middle school-aged boy said one year during the bake sale, looking Molly up and down from across the church basement while his friends laughed.

“There were probably even more before she came in,” another boy said, as they all snickered.

She pretended she didn’t hear them as she counted the change in the money box.

Molly handed the basket of eggs to her mother and headed into the house.

Molly wasn’t proud of the weight she’d gained over the years, but no matter what she did she couldn’t seem to get back down to her high school weight. She missed when she was in junior high school, thin and limber and not the butt of little boy’s jokes.

With long, reddish-brown curls that fell to the middle of her back and plenty of curves, she possessed a clearly feminine shape. She was not what some might call grotesquely obese. Still, she wasn’t happy with the extra cushion to her belly, backside, and thighs. She wished she’d never heard the term “saddlebags” beyond what was hooked to the actual saddle of a horse. Drying off in front of the bathroom mirror she kept her eyes downcast, hoping to avoid a full view of what her body had become over the years. She’d heard more than one sermon over the years about God loving her no matter what but there were days she struggled to love herself, at least when it came to her appearance.

Three more cakes were baked and cooling on the dining room table, ready to be added to the six other cakes Molly and Annie has baked the day before, when Molly heard her father’s truck pulling into the driveway of the house.

Her father’s red Ford needed to be replaced. The old truck was Robert Tanner’s pride and joy and a gift from his father when Robert had taken over the majority of the farm operations 20 years ago. Annie kept urging him to invest in a new one, but each time she did he responded with: “It gets me where I need to go and when it won’t no more then I’ll get a new one.”

Molly watched as her dad climbed out of the driver side, more gingerly than he had even a year ago. He’d been up since 4 a.m., overseeing the milking of the cows, the shoveling of the manure, the preparations to mow the field. She knew the last few years had been as physically rough on her dad as it had been emotionally.

Alex, the Tanner’s farmhand, slid out of the passenger side easily and walked toward the house. He wore the same style of faded blue jeans and brown work boots he did every day. A white t-shirt was dirt-stained under a blue button-up, shirt sleeve plaid shirt. His brown hair was ruffled but in a good way, as if it had been styled that way somehow. Molly couldn’t deny Alex’s rugged good looks quickened her pulse, but he was four years older than her, obnoxious and preferred the bar when she preferred solitude with her journal and Bible.

Jason pulled up in his own truck, spitting at the ground as he climbed out. Gross, Molly thought to herself. He is so gross. I don’t even know how Ellie stands him.

 But Jason could also be sweet, at times, cared deeply for her and the rest of his family and was proud to work on the farm and help put food on tables across the country. He lumbered across the yard like an ox and he was as big as one too, at least around the shoulders and neck. It wasn’t all fat either. Jason lifted heavy hay bails and worked hard on the farm every day but he also spent every morning after milking at the gym for a 90-minute hour workout. Molly knew his determination to keep in shape was left over from playing football during high school and college.

His coaches urged him to pursue a professional career and two NFL teams had courted him, but Jason had never wanted a career in football. He’d wanted to come home to the farm, to his cows and his corn and to Ellie, who he’d been dating since his senior year of high school. When he’d graduated college with a degree in agriculture engineering and economics, he did just that — came home and a couple years later he convinced Alex to come with him.

When Alex had first arrived Annie would ask if he’d like to come to dinner. Now Alex came without an invitation because to the Tanners he’d become part of the family. Annie often told him she felt like she had gained another son when he’d moved with Jason into the house she’d grown up in. Her parents had moved out of the house when they had decided to retire from farming and move into a retirement community in town.

“Good day in the fields?” Annie asked after the prayers had been said and the food was on the plates.

“The John Deere finally broke down,” Robert said, breaking a piece off a chicken breast.

“Will John come and look at it?” Annie asked.

Robert nodded toward Jason. “Jason and I can take care of it in the morning after milking. It will make a late start, but I hate to spend the money if I know we can fix it here.”

Jason grinned. “Dad forgets I’m not good with the tractors, just the trucks, but I’ll see what I can do.”

“I have faith in both of you,” Annie said with a smile. She winked at Alex. “And in Alex. He’s learned a thing or two about tractors over the years.”

Alex laughed softly and shook his head. “Just enough to keep my job but not enough to give me too much work because we all know I couldn’t handle that.”

Molly knew that wasn’t true. Jason liked to rib his friend about his laziness and Alex playfully agreed, but Alex was a hard worker and knew almost as much about how to operate the farm as her dad and brother did, even if he had been born a city slicker.

Quiet settled over the dining room. The clanking of forks against plates was soon the only sound. Molly felt the tension in the air like someone wanted to say something but didn’t know how. Her dad finally cleared his throat and she felt apprehension curl in her stomach.

“We got a letter from the co-op today,” he said.

“How bad are the numbers?” Annie asked, spooning more potatoes onto Alex’s plate.

“Worse I’ve seen in five years.” Robert was somber. “It’s going to hurt a lot of farmers. Even with the organic market, I think it may even hurt us. There were also more farms that went out of business this year.”

Molly felt sick at the thought of even more of their friends being forced to sell their farms. She had attended too many auctions last year, hugged too many farmers’ wives, watched too many farm families weep as their lives were sold to the highest bidder. Thinking about driving past even more empty fields that had once been full of corn and hay left a dull ache in her chest.

“I don’t understand how the buyers can keep getting away with this,” Jason said, shaking his head. “It’s like the harder we work, the more we get punished. We make the milk, they raise the prices and barely pass anything on to us.”

Molly pushed her potatoes around her plate as silence settled over the small group. Alex coughed against his hand and took a sip of his tea. He wished he could say something to make it all better for this family who had taken him in as their own, but he knew he couldn’t.

“We just have to give this over to God,” Robert said softly. “It’s all I know how to do anymore. Keep plugging ahead somehow and pray God shows us which direction to take. We’ve got the store, we are offering organic meats and products, something many people seem interested in now. It’s all we can do.”

The small family nodded but they all felt the dread and worry hanging heavy on their shoulders. Each one knew what the other one was thinking: how much longer would they be able to live this dream of owning and running their own family business?

Jason finished his meal first, crumpled his napkin and tossed it onto the plate. “I’m going to head up for a shower. Elsie and I have tickets for a movie tonight.”

Jason had been dating Elsie for three years now. Molly wondered if her brother would ever get the nerve up to ask her to marry him. At the age of 30, neither of them were getting any younger. She could tell he loved Elsie and she knew Elsie adored Jason, though it was hard for her to understand anyone swooning over her obnoxious brother. Sometimes Molly wondered if it was the uncertainty of the farm’s future that held Jason back. Sometimes she wondered if it was that same uncertainty that had left her considering a life outside of farming.

There had to be something better than dragging herself out of bed at 4:30 every morning to milk the cows and collapsing in bed at 9 every night, so overwhelmed with exhaustion she could barely have a life off the farm. There had to be something better than putting all this hard work in and seeing little return, in so many ways, not just profit.

There simply had to be more to life. Molly sighed as she cleared her plate and carried it to the dishwasher, deep in thought, overwhelmed with a sudden determination to find out what more there was to life off the farm.

She didn’t know Alex was watching her from his seat at the table, wondering what thoughts had her so consumed that they had turned her captivating smile into a concerned frown. She also didn’t know this wasn’t the first time he had watched her and wondered what went on inside that beautiful head of hers.

Quarantined: (A Fictional Short Story Part 3)

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 5 Comments

This is a short story inspired by current events. You can find Part 1 here and Part 2 here, if you want to follow along. This is a six-part story (possibly five if I combine two parts). For anyone following A New Beginning, the last three chapters will be on the blog Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

QUARANTINED (4)

“It’s going to be okay, Maddie. We’ll try again.”

Liam’s voice had been warm, comforting, reassuring. His arms around her made her feel like her world wasn’t crumbling under her feet when she knew it actually was. He gave her hope, hope that one day they’d carry a pregnancy to term and they’d have a child of their own. But that had been four years ago, after their second miscarriage, and now, with a divorce looming like a dark specter on the horizon, Maddie had lost all hope of ever having children. She was 32, almost 33. Soon she’d be too old for children. The mere thought of dating again, of finding someone she wanted to have children with exhausted her.

Liam had been the only one she’d ever wanted to have children with.

