Tag: fiction

A bit of fiction for your Thursday: Rekindle Part 1 and Part 2

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn fiction, Fiction Thursday5 Comments

I wrote Quarantined as a short story back in April. I’ve decided to combine it with a follow-up story called Rekindle and release it at some point on Kindle Unlimited as a novella under the title Quarantined. I shared the first part of Rekindle about a month ago, but instead of linking to it, I thought I’d just share part one and two here today.

I’ll be sharing another chapter of The Farmer’s Daughter tomorrow.

Matt Grant tapped the end button on the screen of his phone and laid the phone on the coffee table next to his laptop and paperwork. He rubbed his hand across his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a tension headache pulsating in his temples.

He’d just got off the phone with his assistant press secretary, John Chambers. They’d drafted another statement for the media, answering accusations that Matt was still at work in his office in the House of Representatives.

“Just make sure they know I’m at home, self-quarantining, just like my doctor told me to,” Matt had told John, more than a touch of annoyance in his voice.

“I’m making sure,” John said. “I’m assuring them all of us are safely locked away now. Just like the critics seem to think we should be, even though our preliminary tests are inconclusive. I doubt this will satisfy them, but we can try.”

With the statement to the press out of the way, Matt’s mind wandered back to his brother Liam, who he needed to call and check on. Liam’s preliminary test had been positive, which was what had triggered this latest scandal in the first place. Matt was sure Liam would be fine but there was a small part of him that worried about his little brother catching the virus that was sending others to ICUs across the country. Matt wasn’t only worried about Liam’s physical help though. He was also worried about his mental and emotional health.

Liam had told Matt months ago that his marriage was in shambles. Matt had barely listened, sure his brother and sister-in-law would work things out. Matthew knew Liam still loved his wife Maddie, and Maddie still loved Liam. If they didn’t still love each other they wouldn’t be struggling so much with the idea of divorce.

It couldn’t be easy being quarantined together during a pandemic with all the issues they had with each other but Matthew was glad they were. Maybe they’d work out some of those issues and save what had been a great union at one time. As it was, their divorce proceedings had been delayed because of the pandemic. As Matthew saw it, this was a way for them to buy more time and truly be sure the divorce was what they wanted and he told his brother as much on the phone just now.

What made Matthew uncomfortable wasn’t only that he could hear pain mixed with longing in his brother’s voice when they had talked on the video call. It was also that he wondered, worried even, that maybe his marriage was bleeding out in the same way his younger brother’s had and he had been too wrapped up in himself to realize it.

Matthew and Cassie hadn’t had a lot of time alone lately. They actually had barely had time to even speak lately.

Their life had been a runaway train since the election two years ago and now it was picking up speed again as Matthew’s re-election campaign was underway. In Washington he faced daily drama and conflict whether he wanted it or not. Becoming the youngest head of the Intel Committee four months ago hadn’t helped slow things down any either.

Then there was this crazy never-before-seen virus that seemed to come out of nowhere a few weeks ago and now had him at home with his family, waiting to see if he developed any symptoms after being exposed to it more than a week ago and maybe again a few days ago. He was convinced if he had the virus, he would have developed symptoms by now, but he stayed home to make sure things looked good to the press and his constituents. Making sure things “looked good and right” to others seemed to be 90 percent of his job anymore, leaving little room for him to actually do good and right and accomplish the things he’d been elected to do.

All the drama in the House of Representatives left him little time to focus on Cassie or the kids and he regretted that. He regretted it even more when his brother’s march toward divorce had become a growing reality. He’d never pictured Liam and Maddie divorced. They were the perfect couple. They’d weathered some hard storms, but Matthew had been sure the challenges would bring them closer together. In fact, he thought it had but now he realized he’d been too wrapped up in the campaign and job to notice how much they’d actually drifted apart.

Sure, Liam, as his press secretary, spent many late nights working with him, but he imagined when he went home he and Maddie made up for lost time. Instead Matt had just learned that Liam had been working at home as well, passing out in his office, leaving Maddie alone most of the time, writing her romance novels and reaching for companionship on social media.

Matthew and Liam’s parents had been the perfect example of a stable, loving marriage. Married 54 years, Tom and Phyllis Grant made it clear each day how much they loved each other. Sure, they had argued, even in front of their children, but those arguments had been resolved usually before the sun had gone down and with a fair amount of ‘making up’. Matthew and Liam, and his sister Lana had been grateful the majority of that making up had gone on behind closed doors.