Walking slowly around the culdesac, her head down, she knew that Liam was still the only one she wanted to have children with. Despite all the anger, all the hurt, all the ways he’d rejected her over the years, she wanted nothing more than for him to want her again. She knew that wasn’t going to happen, though. He’d barely flinched when she’d told him she wanted a divorce six months ago.

“Fine,” he’d said, jaw tight, looking away from her. “If that’s what you want, I’ll call Pete in the morning and he can start drawing up the paperwork.”

“It is what I want,” she’d responded.

It had been a lie. She hadn’t wanted a divorce. She’d wanted to shake him out of his complacency, to force him into realizing how much he’d neglected her for the past four years. Her plan had failed miserably. Instead of begging her to stay, he’d practically packed her bags. He’d called his lawyer, suggested a lawyer for her and told her they would need to decide who got what in terms of possessions, property, money.

“Of course you can have the house and I’ll provide alimony for you if you wish,” he’d told her, a stoic expression on his face, his voice practically monotone. “And I’m sure the process will be easier since . . .” He’d glanced up at her then, looking at her for a few moments. He’d swallowed hard and cleared his throat. “Since there aren’t any children involved.”

That’s right, Liam, she had wanted to scream. There aren’t any children involved because you practically abandoned me for your career after my last miscarriage. You pushed me off for years when I asked when we could start trying again. You replaced me with conference calls and press conferences and political prestige within your brother’s crooked political circle of influence.

Maddie kicked at a rock on the sidewalk and felt tears clutching at her throat. “You replaced me, Liam,” she whispered as she walked. “The girl you said you’d always love because I’m the only one who ever made you feel like you were loved unconditionally.”

The tears came suddenly and she wiped at them furiously, afraid someone would see her and think she knew something they all didn’t because of who she was married to. She dreaded going back to the house, back to the husband who was shut up inside, not only inside the house, but inside himself.

Still, she couldn’t walk out here all day. She was actually tired. It had been a long week and she was feeling run down. She needed to rest, to keep her strength up in case she really did catch something from Liam. She walked slowly back to the house, making sure to wipe the tears from her face before she went back inside. The last thing she needed was Liam seeing her tears and asking her what was wrong, pretending he cared, when she knew he didn’t and hadn’t for a very long time.

It was quiet back inside the house. She breathed a sigh of relief and tossed her coat onto the couch. Finally some peace and quiet. Liam had probably locked himself in his office to start working on press releases with John and Matt. She glanced at the office door as she sat down and saw it was open. She couldn’t hear Liam talking or typing away on his computer.

She groaned softly as she stood, a sharp pain shooting down her upper back. She stood and waited for the pain to subside, knowing it was stress-induced. She hunched her shoulders and clenched her jaw when she was angry or upset and she knew it was putting a strain on her back. She walked gingerly down the hallway toward Liam’s office and out of the corner of her eye she saw him in the spare room, asleep on his back, a pillow hugged to his chest. She paused and leaned against the doorway. She remembered her friend Annie telling her how peaceful her children looked asleep, how easy it was to forget their misdeeds from that day when she saw them vulnerable and relaxed in their bed.

Liam looked peaceful.

Vulnerable even.

The lines she was so used to seeing stretch across his forehead were smooth, barely noticeable. His mouth was slightly open, but he wasn’t snoring, something he’d never done, and she was grateful for. His eyelashes had always been unusually long for a man, but not too long to be unbecoming. Strands of dark brown hair laid across his forehead, the rest of it swept back due to his supine position.

A small smile pulled at Maddie’s mouth. Memories pushed their way into her thoughts, against her will. Hands clutching, mouths touching, soft gasps, clothes on the floor, a long, contented sight and then a loud crash as the boards that held the bed up at their first apartment broke and sent the bed, and them, crashing down. They’d laid there, the bed at an angle, their heads down, their feet up, startled expressions on their faces, their naked bodies intertwined. Then they’d burst into laughter and held each other, laughing even as they dragged themselves from the wreckage of the bed.

“The couch doesn’t have wooden slats,” he’d said, eyes flashing with a mischievous glint.

He grinned.

She smiled.

He’d taken her hand and they’d rushed to the room that served both as a kitchen and a living room and resumed their undressed rendezvous.

He sure knew how to touch her back then. How to caress her, where to kiss her, how to hold her and just what to say to make her feel safe and loved. That first year of marriage. It all seemed like a lifetime ago. She touched her fingers to her throat, realizing her heart was pounding fast and she’d flushed warm at the memories. Her gaze drifted over his form on the bed, his strong shoulders, long legs, perfectly shaped mouth. She couldn’t deny he still did something to her insides; that he still lit a fire of passion within her that made her head feel a little funny, her stomach flip flop.

Her eyelids were even heavier now. She yawned, walking back to the couch for a much-needed nap and maybe later a Cary Grant movie and a cup of hot chocolate.

Fiction Thursday: “A New Beginning” Chapter 13

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 15 Comments

This is part of a continuing story, which you can catch up on here or at the link at the top of the page, under A New Beginning.

Want to read the first part of Blanche’s story? Find A Story to Tell on Kindle and/or Kindle Unlimited.
I had some “complaints” (notice the teasing quotes) last week that people would have to wait a week to read the cliffhanger from last week so I moved it up a day. I actually had two complaints because I really only have two people reading the story. Hahaha! Or at least two people commenting (which is NOT a complaint by me, just explaining it’s not like the complaints came in droves or that they were real complaints. Should I stop over-explaining now? Okay. I shall.)

Also, guess what! I’m glad that I rewrite and edit my books once I share them in chapters on my blog because I have been using the wrong name for one of my characters. Blanche’s mother-in-law is Marion, not Marjorie! Yikes! So sorry Marion! First, she had a horrible life with a horrible husband and son, and now her story is being told incorrectly because the author is messing up her name.

Check back tomorrow for Chapter 14 of the story.

 

 

Chapter 13

I had been so drugged when Jackson was born, I couldn’t remember what the doctor had done to make him cry. Or did he just cry by himself? I wracked my brain then remembered a delivery scene in a book I’d read and quickly turned the baby on her back, clearing mucous from her nose and mouth with my fingers and then flipped her again so her chest was against my palm as I smacked her back firmly.

Nothing.

I smacked her again, a little harder this time, as Emmy cried.

I was beginning to sob now, terrified.

“Oh Jesus, please let this baby breathe.”

I rubbed the baby’s back, feeling her solid against my hand and closed my eyes, slapping her hard again.

The sudden gasp that came from the tiny form after the third slap, tiny arms jerking out to her sides, sent relief rushing through me.

“Oh, Jesus! Thank you!”

Little Faith’s scream was the best sound I’d ever heard.

I laid her against Emmy’s chest and pulled my coat off, laying it across both of them. Tears streamed down Emmy’s face as she held Faith close to her.

The wind whipped against the car and snow pelted the windshield and windows. Looking on either side of us I could only see white. I knew I wouldn’t be able to see the road even if I had been able to stop my legs and hands from shaking.

I turned the heat up and looked in the backseat for the blanket I knew Daddy kept there.

“I was a Boy Scout,” he’d told me when I had teased him one time about the blankets and other supplies he had in the car. “You know their motto -”

“Yes, Daddy. Always be prepared.”

This was one time I was glad Daddy was prepared. I tightened the blanket around Emmy and Faith and then reached over and turned the radio on. Elvis crooned over the speakers.

“We should at least have some music while we wait to see if this snow slows down,” I said.

Emmy smiled, tears in her eyes as she watched Faith root for her first meal outside the womb. “We did it, Blanche. She’s here!”

I stroked Emmy’s hair and smiled down at Faith snuggled against her. I hoped the gas lasted until the snow slowed down and I could safely pull onto the road again. I should have listened to Mama about the snowstorm.  Emmy and I should have waited to go to the movies another night. I should have known she would be right. It seemed like Mama was always right and I knew I needed to start tuning myself into my own intuition if I was going to be as instinctual as she always seemed to be.

Emmy laid her head back against the door and smiled weakly as we listened to the next song by a new group from England called The Beatles.

“Such a weird name for a band,” Emmy laughed. “What do you think of their music?”

“I actually like them,” I said. “Edith is all about Elvis still, but I love I Want to Hold Your Hand.”

Emmy looked out the windshield as snow began to cover it. I knew we were both trying to keep our minds from being filled with worry.”

“Did you see on the news when they came into JFK?” she asked. “Can you believe how stupid those girls acted? I can’t imagine acting so stupid over a bunch of long-haired boys, I don’t care how good their music is.”

I laughed. “As someone who acted stupid over a boy when she was young, I guess I can’t say much. But. . .that was a little ridiculous.”

After another five minutes I could see the road slightly between the snowflakes. I didn’t want to wait much longer; I knew Emmy and Faith should be at the hospital and the umbilical cord still needed to be cut. Keeping with his “Always Be Prepared” motto, I knew Daddy had a knife in the glove compartment, but the lack of sanitation kept me from trying it.

“We’re only about ten minutes away. I’m going to try to get back on the road.”

“Are you sure it’s safe?” Emmy asked nervously.

“The road is definitely covered, but I don’t think it was cold enough before for the road to have been frozen underneath. I need to get you to the hospital.”

“Okay, then, let’s head out and pray for God to protect us.”

Even as I pulled the car back onto the road I wondered if I was making the right decision. Another couple of inches of snow had fallen on the road in the hour we’d been off the road. I began to sing to try to distract myself from intrusive thoughts about what could happen, remembering a song my Grandma used to sing.

“The Lord’s our Rock, in Him we hide, A Shelter in the time of storm; Secure whatever ill betide, A Shelter in the time of storm.”

Emmy sang with me. “Oh, Jesus is a Rock in a weary land. A weary land, a weary land; Oh, Jesus is a Rock in a weary land, A Shelter in the time of storm.”

We sang as I drove at 10 miles an hour, hands wrapped tightly around the steering wheel, leaning forward and squinting through the windshield wipers moving fast  to keep up with the snow. Emmy sang the next song clearly, her voice soft and angelic. I had forgotten how well she could sing.

“Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
the darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.”
A loud explosion interrupted her singing and at the same moment I felt the steering wheel jerk to the right and yank me off the road and into a field full of snow. We both screamed as I gripped the wheel to try to take control back, but it was too late. The car’s front end had slammed into an embankment and what looked like smoke billowed in front of us, obscuring our view.

I slammed the car into park when it hit the embankment and turned toward Emmy to check that she and Faith were okay. Emmy held Faith against her, her eyes wide.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

Emmy nodded but didn’t answer audibly.

“I’ll see what happened,” I said, opening the driver-side door.

Snow pelted me in the face and soaked my hair as I slid and skidded in the slushy snow toward the front of the car. I didn’t need to go far before I saw our problem – a blown front tire. I knew I had no idea how to change a tire, even though Daddy had shown me only a week ago, but I also knew Daddy most likely had a spare in the trunk. I shuffled toward the back of the car, then remembered I’d need a key to unlock the trunk. I shuffled again toward the front of the car and turned off the ignition, sliding out the key before venturing out again to unlock the trunk.

There was a spare tire and a jack right where I thought it would be, but I doubted I’d be able to lift the car with the jack and change a tire with the snow pelting me in the face and piling up around me. Still, I had to try so I kneeled in the snow, glad I was at least wearing jeans and boots, but regretting I hadn’t even brought gloves with me. Apparently, I hadn’t listened to Daddy’s motto as well as I should have over the years.

Ten minutes later I couldn’t feel my fingers and the jack had broke. I climbed back in the car and turned up the heat.

“No luck?”

I shook my head. Emmy was nursing Faith and I tightened the blankets around them.

“We’ve got to get you to the hospital. We’re not far away. I think I’m going to walk to see if I can  . .”

“No! You can’t leave me, Blanche!”

“Emmy, I have to find a phone to call an ambulance or someone to come help us. We can’t wait much longer.”

Emmy reached out with one hand and clutched my arm. “Stay! Someone will come, I’m sure!”

“I don’t even know how much more gas we have . . .”

“Don’t leave me. I’m so scared, Blanche.”

Emmy was trembling and I was worried that she’d lost too much blood or was dehydrated. Images of Edith collapsing against me flashed in my mind but I refused to imagine the same happening to Emmy. I slid close to her and hugged her against me, looking down at Faith in her arms.

“It’s going to be okay, Emmy. We’re going to make it through this. Someone has to come along soon.”

I hoped we weren’t too far off the road for someone to find us. I leaned my head against Emmy’s shoulder and began to pray.

“Jesus, give Emmy and me your peace right now. Hold us in your arms. Watch over us as we wait for someone to come. We know we are in your watch care.”

The wind howled around us as I began to quietly sing another hymn.

Dusk was upon us and Emmy had drifted to sleep with Faith against her when the roar of a car engine drowned out the wind and the click of sleet on the car windows. Feeling physically drained only moments before a new burst of energy rushed through me as I wiped the condensation from the window and squinted through the falling snow.

Tears of relief stung my eyes at the sight of Jimmy rushing through the snow and ice toward us. Emmy woke as the driver’s side door squeaked open.

“Blanche! Are you two okay?” Jimmy asked, trying to catch his breath, his cheeks flushed red.

“All three of us are doing okay but we could sure use some help getting to the hospital,” I said.

“Three? What – oh my gosh!”

Jimmy cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled against the wind.   “They’re here! Bring the blankets! Emmy’s had the baby!”

The rushed footsteps crunching in the snow were almost as welcome of a sound as Faith’s cries had been. I stepped out of the car as Daddy and Judson reached the bottom of the hill.

“You can’t do anything easy, can you, Emmy-lou?” Judson teased as he laid the blankets across her and the baby.

“My middle name is Anne and you know it, Judson Thomas,” Emmy said with a weak smile.

“I’ll get my jack from the back of the truck,” Jimmy said.

Judson gently closed the passenger’s side door and ushered me toward the back of the car where Daddy was standing, ready to roll the spare tire to the front of the car.

“When you two didn’t come home we panicked,” Daddy said. “We panicked even more when the sheriff stopped by looking for Emmy.”

“Looking for Emmy?”

His eyebrows were furrowed with concern as he glanced back at the car and lowered his voice. “Sam’s been shot.”

I gasped and suddenly felt shaky. “Shot? Is he alive?”

“He’s at the hospital,” Jimmy said, taking the jack and wheel wrench from Daddy. “That’s all we’ve been told. We don’t want to upset Emmy, especially now, so I don’t think we should tell her yet. What do you guys think?”

Daddy agreed. “Let’s get the tire on, get some gas in the tank and head to the hospital. When we get there, you go with Emmy, and Judson, Jimmy and I will find out how Sam is.”

I felt tears stinging my eyes, but I blinked them away quickly. I was barely able to manage a nod, as a wave of exhaustion suddenly rushed over me.

Daddy placed his hands gently on each of my shoulders. “We need to be strong for Emmy right now, okay?”

I nodded again and took a deep breath, determined to not let Emmy see the fear or worry gnawing at my insides.

“Go sit in the car and get warmed up,” Daddy said. “Don’t think the worst about Sam yet.”

I sat in the back seat and made sure Emmy and Faith were warm, trying to slow my racing thoughts. Sam had been shot. How bad was it? Was he even alive?

When Daddy and Judson had changed the tire and filled the gas tank with gas from a container in the back of Judson’s truck, Daddy slid into the front seat next to Emmy and smiled reassuringly.

“Alright, little lady. Let’s get you and that baby to the hospital and make sure you’re both okay.”

Emmy smiled weakly. “Thank you, Mr. Robins and I – um – I’m sorry about your upholstery.”

“If you don’t mind, I’d rather not think about that at the moment,” Daddy said, grimacing.

Fiction . . . Thursday? Yep. A New Beginning Chapter 11

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 5 Comments

I’ve decided to share an extra chapter of A New Beginning this week on the blog. Why? I don’t know. Why not? Call it a New Year’s gift. Plus, I wanted to get some of the more exciting portions of what I’ve been working on, knowing all this could change when I work on the second and final drafts in February and March.

As always, this is an initial draft so there will probably be typos, missing words, maybe even plot holes. I take feedback from the blog and other sources to help me rectify those issues, but for now, I’m simply sharing a story for fun.

Need to catch up? Find the link to the other chapters HERE or at the top of the page. Want to read the first part of Blanche’s story? Find A Story to Tell on Kindle.

 

Chapter 11

Emmy was definitely sporting the “pregnancy glow” as she sat across from me on the couch in my parents’ living room almost nine months after she had told us all she was expecting. Her face lit up even more when I mentioned Daddy had been giving me driving lessons.