Standing from the couch to stretch, Matthew looked out the window at his own three children playing ball in the backyard and felt a twinge of guilt. Getting pregnant and carrying three babies to term had been easy for him and Cassie. They’d never had to face the heartbreak of not being able to get pregnant or of a miscarriage. Matthew felt like he’d taken being able to become a father so easily for granted.

He looked around his living room, well decorated with expensive furniture and commissioned paintings, and thought about how much of his life he had taken for granted, especially lately. He’d taken for granted the newer model car he drove, the highly-rated bed he slept on, the full refrigerator, and even fuller bank account.

He rubbed his hand along his chin and turned toward the kitchen where Cassie was making a late lunch for him and the kids. Her dark brown hair fell to her waist in a tight braid, the bottom of it grazing the top of the waistband of a pair of red workout shorts. Her favorite T-shirt, featuring Johnny Cash wearing a cowboy hat, fit her medium build well, hugging all the areas it should, especially for the benefit of her husband admiring the view that he hadn’t admired for a long time.

He watched her stirring the taco meat in the skillet and his gaze traveled down her legs and back up again, thinking about the first time they’d met in an English lecture at college.

“Pst.”

He’d leaned over the desk to try to get her attention, but she was intently focused on the professor. He had tried again.

“Pst.”

She glared over her shoulder at him.

“Do you have an extra pen?” he whispered.

She rolled her eyes, ignored him, tapping the end of her own pen against her cheek gently as she kept her eyes focused forward.

“It’s just,” he leaned a little closer so he didn’t interrupt the other students. “I left my pen back in my dorm room and I want to make sure I’m taking notes.”

He was glad he had leaned a little closer. She smelled amazing. What was that perfume? He had no idea but it was intoxicating. Maybe it was her shampoo. The fluorescent light from the lecture hall was reflecting off her luxurious black strands of hair and he pondered what it would feel like to reach out and touch it. But he didn’t reach out and touch it. That would be weird. Even a 19-year old college freshman like himself knew that.

A year later, though, he was touching that soft dark hair while he kissed Cassie for the first time outside her dorm after their third date. And over the years he’d sank his hands in that hair in moments of tenderness and moments of passion. A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as he watched his wife and thought about a few of those moments, including that time in the back of his new car after he’d landed that job at the law firm in Detroit.

He could deny it. It wasn’t only the material things of his life that he had taken for granted. He had also been taking Cassie for granted. For far too long.

***

Cassie Grant turned from where she was cooking lunch for her husband and children and watched her husband pace back and forth in the living room.

She knew he was worried about the situation with the virus, the way his office had been thrown into the middle of an unexpected scandal. She was sure he was also worried about whether he’d develop symptoms of the virus, pass it on to the children, and if his other staff members would be infected, now that it looked like Liam’s test for it was  positive. Too little was known about how the virus affected the majority of people, although early reports stated that most cases were mild.

And then there was Liam and Maddie’s marriage, which was about to end. Matt and his brother had been raised by parents who had been married 54 years. The brothers and their sister weren’t a product of divorce and Cassie wondered if the prospect of Liam’s marriage ending was weighing on Matt’s mind along with the virus.

Cassie wasn’t sure what her husband was thinking anymore, though, because Matt hadn’t been talking to her much lately. He’d been busy at the office, putting out fires, which seemed to pop up several times throughout the day, thanks to a 24/7 news cycle that never let up.

She couldn’t deny that she missed seeing her husband. She missed their date nights and family movie nights and him just being around the house when she needed him. But she knew that he was doing what he thought was right to try to make a difference for the people who elected him.

Turning the burner down she leaned back against the counter and watched Matt turn and look out the window where their children were playing. Her gaze fell on the back of his head, on his soft brown hair and she remembered with a soft laugh that day in college when they’d been studying in a private room on the first floor of the university library. The love seat they were sitting on was soft, plush, light maroon.

Papers and books were spread out in front of them and Matt was debating the importance of some moment in history to the future of something or other. Cassie didn’t know. She’d tuned him out long ago. She’d been watching him, though, amazed at how impassioned he was about the topic at hand, at the muscles in his jaw, at his long, strong fingers, at a strand of hair that had fallen across his forehead that she desperately wanted to push to the side. And she’d definitely been watching his mouth, his lips looking amazingly kissable.

Cassie was sick of listening to him quite frankly.

“Cassie, don’t you see that —”

Matt’s words were cut short as Cassie leaned forward and pressed her mouth to his, touching the side of his face gently. She pulled back and looked at him, her mouth still inches from his.

“Oh. Um. Okay. Was I talking too —”

“Just shut up, Matt.”