“If you can drive now, then let’s drive to Dalton and see a movie together! We can have a girl’s day out!”

“I don’t even have my license yet,” I said. “I go next week for the test.”

“Well, then I can drive! Oh, but Sam dropped me off. Oh! I’d have to drive — oooh…”

I didn’t like the expression on Emmy’s face. I knew what she was thinking and it wasn’t going to go over well. Daddy was proud of his Oldsmobile, bought new only the year before. He’d had his old car for 20 years. Mama and I thought he’d never get rid of it but were thrilled when he came home with the new car one night, told us all to get in and drove us to Dalton for ice cream. He washed it every Saturday afternoon during warmer weather and even built a carport to protect it in the winter.

I wasn’t sure he was going to be willing to let Emmy and I drive it even 20-minutes away to see a movie.

Daddy walked into the living room with a slice of pie on a plate in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other.

I lowered my voice to a whisper. “You ask him. You’re a guest. He might be more willing to say ‘yes’ to you.”

“Ask me what?” Daddy asked.

Emmy sighed and coughed softly. “Mr. Robbins? I was just wondering . . . see, Sam went to work after he dropped me off and he was going to pick me up later, but Blanche and I would love to go to a movie. Would it be possible for us to borrow your car?”

Daddy looked at Emmy as he shoved a forkful of Mama’s blueberry pie into his mouth.

“My car?” he asked around a mouthful of pie.

“Yes, Daddy. Your car.”

He swallowed. “Well, I don’t know…I mean… I guess . . .”

I could tell Daddy was nervous and I imagined he was more concerned about his car than Emmy and I but I wasn’t about to say it out loud.

“Daddy, we’ll be careful, I promise. Emmy said she’ll drive since I’m not totally confident yet. She’s been driving a lot longer than me.”

He cleared his throat again and his gaze drifted to Emmy’s stomach. He tipped his head so he was looking over his reading glasses at her.

“You sure you can reach the pedals in your condition, young lady?”

“Daddy!”

Emmy laughed and flipped her hair over his shoulder.

“Oh, Mr. Robbins! You’re so funny!”

Daddy chuckled but then levied a serious look at her.

“But, seriously – can you?”

Emmy sighed. “Yes, Mr. Robbins. I can reach the pedals in a car just fine still.”

Daddy sighed and lifted the keys from the table next to his chair.

“Well, go on then. You girls be careful and don’t hang around in town too long afterward. I heard we’re supposed to get snow this afternoon.”

He hesitated as he handed the keys to Emmy holding tight to them for a moment as she reached for them.

Emmy smiled at him. “You have to let them go, Mr. Robbins.”

“Yeah, I know. Just .. well, be careful with her.”

“With Blanche or the car, Mr. Robbins?”

“Uh, with Blanche?”

Emmy and I laughed, knowing he meant the car.

“We’ll take good care of the car, Daddy,” I said as we reached for our coats and headed toward the door. I leaned down and kissed Jackson on top of the head. “Be good for Grandma and Grandpa.”

“Will you bring me a treat?” he asked.

“I can bring you back some theater popcorn, what do you think?”

“Okay,” he said. “If you get me chocolate too, you can go.”

Daddy chuckled as lifted Jackson into his lap and winked at me. “He’s definitely your kid.”

Jackson looked at his grandpa. “We gonna watch the baseball game on the TV, Grandpa?”

I smirked. “And he’s definitely your grandson.”

“Where are you girls headed?” Mama asked as she walked into the room with a cup of tea. “We’re supposed to get snow today. I don’t think you should be out on the roads. It could start early.”

I kissed her cheek. “I’m sure we’ll be fine, Mama. I heard the forecast on the radio earlier and it’s not supposed to start until this evening. We’ll be back long before then.”

Emmy giggled as she shoved herself behind the steering wheel a few moments later.

“Your daddy might have been right. I almost can’t fit back here.”

When we reached the theater I felt like a young girl again, out on the town with my friend, only this time my friend’s belly was poked out like she had swallowed a watermelon and I knew I needed to be home before dark so I could give my son a bath and tuck him into bed.

After we’d purchased our tickets we waited for popcorn and snacks. “Well, look whose here!” Emmy called as I turned toward the theater a few moments later, a soda in one hand, a bag of popcorn in the other.

 

Judson, standing with Sherry Fenton, who I would have graduated with, if I had graduated high school, reached out to hug Emmy.

“Judson! So happy to see you finally socializing!” Emmy leaned toward him.

I hadn’t seen him in three months and almost didn’t recognize him. He’d grown a full beard but his eyes were still the same bright blue, his dark hair still long across his forehead, and his smile still aggravatingly attractive.

Sherry’s reddish blond hair was coiffed on the top of her head in a modern hairstyle, her dark eyelashes framed under dark blue shadow. My eyes fell to her low cut blouse and moved back up to her bright red lipstick.

“Whoa there, kid, be careful you don’t tip yourself over,” Judson teased Emmy. “I don’t know if we could get you back up again.”

Emmy playfully slapped his arm. “You hush up, J.T., I know all kinds of secrets about you I could spill right now in front of your date.”

Judson held his hands up as if in surrender. “Now, now. Slow down there. You know I was only teasing. I guess it’s the perfect day for a movie. You two want to sit with us?”

Emmy enthusiastically agreed before I could protest and we soon found ourselves a foursome, with Sherry in the seat on the inside, next to Judson, and me on the other side of him with Emmy on the end of the aisle in case the baby kicked her bladder and sent her running to the bathroom. I was glad the movie started before we all had to make small talk.

Sitting there, in the dark, Judson’s arm brushing against mine, I thought about the day in high school Edith had gone to a movie with me and spent most of the movie watching Jimmy with Annie Welles. Edith had been so jealous she could barely contain her fury when she’d left the theater. She’d channeled that anger into a lewd, flirty  moment with Jimmy and later admitted to me that she and Jimmy had never established they were an exclusive item, so she had no right to be jealous.

I noticed Sherry watching Judson as he watched the movie. Her eyes traveled across his face and down his arms, a small smile playing across her lips. I couldn’t explain why I felt so annoyed at the idea of the two of them together. I knew it wasn’t because I would have preferred Judson had asked me out. Why would he ask me out? I’d made it clear I wasn’t interested in him by avoiding him, making our conversations short and sweet, and shoving any remote attraction to him deep down inside me. If it hadn’t been clear to him before, our interaction in Mr. Worley’s barn at the end of the summer had driven my position home. I had no claim to him and no right to feel uncomfortable with the way Sherry was laying her hand against his and smiling.

I was determined not to be silly like Edith had been when we were younger and she had seethed with jealousy over Jimmy. The difference was that Edith had actually dated Jimmy while I’d only met Judson a few times and had a few spars with him while I tried to make sure he kept his distance. He’d clearly taken the hint and moved on, if he had even been interested in the first place.

“So, what did you think of the movie?” he asked when the movie ended and we slid our coats on.

“It was different seeing Paul Newman in a comedy,” I said. “But he pulled it off, didn’t he?”

“He can pull anything off with those blue eyes,” Sherry said with a wink.

“Well, I suppose that’s true,” I laughed.

“He’s always been one of my favorites and he didn’t disappoint,” Emmy added.

Judson cleared his throat as we walked into the lobby. “Well, maybe I should just leave you ladies alone to discuss Paul.”

Sherry joined Emmy and I as we laughed.

“Oh, dear, is someone feeling left out?” Sherry asked, laying her hand against Judson’s shoulder.

“I’m sure I’ll be fine,” he sighed, feigning hurt. “I’ll just think about Shirley while you all talk about Paul.”

Sherry playfully slapped his arm. “Well, let’s hope not,” she scoffed. “That woman needed more clothes on.”

Sherry turned to Emmy and me as she slid her scarf around her neck. “Emmy, Blanche. I’m so glad we bumped into you. This was really fun.”

Why did she have to be nice and pretty? It made it hard to dislike her.

And I had to admit she was right. It had been nice watching the movie as a group.

“It really was,” I said sincerely as I buttoned my coat.

Emmy was cheerful, maybe too cheerful. “We will have to do it again sometime.”

I wasn’t sure I would go that far, but it was a nice sentiment.

Outside the theater, we all glanced up at the milky haze that had settled over the town. Large flakes were drifting from the murky clouds and landing in our hair and on our coats.