He laughed softly and she caught his mouth with hers again, sinking her hands into his hair, moving closer to him at the same time he moved closer to her.

He slid his arm around her and held her to him gently as the kiss continued.

“So, I guess you weren’t only interested in me as a study partner,” he said breathlessly a few moments later.

“Is that the only way you were interested in me?” she asked, her fingers still in his hair, playing with it.

A grin tugged at one corner of his mouth. “What do you think Cassie Henderson?”

She answered with another kiss, and they leaned back against the seat as they kissed, forgetting they were in a study room in the library.

Three years later they were married, a year later their first, a boy, was born. That had been 15 years ago and now they had three children, an expensive home in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., and Matt was a U.S. Congressman while she stayed home with the children, her career as a social worker long behind her.

Sure, some of that initial passion was gone, replaced with the everyday and the mundane, but Cassie recognized this as a season – a season during which marriage became more about comfortable moments and less about desire. It wasn’t that she didn’t have desire for Matt; it was just that they never seemed to have time for it anymore.

She startled out of her thoughts, smelling something burning.

“Oh no!”

She rushed to the stove and turned it down, smoke billowing from the skillet where she’d been browning meat for tacos. She moved the skillet to another burner and groaned. It looked like they’d be having peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch today.

The blaring of the smoke alarm only made the humiliation that much worse.

Matt rushed into the kitchen, waving a newspaper at the smoke. “Whoa there! Let’s not add burned down house to our list of bizarre occurrences for the month.”

“Sorry. I guess I got distracted.”

Matt pulled the battery from the fire alarm. “No big deal, right? It might can be salvaged.”

He grimaced at the charged edges of the meat in the pan. “Or maybe the dog would like a treat.”

Cassie sighed. “I’m not sure even Barney should eat that. Anyhow, I’ll make the kids some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. You want one?”

“You know what? Yeah. I haven’t one of those in years. Crustless?”

Cassie shook her head. “What are you, 6?”

“Just for sentimental reasons,” Matt said with a wink. “My mom used to make them that way for me.”

Cassie pulled the bread out of the bread box and Matt slid the peanut butter and jelly across the counter.

“So, being quarantined with me has to be pretty boring for you, huh?” he asked.

“Not really,” she said with a smile, spreading peanut butter on slices of bread. “But it is weird seeing you here this time of day or, well, much at all.”

Matt winced softly. “Ouch.”

“Well, it’s not your fault. You’re busy.” He couldn’t read her tone of voice but sadly it seemed more apathetic, more along the line of “that’s just the way it is” than anything else.

Matt leaned back against the counter, sliding his hands in his dress pants pockets. He looked at his dress shoes, chewing on his bottom lip, thinking. First, he thought about how absent he’d been in his family’s life. Then he thought about how he was quarantined at home but for some reason he was still wearing dress shoes, a dress shirt and tie, as if he was on his way to a meeting or a congressional hearing.  He had apparently forgotten how to relax, unwind, and kick back.

He cleared his throat. “I guess I can go to change into something more comfortable. It doesn’t look like I’ll be doing anything business related for a few days anyhow.”

When he returned wearing a pair of sweatpants and a Garth Brooks t-shirt the children were already around the table, munching on sandwiches and drinking chocolate milk.

“Daddy! Sit next to me!” his youngest, Lauren, called, tapping the back of the chair next to her.

“Okay. I can do that.”

His son Tyler eyed him over his glass of chocolate milk as he drank from it. At the age of 13 he waffled between being interested and detached most of the time Matt interacted with him.

“It’s weird seeing you here,” Tyler said bluntly as Matt sat down.

Matt looked into his son’s bright blue eyes, noticing the acne starting to form along the top of his forehead near his closely cropped hairline.

Matt wasn’t sure how to take the comment. Did Tyler mean “good weird” or “bad weird”? Should he ask? Did he even want to know?

Luckily, he didn’t have to decipher his son’s meaning for long.

“But it’s a good weird, right?” Cassie asked, as if she could read Matt’s mind, and after 15-years of marriage, she probably could.

Tyler grinned. “Yeah. It’s a good weird. Just weird.”

Gracie, the middle daughter, smiled sweetly at Matt and then giggled around a mouthful of sandwich.

“I like you being here, Daddy.”

Matt smiled back at her, reaching across the table to cover her hand with his. “I like it too, sweetie. Maybe something good will come out of all of this, huh? At least you will all see me a little more often.”

His gaze focused on Cassie and he saw she was watching him, but again he was having a hard time reading her feelings. Was she happy they’d all be spending more time together? Or was the extra time with him simply a reminder for her how much she didn’t need him around anymore?

Fiction Friday: The Farmer’s Daughter Chapter 12

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn fiction, Fiction Friday6 Comments

I worked on this book this week, finally feeling creative after shutting off the news and social media. I probably wrote 1,000 words Tuesday night, saved and shut off my computer, only to discover that the computer, which saves to Microsoft OneDrive, had not saved any and I mean ANY of my changes that I had worked on for hours that evening.

I had been saving for hours and all of it was gone when I opened it up right before bed to add something. I normally email a copy to myself but it didn’t matter because none of the changes had saved so the emailed copy didn’t have any of the changes or additions either. I have no idea why it happened but now I am working on rewriting entire chapters, fixing errors and rewriting rewrites.

Some days I just want to give up on this silly writing thing but then I remember that no one really reads my stories or books anyhow so this whole writing thing is really just a hobby and I should not be upset by a hobby. Ha! A hobby is for fun so I had fun going back and rewriting all that I had lost and I will be rewriting much of it again in the future when it is all complete.

Anyhow, to catch up with the story, you can click HERE or at the top of the page. This is a work in progress and as always there could be errors, typos, plot holes, etc. that I will hopefully fix in the final draft. My other works of fiction are linked to at the top of the page as well and both of my books are currently on Kindle Unlimited: A Story to Tell and A New Beginning.


The serene scene of cows grazing in a field bright with golden sunlight was in stark contrast to the direct view Molly had of a grieving Alice Stanton. Alice’s hands were pressed to her face, the tears she’d fought to hold back for much of the day spilling down her cheeks and through her fingers.

 Alice, a small woman with long dark brown hair streaked with graying highlights that fell to the  middle of her back, was known by many in town as usually being upbeat and optimistic in situations others found too overwhelming. Today, though, Alice was the one overwhelmed.

Her cheeks were splotched red from crying and her usual upbeat demeanor had crumbled under the pressure of her family’s financial strain. Her body trembled with each sob and it was all making  Molly feel awkward, unsure how to respond to Alice’s tears. But then Molly did what she’d want someone to do for her if she was in the same situation: she pulled Alice into a hug and let Alice cry on her shoulder while stroking Alice’s hair.

The Stanton’s farm had fallen on hard times three years ago and instead of trying to survive another year they had given up, like so many other farmers, filing for bankruptcy and choosing to sell off their animals, equipment and land.

“Oh, Molly,” Alice said as she lifted her face and tried to dry her eyes with an already soaked, crumpled tissue. “I can’t believe this is really happening to us.”

Molly looked across the Stanton’s field at the tractors and farm equipment lined up in rows, people walking around the items, looking at them thoughtfully, studying them, discussing their worth. Behind the farm equipment were rolling hills, fields filled with cows that were also being bid on, and beyond those fields, other farms dotting the landscape, some of those farms on the verge of bankruptcy as well.

“That’s our life for the last 30 years,” Alice said in disbelief, looking out at the large crowd and the auctioneer setting up his booth. She gestured at the scene with one quick movement of her hand that she returned to the cross necklace, clutching it tightly. “There it all is – set up for strangers and neighbors to pick through and pick apart. It’s so surreal.”

Fresh tears spilled down Alice’s face and Molly felt the sting of tears in her own eyes.

“What will you and Jim do?”

Alice shook her head. “I don’t know for sure yet. I picked up a job at the bank and Jim has an interview at the meat packing plant next week. Isn’t that ironic? He couldn’t afford to produce milk and meat himself so now he’ll have to work packing some factory farm’s meat.”

The auctioneer started the bidding on the Stanton’s hay baler, rattling off its attributes and suggested prices in a quick paced tone, almost too fast for Molly to keep up with. The men standing in front of the auctioneer trailer were a mix of mostly men, some well-dressed while others had obviously driven straight from the barn to the auction.

The well-dressed were usually from the corporate farms, having driven two or more hours. Molly looked at them like vultures come to feed on dying carcasses of the small family farms. She knew she shouldn’t think that way. They had their place in the world too, but Molly agreed with her dad and other small farmers who worried about the loss of quality and safety in corporate farming. Then there was the questionable care of the animals and the reduced profits for small farming operations when the bigger farms moved in. Molly didn’t know how it all worked really, but small farms were all she’d ever known and she felt a fierce loyalty to them.

Molly knew from past auctions that many of the farmers from the family farms didn’t want to bid, not because they couldn’t use the equipment, but because they didn’t want to see their neighbors go out of business. And in some cases, the bidding farmers wondered if they might be next and if they should waste money on equipment they’d soon be selling themselves.