“We’d better head out before this gets worse,” I said.

Judson nodded as Sherry looped her arm through his. “Agreed. You ladies drive careful.”

Fiction Friday: A New Beginning Chapter 10

/ Lisa R. Howeler / Leave a comment

Welcome to Fiction Friday, where I share a fiction story I’m working on or a novel in progress. If you share serial fictions on your blog as well please feel free to share a link to your latest installment, or the first part, in the comment section.

Right now I’m sharing from a novel in progress, A New Beginning, which is the sequel to A Story to Tell, now available on Kindle. As always, there may be typos, left out words or even awkward sentence structures I didn’t yet catch. This is a first draft so there will be changes before I publish it as an ebook in the Spring of 2020.

Are you caught up with Blanche’s story or do you have some reading to do? This week we continue with some take-it-easy character building, but there will be some excitement next week. Do you want to know what?

Well, I’m not telling you. You can read it next week. So there!

As always, you can find the links to the other parts of the story here and if you have any comments on how the story is going so far, or any ideas for future chapters, let me know in the comments!

Chapter 10

“Here we go. Chicken salad sandwich and fries for Blanche and a small salad for Edith.”

Betty Bundle’s hot pink, looped earrings bounced as she placed our plates in front of us. She stood for a moment, one on her hip, the other hovering out to her side, smacking gum like a cow with its cud as she looked down at Edith.

“Is that really all you’re going to eat, hon’?”

Edith glanced up at Betty without lifting her head. “Yes, Betty,” she said with a sigh. “That’s all I’m going to eat today.”

“Eatin’ a salad is like eatin’ air, you know,” Betty said. “You need something more substantial than air to get you through the day.”

Edith sighed, stabbing a piece of lettuce with her fork. “Thank you, Betty. I appreciate your input, but I’m eating light today. My stomach isn’t feeling the best.”

Betty pursed her lips and furrowed her eyebrows, folding her arms across her chest. “Well, I guess but you make sure you get something later. It’s not healthy eating so little and if you’re trying to lose weight, well, you don’t need to. You understand me?”

“You’re starting to sound like my mom, Betty,” Edith laughed. “Don’t you have another table to wait on?”

Betty sighed and flounced across the diner toward another table, tablet in hand as she reached for the pen she’d propped behind her ear.

“So . . .” I sipped my iced tea and cleared my throat. “Is your stomach feeling off for any reason?”

Edith sipped her water. “I think it’s nerves. The adoption agency called this morning. Jimmy and I have been approved for adoption. Now we just wait for the phone call that says someone has chosen us to adopt their child”

“Oh, that’s great!” I cried.

My sister’s hand trembled as she stabbed at a tomato. “It’s getting real now, Blanche,” she said. “We’re really doing this and I’m not going to lie, I’m terrified.”

I reached across the table and took her hand. “It’s going to be okay, Edith. You and Jimmy are going to be amazing parents, you know that.”

“It’s not just the parenting that scares me. It’s the idea that we might fall in love with this baby, or child and then the mother changes her mind. I can’t imagine that heartbreak. Blanche, I think I know why you put up walls around yourself now. I’m afraid to be hurt again. I’m afraid to . . .”

She shook her head and I could see she was trying to hold back the tears. “I’m afraid,” she said a few moments later, her voice cracking. “To love this child in case we lose him or her the same way we lost Molly. Jimmy and I made a space in our hearts for our baby girl and then I came home from the hospital with empty arms.”

Edith wiped her eyes with her napkin. “I couldn’t bare to hold a child and fall in love with that child, only to have that child taken from me.”

“You’re acting like me, Edith,” I said. “You’re thinking of all the worse case scenarios and letting them guide your decisions in life, when you don’t even know if they’ll ever come to pass. That’s no way to live.”

Edith blew her nose and laughed softly. “Physician heal thyself,” she said with a smirk.

I bit into a fry and leaned my head on my hand, sighing.

“This isn’t about me, it’s about you,” I told her. “We are psychoanalyzing you today. My session can be tomorrow.”

Edith wiped her eyes again and smiled. “Well, at least you know I can empathize with you now and I understand the fear of letting anyone else into your life. I think this is something you and I will have to work on together. We will have to do what Lillian said during Bible study a couple of weeks ago: feel the fear and do it anyhow.”

The ding of the bell on the front door announced the arrival of Emmy, Judson and a few more of the workers from the construction business. Judson and the other men took up two booths on the other side of the diner while Emmy slid in the booth next to me, her belly almost touching the table.

“I said I was coming to lunch and the whole lot of them spilled out after me like a gaggle of schoolchildren,” she said picking up the menu. “The stench behind me was all-encompassing. Sometimes I wonder what I was thinking agreeing to be Daddy’s secretary and having to put up with this group of dirty, sweaty gorillas every day.”

I sipped my iced tea and laughed at the drama in my best friend’s voice. “You love it and you know it,” I said. “All those men fawning all over you, especially now that you’re expecting. ‘Yes, Miss Emmy.’ ‘ Can I hold the door for you, Miss Emmy?’ ‘Let me get you a glass of water, Miss Emmy.’”

Emmy looked at me in mock shock. “Blanche Robbins, that is not true.” She looked back at the menu. “They get me lemonade, not water. Plain water is evil.”

Betty returned to take Emmy’s order.

“You know, Blanche,” she said smacking away at her gum. “There’s a lot of good lookin’ men over there. At least one of them has got to be single. Maybe you should—-”

“Good grief, Betty! Not you too!”

“What? I’m just sayin’ — You’re still a young girl, you know. You don’t have to act like such an old woman. Go out on some dates, have some fun already.”

Another person trying to fix me with a man.

“Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match…” I sang at Betty. I slipped into my regular voice as I shook my finger at her teasingly. “Don’t you join the Fix Blanche Cause being headed by the rest of my friend’s and family, Betty. I don’t need a man to make my life better.”

Betty blew a bubble of gum at me, standing with a hand on her hip. “Well, I didn’t say anything about it being better but it might be a bit more interesting.”

I mimed a person writing in an order notebook, moving my hand across the top of the table. “Why don’t you just take Emmy’s order and go play matchmaker somewhere else, Betty.”

Betty shrugged and took Emmy’s order as I’d suggested.

“Don’t blame me if you end up old and alone,” she said with her dry wit as walked back toward the kitchen. “I tried to help but you jus’ wouldn’t listen.”

As she walked from the table I sighed and ignored the giggles from Emmy and Edith, wondering who else would be next to remind me I needed a man to have a better life.

***

“Now, Blanche, you tell me, is this dress just too fancy for an old lady like me?”

86-year old Jessie Reynolds was modeling the dress I’d made for her in front of the mirror, holding herself steady with her cane and lightly touching the bun her long, white hair was twisted up in.

“No, ma’am. I think it’s just perfect.”

“Not too risqué?”

I snorted a laugh. “No, ma’am.”

She looked over her shoulder and winked at me. “Hmmm..maybe you better start over and add a little flare to it then.”

“Now, Jessie. . .”

The elderly woman laughed and sat back in the chair across from me. “I still have a little spunk left in me, you know. Maybe I can snag myself a new man before I walk across that rainbow bridge.”

“Oh my goodness,” I laughed again and shook my head. I poured some tea into a teacup and set it on the plate next to Jessie.  “And which man do you have your eye on?”

“Well, that Bill Sprowles just lost his wife a year or so ago. He might be a bit lonely.”

Jessie and I laughed together. “Ah, well, you know I’m just teasing you. A woman doesn’t need to have a man to be happy, does she?”

“No, ma’am. She doesn’t.”

“But it certainly is nicer when she does. Now, tell me, Blanche, have you thought about dating again?”

I shook my head and laughed. “I should have known that was coming. Jessie, you’re a troublemaker.”

“Have to keep myself busy somehow at my age.”

“Honestly, I haven’t really been worried about it. I’ve had Jackson to take care of and this shop to run. I’m happy where I’m at, Jessie.”

Jessie sipped her tea. “I do know what you mean. Sometimes it’s easier to stay where we are and not allow change. But maybe in the future you’ll be ready to let someone else into your world and I hope you won’t be afraid to do so when the time comes.”

Although I didn’t enjoy discussing my love life, even with Jessie, I knew she meant well, and her blunt humor made the conversation less painful than it would have been with others. “Thank you, Jessie. I’ll keep that in mind if that time ever comes.”