“This was a four-generation farm,” Alice said softly, watching the auctioneer. “Jim’s grandfather took it over from his father, who died very young from tuberculosis. This was all Jim ever wanted to do, from the time he learned to walk, pretty much. If this is this hard on me I can’t imagine how devastated he has to feel about all of this. He won’t even talk to me about it. He’s so matter-of-fact about the bills and how we are too far in debt.”

Alice found another tissue in her jeans pocket and wiped the tears from her cheeks.

“I just wish he would talk to me about how he is feeling,” she said, blowing her nose. “I worry about what holding it all in is doing to his health.”

Molly’s chest constricted. She understood Alice’s worry for Jim. Molly had the same worries about her father who rarely spoke about how situations his family had faced or were facing him made him feel.

Alice lowered her voice and leaned closer to Molly. “Did you hear about Larry Jenson?”

Molly shook her head.

“He couldn’t take the pressure,” Alice whispered tearfully. “He felt like he’d let his family down when the farm failed last year. His wife found him two nights ago in the barn, a bottle of pills in his hand, an empty glass that smelled like whiskey next to his body. The coroner told his wife he’ll most likely rule it a suicide but he’s waiting for the toxicology report.”

Molly gasped. “Oh my gosh! His wife and family must be devastated.”

Alice nodded. “She is and I think that’s one thing I’m worried about with Jim. If he won’t talk to me about how all this making him feel, maybe he won’t talk to me if he’s thinking of . . .” Alice shook her head, closing her eyes briefly. “I can’t even bare to think about it.”

Molly laid a hand on her shoulder. “You won’t have to,” she said, hoping she was right. “Just keep an eye on Jim and be there for him. When he’s ready to talk he will. I’m sure he’s just keeping quiet now to make sure he can get what needs to be done done.”

Alice turned her head, wiping the tears from her face. “I’m going to go make sure they have enough hot dogs and snacks for the bidders. If I cry anymore my eyeballs will fall right out.”

Molly watched Alice walk back toward the barn and bit her lower lip, wondering when the day would come when her family auctioned their life away. She turned and watched her dad walking with other farmers, studying equipment, contemplating about quality and price. Jason and Alex stood at the back of the crowd talking to a small group of younger farmers and Molly recognized one of them as Jason’s former classmate Jeremy McCarty. The McCarty’s had been farming their land with a head of 250 dairy cows for three generations, but Jason had said the family was considering selling out and moving to Kansas within the year.

“This is a fine harvester,” the auctioneer said. “Three years old. Great paint job still. Well taken care of. Let’s start the bidding at nineteen. Nineteen thousand. Nineteencanigetnineteen? Nineteennineteennineteen – Nineteen in the back. Can I get twenty-twenty-twenty? Twentytwentytwenty – twenty-one. Twenty two thousand-twenty-twothoussandtwentythreecanigettwentythreeandtwentytwentytwenty -three! Twenty-three!”

The bidding went on like that for the rest of the afternoon while Molly served buyers hot dogs and soda and agreed with other farmers that the day was one of sadness; the end of an era. This was the first auction Molly had been to, but she knew there had been others in recent months and she knew there would be more. The faces of many of the farmers who walked by were etched in worry, eyelids drooping from late nights of crunching numbers.

“Sold off half the herd last month,” one farmer said to another, standing in the doorway of the barn where a makeshift concession stand had been set up. “If we can save some money this year, I’m hoping to bring some more cows back.”

“I saw the most recent reports from the dairy bureau,” the other farmer said. “The numbers don’t look encouraging.”

Both farmers shook their heads.

“This is all I’ve ever done,” the first farmer said. “It was all my dad and his dad ever did. I can’t imagine what I’ll do with myself if I have to finally pack it in.”

His friend laughed, clapped him on the back.

“How about finally retire and take Eloise on that cruise she’s always wanted?”

“I get sea sick, but even if I did go, what will I do with myself after we get back?”

The farmers stood, hands shoved in their overall pockets, silent for a few moments, and looked out over the field full of farm equipment, buyers and curious onlookers weaving around each other.

“Welp, best get back to the barn and milk what’s left of my cows.”

“Yep,” the other farmer nodded, still looking out at the auction. “Need to get back and make sure mine are all in the barn for the night.”

The two men parted ways, heads both down, deep in thought as Molly watched them. She sat on the stool behind the table and felt a strange heaviness in her chest. The idea that these men, so much like her father, could no longer live the lives they had hoped to broke her heart and made her world feel upside down.

She sat down on the stool behind the table, opened a bottle of water and watched the trucks pull in and out of the Stanton’s side yard where a makeshift parking lot had been set up.

She had been considering walking away from farming, seeing what the world was like beyond her parent’s corn fields, but at the same time she dreaded the possibility that in the near future she wouldn’t even have a choice if she wanted to be involved in farming or not.

“Whatchya thinking about?”

Molly startled at the sound of the voice to the right of her. She looked over to see Alex grinning, his black cowboy hat tipped low on his head, a black sleeveless shirt revealing his tanned muscular biceps. She wasn’t sure when he started wearing that hat, but every time she saw him in it, it flipped her stomach upside down.

Alex had come to their farm a city slicker, but he should have been born a country boy as fast as he had adapted to life on the farm.

She shrugged as an answer to his question, then thought for a moment about how to answer.

“Alice was just telling me about Larry Jenson, this local farmer . . .”

Alex cracked open a Pepsi and sat on a stool next to her.

“The one who offed himself? Yeah. Jason was telling me about that.”

Molly’s eyebrows darted up, and Alex knew he’d said something wrong.

“Offed himself? Really? That wasn’t very sensitive, Alex.”

“Oh. Sorry. I mean —”

Molly sighed. “It’s okay. You can’t help being insensitive. You’re a man.”

“Ouch.”

“Anyhow, it’s just — I mean, Mr. Jenson had to be really down to do that, you know? What if —”

“Molly, your dad would never do that, if that’s what you’re thinking, and neither would Walt. You know that.”

“I don’t know. Do I? If things got bad enough and —”

Alex shook his head. “Not going to happen. No more thinking that way, okay? Your family has a good thing going. They’ve got the farm store, the rain has finally let up, there should be a good crop this year. Everything is going to be okay.”

He looked over at her, reached out and laid his hand against her shoulder. “No more worrying, okay?”

His hand on her skin flustered her for a moment, but she managed to nod as she looked at him.

“Okay. I’ll try.”

She pulled her eyes from his, her heart pounding.

She watched the farmers walking by the open barn door, cars pulling in and out of the field that was serving as a makeshift parking lot.

Alex watched too.

After a few moments of silence, he looked at her again.

“So, if you’re done worrying, I’m heading back to see how much equipment your dad is going to make me haul out of here when he’s done bidding.”

Alex’s grin as he stood to leave not only lifted her heavy mood, it made her feel almost giddy. She leaned forward on the stool, propped her elbow on the table, her chin on her hand and welcomed the distraction of watching him walk away. Now one wore a pair of jeans as well as Alex Stone.

Alex tried to push Molly’s worries from his mind as he walked toward Robert and Jason. He whole heartedly believed that Robert Tanner would never leave his family, in any way, no matter how tough it got, at least not on purpose. Still, Molly’s concerns were contagious.

He had been noticing how tired Robert had been looking lately, but he wasn’t about to mention it to Molly or Jason. Alex had tried to step up more, offering to take on jobs Robert would normally do, hoping it would encourage Robert to slow down. Instead, Robert had replaced the jobs with different jobs, never slowing down, always on full-speed. Alex had acted confident with Molly, but inside he worried like she did that all the pressure of running a large farming business would finally break the man he’d come to think of as a father figure.

***

“So, when were you going to tell me about the financial trouble the business is in?”

Robert’s back was to his sister but he didn’t have to see her to know that Hannah was standing with her arms folded across her chest, her leg cocked to one side, and a tight scowl pursing her mouth into an angry frown. He inwardly groaned and titled his eyes toward the heavens, silently praying for an interruption.

He and Bert, her husband, had talked last night about telling her about the issue with the loan so he knew this moment was coming. Bert had even called an hour ago to warm him she was on the warpath. Bert had already had his hide chewed and it hadn’t been pretty. Robert knew he was next.

He had hoped she would find Walt first, but Walt told him last night he’d be an hour away today, picking up supplies for the farm store at a partner farm. Walt had a way of avoiding conflicts by making himself hard to find. 

“Well?”

Robert cleared his throat before turning away from the tractor he’d been preparing to climb into. It was obvious it was time to face the music with yet another woman in his life.

He turned and saw his youngest sibling standing in the exact way and with the same expression he had pictured in his mind. “Good morning to you too, Hannah.”

“Robert, I can’t even believe that you and Walter and Bert kept this from me. I had every right to know what was going on. I’m a full partner in this business.”

She was doing that thing now where she pointed one finger down at the ground at the end of every sentence and emphasized every other word.