“Oh no. Not ‘if’, Blanche, honey. When.” She winked at me over the edge of the teacup and giggled. “Plus, I need you to hurry up. I’m not a spring chicken and you need to have a nice big wedding with a nice, handsome man before I die.”

“Okay, Jessie,” I said. “Let’s get you out of that dress so I can get to work on making the alterations and have it ready for you by tomorrow.”

To myself I added: “And so I can rush you out of this shop before you start suggesting men for me to marry.”

As Jessie left the shop, Marjorie stepped in, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“Blanche, do you know anything about Stanley Jasper?”

“Just that he’s the editor of the paper,” I said, choosing not to add that he’d asked me about his intention to ask her out to dinner.

“Well, the strangest thing just happened with him at the diner. He asked me if I’d like to have dinner with him some night.”

I feigned innocence as I looped some thread around a spool and slid it into a drawer. “Oh? Well, what did you say?”

Marjorie picked at a piece of lent on her coat. “I didn’t know what to say so I asked him if I could think about it.” She shrugged. “He said that was fine, but, I don’t know . . . I’m not ready to — I mean I’ve never thought about dating again. I’ve just . . .  well, I’ve just never really thought about it. I don’t even know what to say. I guess I figured I was too old for such things.”

“Marjorie, you’re never too old for companionship but I understand,” I said. “It was nice of him to ask but you’re not sure you’re ready to open yourself up again.”

She nodded, sitting on the hard metal chair across from me. “I know you can relate to that, to putting up walls and being afraid to pull them down again; afraid to be hurt again.”

She sighed and tipped her head slightly, staring at the sewing machine with a far off look. Sitting with the front window as a backdrop, sunlight behind her, making the light grey streaks in her hair appear blond, she looked more like a young girl than a 55-year old woman

“I just don’t know what to do,” she said softly, wistfully almost, caught up in her thoughts.

“Well, it’s entirely up to you,” I said. “I think you did the right thing telling  him you needed some time to think about it.”

A small smile tugged at her mouth. “It was nice being asked – having someone actually seem . . . interested in me, I guess you’d say.”

I smiled as I leaned back against the sewing table, happy to hear a hint of joy and excitement in her voice and curious to know if she’d eventually accept Stanley’s invitation.

Fiction Friday: A New Beginning Chapter 4

/ Lisa R. Howeler / Leave a comment

If you want to catch the beginning of Blanche’s story, you can read it on Kindle and Kindle Unlimted.  However, you don’t have to read the first part to be able to enjoy A New Beginning.
As always, this is the first draft of a story. There will be typos and in the future, there will be changes made, some small, some large and as before I plan to publish the complete story later as an ebook. Also, sorry about the lack of indentations at the beginning of paragraphs. I can’t seem to figure out how to make that happen in WordPress.

Light, Shadows & Magic (2)Chapter 4

I ushered Jackson upstairs to his bath on the eve of his Kindergarten debut, hoping playtime with his toy boats and submarines would be short and bedtime story time even shorter. It had been a long day and my body was screaming at me to lay down and cover it with a warm comforter and quilt.

Even on the days I was beyond tired, I looked forward to tucking Jackson into bed at night, snuggling next to him and reading Winnie the Pooh or Dr. Seuss.

“Read it again, Mommy,” he said as I finished Green Eggs and Ham for the second time.

“I think we’ve read it enough, sweetheart. You need to get some rest because tomorrow is your first day of Kindergarten.”

Jackson pushed out his bottom lip. “I don’t want to go to Kindergarden, Mommy. I want to stay here with you and Grandma.”

“We’re going to miss you, but you are going to love Kindergarten. You’re going to meet new friends and learn new things and –“

“But who is going to protect you and Grandma?”

“Protect us from what?”

“From the bears in the field.”

I laughed. “What bears in the field?”

“Grandpa said he saw a bear in the field on his way to work and what if it and its family comes to the house when I’m gone?”

“Well, what would you do if you were here?” I asked, enjoying listening to the way his mind worked.

“I would get grandpa’s gun and shoot them and make those bears into a bear rug for you and Grandma to sit on and drink hot cocoa on!”

I pulled him against me, laughing as I kissed his cheek. “And we would be so happy if you did that for us, but I don’t think any bears will come to our house. Bears are as afraid of us as we are of them.”

Jackson pushed against me and buried his face into my stomach.

“I still don’t want to go to Kindergarden, Mommy. It doesn’t sound like my type of garden at all.”

I rubbed his back and leaned back against the headboard, closing my eyes for a moment as he softly cried.

It seemed impossible to me he was already six and starting school in the morning. Stroking his soft, brown hair, I thought back to the first few days after I’d brought him home from the hospital. I’d been so lost and terrified as a first-time mother at the age of 19. Mama had stayed with me a few days, showing me how to change Jackson’s diapers, pat his back to bring out burps, and rock him to sleep.

“I know it seems scary, Blanche, but it’s going to be okay,” Mama said, stroking my hair as I clung to her the day she left.

“Oh, Mama,” I sobbed, sitting on the floor, my head in her lap. “How could I have been so stupid to have a baby already? I don’t know anything about babies. What if I can’t do this?!”

“You can do this, Blanche,” Mama said softly. “I know you can. You’ve never given up on anything you’ve set your mind to and I know you love this baby. You loved him even before he was born, didn’t you?”

I nodded, remembering how I’d talked to Jackson when he was in my womb, telling him about the book I was reading, or the meal I was cooking, or what the weather was like that day.

“All you have to do is love him and it will be just fine,” Mama said, rubbing my back as I cried. “Ask God to give you wisdom and strength for each moment as it comes and do your best not to let your mind race into the future, tangling itself up in the questions of ‘what if.’.”

Mama laughed. “I think two of the worst words for a mother are ‘what if.’ Or maybe the worst three words: “But what if . . .”

The day Mama left I never felt more alone in my life. I knew Hank wouldn’t be any help taking care of a baby he hadn’t even wanted.

Peering at Hannah Harrison through the crack in the front door of our apartment, the day after Mama left, I hesitated. She looked like a model on the front of a fashion magazine – soft blond curls, curves in all the right places filling out her pencil skirt and white, fluffy sweater. I closed the door, my hand on the bolt. I didn’t want someone as well put together as Hannah to know how little I knew about life; how incompetent I was as a mother and a wife. Still, I needed someone to tell me it was going to be okay now that Mama was back in Pennsylvania with Daddy and I decided to take a chance that Hannah might be that person.

“It’s going to be just fine,” she told me, taking a screaming Jackson into her arms, sitting on our couch and laying him across her lap while she rubbed the gas out of his belly. She made it look so easy.

Her words echoed Mama’s: “You just keep loving this baby, Blanche and you’re going to be okay.”

So many decisions in my life had hinged on my love for Jackson. Leaving Hank, coming back home, the jobs I had taken, the promise I’d made to keep us both from being hurt again. When Thomas Fairchild, the cub reporter at the paper, had asked me out on a date three years ago, I’d turned him down gently but quickly. Even if I had been interested in him, I had to think about Jackson and how my dating would affect him. I couldn’t risk him getting attached to someone I wasn’t sure about; his small heart broken if the relationship failed.

I looked down at my lap and saw that Jackson had cried himself to sleep. I lightly brushed an already drying tear from his soft, ruddy cheek with my finger and studied his perfectly shaped mouth and the comforting familiarity of his boyishly round face.

A rush of panic suddenly gripped me as I studied him. Though I had reassured my child only moments before that he would love his first day of school my mind began to race with fear. The heavy ball in the pit of my stomach that had been forming for weeks, months even, had clearly settled in to stay.

I didn’t want to let him go. I didn’t want him out of the safety of my or my Mama’s care. I wanted to hold him for as long as possible, keep him with me instead of sending him off into a world full of hurt, anger and dangers.

I curled myself around his body; the body of a boy who felt too fragile and small to send off into the unknown and closed my eyes, reveling in the feel of him warm against me, wishing we could stay this way forever.

My grandmother once told me that being a mother was like walking through life with your heart outside your body. Only after I’d had a child of my own did I understand what she meant.

So many times in the months after Jackson was born I’d wondered if my parents had felt the same about me and Edith when we were young – that unending, unconditional love that only seemed to magnify each day.