“Hannah, I know. It was wrong. I just – we just —”

“Didn’t want me to know because you thought you could fix it on your own? Because I’m a woman? What?” She placed both her hands on her hips, her nostrils flared.

“You know that’s not why.”

Hannah’s light brown hair, now streaked with blond highlights from exposure to the sun, was pulled back in a tight ponytail, and her brown eyes were flashing with fury.

Robert was a mild-mannered man who often spoke softly and was rarely angered. He remained calm when others weren’t and normally Hannah admired this quality but today she wanted to see some actual emotion from him, to see a response behind his normal calm, closed off demeanor.

“No, Hannah, that wasn’t it at all.”

“You need to be honest with me this time, Robert. Don’t keep hiding things from me.”

With a heavy sigh Robert sat on a square bale of hay near the barn door and leaned forward slightly, arms propped on his knees. “Walt and I wanted to protect you because of how hard Dad’s death was on you. We planned to pay things off at the end of this summer with the corn harvest, but as you know, that’s not going as planned. We were going to talk to you once we had the money to take care of the shortfall. Until then we tried to shield you so you wouldn’t have to face anymore stress. You’ve been the main one caring for Mom, we saw how hard you tried to act like Dad’s death didn’t affect you, but Hannah . . .”

He looked at up at her from where he was sitting, saw her mouth was still pressed into a thin line. “Walt and I know it almost destroyed you. We didn’t want that to happen again. We didn’t want to see you hurt and worried again. We thought we could handle it. We were wrong. I’m sorry.”

Hannah’s shoulders had already started to relax as she listened to her brother and her face was less pinched than before. She sat next to him on the hay bale, not sure whether to yell or cry. The emotions she had been shoving inside for the last year chose for her.

Robert reached over and squeezed her hand as tears rolled down her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Hannah.”

She nodded and accepted the wadded up handkerchief he handed her, blowing her nose into it and wiping her eyes.

“I know you didn’t mean to keep me out of the loop. It’s just — I always feel like I’m the last to know everything. I was the last to know that Daddy was sick. No one wanted to tell me when the doctors said his heart was in worse shape than they thought. And now here we are, possibly losing our livelihood and I’m in the dark again.”

Robert shook his head. “We’re not going to lose the business, Hannah. It’s going to be fine. Walt and I,” he took her hand again. “and you, will go over tomorrow and talk to Bill and we will work out a plan, like we should have in the beginning.”

Hannah nodded, sniffing and blowing her nose again. “Okay.”

She looked at her brother, tears glistening in her eyes. Seeing her in such a tender moment, so vulnerable and emotional, was unnerving to Robert. Hannah was always the strong one, the determined one, the one who seemed to have it all together, even though she was the baby of the family. Even at their dad’s funeral she’d been composed, strong, and had only cried once, briefly, in front of everyone else.

He knew from what Bert had told him, though, that the tears had flowed, hard and fast at home, locked in her room at night or in the bathroom when she thought no one could hear her or see her. Robert didn’t know why his sister had always fought so hard to hide her emotions but he was glad to see a part of that wall breaking down now, even if it did make him uncomfortable.

“We need to talk about Mom,” she said finally, after a few more moments of tears and blowing her nose.

“She’s still pretty down, isn’t she?”

Hannah nodded. “I’m worried about her, Robert. She has little interest in anything anymore. I can’t get her to go to church. She complains all the time.”

Robert knew all of this already. He’d listened to his mom complain about a variety of people and situations in recent months. He’d also listened to her refusals to attend church with him and Annie, instead saying she didn’t feel well and would rather read her Bible at home.

“I’m not ready to lose Mom too.” Hannah choked out the words. “But I think she’s just given up since Daddy died.”

Robert slid his arm around Hannah’s shoulders and pulled her gently against him. “I’ll go talk to her. All we can do right now is love her through this.”

Hannah nodded against his shoulder and blew her nose again.

 She looked at the soggy handkerchief crumpled in her hand. “Is the handkerchief you always have shoved in your pocket and blow your nose on all day?”

Robert sighed. “Yes. It is, but I haven’t used it yet today.”

Hannah wiped her eyes with the corner of the handkerchief. “Oh. Thank God. Men are so gross.”

Robert shook his head. Some things never changed.

Fiction Thursday: Fully Alive, Chapter 7

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn fiction, Fiction ThursdayLeave a comment

This is an excerpt from my Novella Fully Alive, currently in progress. I have not edited or rewritten the fiction posted here yet and do so before I publish it later on Kindle, so there are bound to be typos, plo. To read the other parts of Fully Alive, click HERE.