“Of course we did and still do,” Mama told me at 3 a.m. one morning when Jackson was 15 months old.

Jackson had fallen asleep only a few moments before after hours of crying from teeth trying to break through his lower gum. Mama rubbed clove oil on his gum, an old trick she’d learned from her mother. Within minutes he was asleep in her arms and she was standing in the kitchen, holding him in her arms, his head against her shoulder as we talked. Leaning back against the kitchen counter, her dark hair fell loose around her shoulders, her blue robe tied closed over her nightgown.

“Seeing you in pain, hearing you cry, it was like being hurt ourselves,” Mama said. “And when you made mistakes and faced the consequences, we never rejoiced. We always felt the pain with you and wished we could make it better. Watching you make mistakes — That was just as hard, sometimes even harder. We had to let you make them, we knew that, but it was so hard.”

“It must have been really hard to know what a mistake I’d made when I left with Hank.”

Mama smiled. “Yes, but there was also a hope that maybe I was wrong. I hoped it would all work out and Hank would turn out to be better than what others said he was. If I had known how bad he really was, I would have been beside myself with worry and would have been up there dragging you home.

She laughed softly. “Now, Daddy? He never doubted Hank’s lack of character.”

I laughed too. I could almost hear Daddy telling Mama Hank was hopeless.

I sipped tea, now cold in my mug. “Sometimes I worry about being a mom because we can do everything in our power and our children can still get hurt or break our hearts. It scares me. It scares me I won’t be as good as you were at having faith it will all work.”

Mama stroked the back of Jackson’s head and swayed a little in place. “You think your daddy and I always knew what we were doing? We definitely doubted ourselves throughout your childhood and yes, definitely after you left with Hank. We wondered what we had done wrong, what we hadn’t taught you that led to you leaving without speaking to us first. We felt we hadn’t been accessible enough for you to feel like you could talk to us and talked about how we could change that in the future, once your daddy dealt with the anger, of course.”

I felt tears in my eyes, and knew exhaustion was making my emotions even more raw. “You and Daddy did such a good job with us, Mama. Maybe you didn’t feel like it after I left, but it wasn’t anything you did. It was my own selfishness and pride.” I drew the back of my hand across my eyes to wipe away the tears. “I was so stupid. How could I have been so stupid? I’m so glad Grandpa and Grandma weren’t here to see me.”

Mama stood next to me and rubbed my back with her free hand as I cried.

“Life is made up of stupid decisions that we didn’t think were stupid when we made them,” she said. “But you took responsibility for your actions, you walked away from Hank when he became violent and you’re raising your son on your own — ”

“Well, with you and Daddy’s help,” I interjected.

“Yes,” Mama said. “But Blanche, you didn’t run away from Jackson when life got tough. You set your mind to being the best mother you could for him and you’re still doing it. I think those are all things your grandparents would have been very proud of you for.”

Jackson shifting in his sleep pulled me from my memories. I laid him back on his pillow, pulled the covers around him, kissed his forehead and stood to turn out the lights.

“Protect him tomorrow, Father and most of all, protect his tiny, innocent heart.”

***

A young Hank, maybe 11 or 12 stared back at me from the photo on Marjorie Hake’s wall. I’d seen it many times over the years since I’d been bringing Jackson to visit his grandmother and each time I studied I wondered what path Hank’s life had taken to transform him from innocent to broken. I’d brought Jackson to see his grandmother after his first day of Kindergarten. He’d been excited to tell her about his day and then darted outside to play with a homemade cookie in his hand.

A teacup clinked in a dish behind me. “It seems so long ago,” Marjorie said. “A lifetime ago, really.”

“Do you ever hear from him?”

“No. Never. And I’m never sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Eloise Carter told me last year her son had seen him in a bar in Syracuse maybe two years ago and he said he was moving out west. That’s all I know.” She looked at the photo as I sat down across from her. Still. After all these years. That’s all I know about him.”

“He wasn’t always so angry and selfish, you know. He was a good boy, always willing to help me around the house, take care of his little brother, protect me from Henry. He could never make his father happy, though. Never.”

Tears pooled in her eyes. “I truly think inside he’s a lost little boy who doesn’t know how to tame the emotions raging inside him. Not that any of this excuses how he acted, how he treated you. It never will. But it is a little insight into what transformed him into who he became, I suppose. If only I’d . . .”

She sipped her tea and shrugged. “Well, that’s in the past. Nothing can be done to change the past. I’m beginning to accept that life doesn’t always turn out the way we hoped or expected. And life is getting better now, brighter even, despite all the mistakes I made and all I’ve lost. Did I tell you I joined the garden club?”

“No, what does a garden club do?”

Marjorie laughed, and pushed a strand of her chin length hair behind her ear. “We talk about gardens and what we should do with our gardens and how to grow gardens. It’s very titillating conversation.”

I sat across from her and stirred cream into my tea. “Marjorie, I’ve never told Jackson about Hank.”

She looked at me, tea cup braced between her hands. “I know,” she said. “And I haven’t either. I can’t imagine what we’d say to him. He’s too young to understand. Maybe someday, but not now. I think it’s the right thing, keeping his father a topic to be discussed when he’s older.”

Sunlight poured across Marjorie’s dining room, wallpaper with pink roses she’d had installed the year after her husband died. She wanted to change everything about her life, she said, and after the bright wallpaper and hardwood floors, she’d had her hair cut short into a modern bob. When Edith spun the chair around so Marjorie could see herself in the mirror the reaction was visceral and sudden. Her head fell into her hands and she cried at the transformation. It was a visual representation of her internal revolution.

Out the dining room window in the backyard, Jackson drove his dump trucks through the mud, the front of his shirt and jeans stained brown.

Marjorie reached over and laid her hand over mine. “I know I’ve said it before, Blanche, but thank you so much for bringing Jackson to see me. Watching him grow up has been such a blessing and has filled so many empty places in my heart.”

“Actually, Marjorie,” I said, squeezing her hand. “Our visits have done the same for me.”

Fiction Friday: A New Beginning, Chapter 3

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 2 Comments

If you want to catch the beginning of Blanche’s story, you can read it on Kindle and Kindle Unlimted.  However, you don’t have to read the first part to be able to enjoy A New Beginning.
As always, this is the first draft of a story. There will be typos and in the future, there will be changes made, some small, some large and as before I plan to publish the complete story later as an ebook. Also, sorry about the lack of indentations at the beginning of paragraphs. I can’t seem to figure out how to make that happen in WordPress.

Chapter 3

“Why do you keep blaming yourself for what Hank did to you?”

Emmy’s question a year after I left Hank still echoed in my mind. I hadn’t known how to answer it then but later I questioned why I shouldn’t blame myself.

I was the one who had allowed Hank to treat me the way he had. I was the one who had left my family to be with him. I had been the one who had been too stupid, too trusting, to see who he really was. I was the one who had to learn the hard way that I couldn’t trust anyone, not even myself.  I couldn’t protect my child or my own heart so how could I ever trust myself to judge if another man was or wasn’t the same as Hank?

Even now I wondered what Hank had ever seen in me.  I’d never looked like my voluptuous older sister, was never outgoing, and never sought attention from boys. Sometimes I wondered if he thought I was someone he could control, instead of someone he wanted to love. It was obvious the night I saw him kissing that other woman at the bar that I’d never been enough for him and if I wasn’t good enough for him maybe I’d never be good enough for any man.

Hank and I met at a dance Daddy almost didn’t let me go to. Hank had leaned next to me, smashing his cigarette into the ashtray behind me, whispering that he’d save the next dance for me. That night I’d felt a rush of excitement I’d never felt before.

Secret meetings in our backyard in the middle of the night transformed into stolen kisses, intimate touches and eventually Hank begging me to run away with him. And I did run away with him. Two-hundred miles from home to a strange city, lonely and frightened, especially when I became pregnant only six months after we were married. When I told him I was pregnant, Hank changed from caring to detached and angry.

I’d never told anyone except Emmy and Lillian, our pastor’s wife, about the last time I saw Hank before he moved out west. I was in a children’s consignment shop in Dalton, about a year after Daddy chased Hank off, when I saw him through the front window, standing with a group of men outside the hardware store across the street. I stepped back behind a wrack of clothes, hoping he wouldn’t see me.

“Those men are nothing but trouble.”

I jumped at the sound of store owner, Jane Doan’s voice. She was standing behind me, looking over my shoulder at the men and scowling.

“My husband says Billy Martin has been talking about forming a KKK group up just over the state border in Winton. And look at those other idiots. Just toddling along with him like lemmings.”

Emmy walked over to stand next to Joan. “Isn’t that – “

“Yes,” I said curtly. “It is.”

“He looks rough,” Emmy said.

I studied Hanks unshaven face, sunken eyes, crooked nose, where I’d broken it the year before. “He does.”

“You were always too good for that man,” Jane said, all of us still looking out the window. “Still are.”

“What do you think they’re up to?” Emmy asked.

“I don’t know but it can’t be anything good,” Jane said. “Some of the men from church are talking about running them out of town, letting them know their kind isn’t welcome here. I bet you that Hank hasn’t even gone to see his mama. He wouldn’t dare with his daddy around, I guess.”

I thought about the conversation I’d had with Hank that one day in the apartment, how he said he was going to come back to our town and tell Lillian she wasn’t welcome.

“You have to know something, Blanche,” Hank had said, lifting his glass of milk and looking at me. “Those people aren’t as smart as us. They don’t think like we do. We can’t have them coming up here and demanding to be treated the same as us like they’re trying to do down South. They want to take our jobs, our women. Just look at that dumb preacher – I guess they want to take the men too, infiltrate their way into our world and taint our bloodlines.”

My chest tightened at the memory of what he’d said and I found myself clutching the cross necklace around my neck Edith had recently given me as a gift.

Emmy laid her hand against my shoulder.

“Don’t worry, Blanche. We’ll stay right here until he’s gone.”

Hank laughed with the men as they loaded supplies into the back of one of the men’s truck. There were boards and ropes and I hoped I was imagining a can of gasoline behind one of the boxes.

“Emmy…” I said softly, then bit my bottom lip, changing my mind.

I didn’t want to tell her what Hank had said. I didn’t want her to know he had been even worse than I had told her and that I’d stayed with him even after he’d said and done such horrible things. I didn’t want to admit that for so long I thought I could change Hank, or if I couldn’t, God would, and he would be kind again. I wondered how I had ever let myself fall so hard for him. The gentle kisses he had once given me seemed so far away now.

As the truck drove away, Hank and two other men climbing into the back, I closed my eyes briefly and asked God to keep Lillian safe. Then, I felt like I should ask him to keep Hank safe too, even though I still wasn’t sure how to feel about Hank now. I struggled with the idea that I needed to forgive him the way Christ had forgiven me. Knowing I needed to do it and actually doing it were two different things.

Pounding on our front door woke me several hours later. Looking at the clock through bleary eyes I saw it was 2 a.m. Daddy was standing at the front door as I descended the stairs, tying my robe closed at my waist. Over his shoulder I saw John Hatch standing on our front porch.

“Alan, we have a problem at the pastor’s house. Someone’s burned a cross on their front lawn and threw a rock through their front window. Lillian and Frank are terrified, of course, but even worse, Frank is worried about what kind of stress this is putting on Lillian and the baby.”

I sucked in a deep breath and held it as I listened. I regretted not saying anything about seeing Hank in town. Had he been involved? I didn’t know and wondered if I could have stopped what had happened if I had simply told someone what Emmy and I had seen earlier.

“Tell them to come here tonight,” Mama said as I reached the end of the stairs and Daddy reached for his coat behind the door.

Daddy nodded, reaching for his shotgun. “I’ll bring them back with me.”

“What are you going to do with that gun, Alan?”

“Hopefully nothing,” Daddy told Mama, standing in the open doorway. “The worst I plan to do is fire a warning shot. You know I have experience with that.”

Mama kissed Daddy’s cheek. “Just be careful.”

We watched Daddy and John drive into the darkness and fear gripped my heart. My mind was returning to the “what if” questions I had asked so often as a young child and teenager. What if my choice not to say anything about seeing Hank and those men together led to something horrible happening to Daddy or John or Lillian and Pastor Frank?

“I’ll get the guest room ready,” I said, thinking and worrying as I climbed the stairs.

Lillian’s face was swollen from crying when she walked in our front door, Pastor Frank helping to support her. Her dark brown, almost black hair hung around her face and shoulders loose, a change from how I usually saw it pulled tightly into a braid that hung down her back or looped into a bun on top of her head. A red flush highlighted her light brown complexion along her cheek bone and under her red-rimmed eyes.

Mama took her hand and led her to the couch. “I’ve made you some tea. You just relax and take your shoes off and I’ll bring it to you.”

“Thank you, Janie,” Lillian said softly as Pastor Frank and Daddy walked toward the kitchen with Mama.

Lillian slid her coat off and settled into the couch, as I pulled the afghan my grandmother had made my mother when she was a child from the back of the couch and laid it across Lillian’s shoulders.

She pulled the afghan around her and then reached out and took my hand. Her eyebrows were furrowed with concern. “Blanche…. I don’t know if I should tell you this or not, but one of the men – I can’t be sure because they were wearing masks…”

“You think one of the men was Hank.”

Lillian nodded, her expression grim.

“Someone called his name and the voice sounded like his.”

I sat next to her and slid an arm around her shoulder. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it was. I – I saw him in town today. I should have said something, but I – I didn’t know for sure. I’m so sorry for what you’ve gone through tonight and I’m so sorry that he may have been involved.”

Lillian leaned against me, patting my shoulder. “You have no need to apologize for his actions. But thank you for your tender heart. It’s the balm I needed after this crazy night.”

“I can’t believe this is happening in our town,” Pastor Frank said as he walked into the living room, his voice breaking. He rubbed his hand across his face, shaking his head.

Daddy put his hand on Frank’s shoulder. “They’ve been having them down South, but here? In Pennsylvania? Our world is upside down, pastor. I think you know this is more than a war against flesh and blood. This is a spiritual war.”

“Yes,” Pastor Frank agreed. “It is. And we know just how to wage that battle.”

He kneeled in the middle of our living room floor and gestured for us to do the same. We reached for each other hands and bowed our heads as Pastor Frank prayer for protection for his family and anyone else who might be targeted by the men. He ended the prayer by asking God to change the hearts of the men.

We weren’t alone in our disbelief over what had happened. The next day the town council called an emergency meeting and asked the county sheriff to attend.

“We need to make it clear we don’t want this kind of hatred in our town,” Mayor Matthew Tanner said, his jaw tight. “Sheriff, is there anything you can do?”

“We’re already working with the state police in both states to round these men up and file charges against them for harassment and anything else we can charge them with,” Sheriff Matthew Evans said, standing from his seat in the front row. “I can assure you we will do all we can to protect the citizens of your town but also the citizens of this county.”

Jason Finley, a local farmer, stood up and cleared his throat, holding his straw hat in his hand. He rarely spoke other than to say “good morning” if someone said it to him and he almost never initiated conversations.

There was a quiver in his voice as he spoke. “I think what’s important about all this, is that we make sure that the pastor and his wife know that we don’t think like those men do in this town. Miss Lillian is the only person of color in our town. We know she was the main one they wanted to scare and we need to let them know we’ll have none of that here. Miss Lillian and the Porters, over in Spencer; shouldn’t have to be afraid because – because of the color of their skin. She’s a good woman and her husband is a good man. They take care of our community and it’s time we took care of them. I’d like to gather a group of you to go over tomorrow morning and clean up the mess that was left. I hope you’ll meet me at their home around 8 a.m.”

Jason sat quickly, looking at the floor as several around him nodded in agreement.

I reached over and took Lillian’s hand, squeezing it. She looked at me with tears in her eyes and managed a smile.

In the morning their front yard was full of people from the town, repairing the front window, sweeping glass from the front porch and digging up the charred ground where the cross had burned. Standing in their front room, glass around me, tears flowed freely. I kneeled by the bucket of soapy water and drenched the sponge, wrung it out, and began to scrub at the racist epitaphs scrawled in red paint across their front fence.

“Oh God,” I prayed to myself as I scrubbed.  “Touch the hearts of these men and show them that we are all made in your image.”

I never said anything to Mama and Daddy, or Hank’s mother, about Hank being one of the men and Lillian, Jane, and Emmy didn’t either. A month later Mrs. Hakes told me Hank had moved out west and I prayed to God he stayed there, hopefully for the rest of my life.