Josefa woke with a start, cold sweat beading across her forehead. She tried to remember where she was, the only sound her rapid, pulsating heartbeat . She looked around and slowly her room began to take shape in the moonlight. She’d had the nightmare again. The one she’d had night after night. The nightmare of that day in Jerusalem, when her family had been there for Passover.

The day Yeshua died.

The day five years ago when Yeshua had been murdered on Golgotha.

She remembered it like it had been yesterday.

Voices full of rage echoed within the city walls.

“Crucify him!”

Her father had trembled next to her with shock, anger, confusion. He pulled and her younger brother close. “Keep walking. Don’t stop.”

Her mother followed, tears streaking her face, sobs shaking her body.

“Father, why would they do this?” Tears soaked Josefa’s face as the crowd enveloped her, jostled her into other people.

She didn’t understand. Why were the priests of this city demanding the death of the man who had brought her back from the dead? What had he done that deserved death?

She screamed in protest, but no one could hear her and if they could, they weren’t listening.

“It’s not true! He saved me! He brought me back from the dead!” She tried again, her throat raw, her voice hoarse. “He gave me back my life!”

A man shoved her hard to the ground.

“Shut your mouth, you blaspheming liar!”

Saliva dripped down his chin as he screamed. A tremor of fear rushed through Josefa and she looked away quickly. It was as if he was possessed. Maybe he was.

Jairus stooped to protect her and swung around toward the man, anger clouding his vision. “Never touch my daughter!”

The man was screaming again, standing over her and her father. “You are nothing, Jew!”

“I am a leader in the synagogue, I am a holy —”

More people were shouting at Jairus and Josefa now, shouting at anyone they felt were followers of Yeshua.

“You are nothing!”

“Blaspheming scum, go back to whatever city you came from.”

“Do you follow this man? Then you should be put to death with him.”

Jairus jerked his head toward an open area near the city wall.

“Myriam, Ephra, Josefa, come. We must leave.”

Josefa turned to follow her family but paused, looking over her shoulder at the yelling crowd, at the sudden appearance of Yeshua through the crowd, struggling to walk under the weight of what looked like a large piece of wood. She watched in horror as he fell onto the stones, the wood on top of him. Blood dropped onto the dirt from his face, his hands, everywhere. Josefa couldn’t see any of Yeshua’ skin that wasn’t bleeding.

She broke from her father’s arms and stood along the edge of the crowd as Yeshua walked by, reaching out, her fingertips touching Yeshua’ bloody garment, hanging in rags off his shoulder. She jerked her hand away and held it to her mouth as she began to sob.

“Yeshua. Yeshua,” Josefa choked out. “I believe in you, Yeshua.”

Yeshua looked at the ground as he fell again, and she wondered if he even knew she was there. A Roman soldier dragged a man from the crowd and tossed him to the ground in front of Yeshua.

“Help him! Pick up the cross!” the soldier demanded.

As the man helped lift what the soldier had called a cross, another soldier lifted Yeshua to his feet. They watched the scene together and Josefa’s heart raced as Yeshua stood slowly, raised his eyes toward the crowd and found her gaze.

His eyelids were swollen, blood running in rivulets from what appeared to be thorns bent into the shape of a crown on his head. He looked at her with an unfocused gaze as he hooked one arm around the man and the other around the wood. Hot tears stung Josefa’s eyes, rushed down her cheeks as Yeshua moved his gaze from her and looked back to the ground, shuffling his feet forward in step with the other man.

A strong hand gripped her wrist and pulled her backward, through the crowd. She looked up into deep blue eyes, a smooth face stained with dirt under a Roman helmet. The soldier’s face was young, but his eyes were old. She expected a rebuke but instead his voice was gentle, filled with compassion.

“You must leave this area. It’s not safe for young girls like you.”

She could hear her father calling for her, but Josefa couldn’t seem to pull her eyes from the soldier’s.

“Come, Josefa!” Jairus said sharply, prying the soldier’s fingers from his daughter’s wrist. “Let’s get away from here.”

Her father’s voice was breaking with emotion and when she looked up at him, he was rubbing the back of his hand across his face.

“I can take no more,” he whispered hoarsely.

She looked up and the soldier had turned and was following the crowd, to where she didn’t know.

She followed her father and they found the rest of their family waiting for them by the city gates.

“We must leave, Jairus. It’s no longer safe,” Myriam whispered, trembling.

Jairus pulled her close and nodded. “We will go and collect our things from Lieber’s and begin our journey this evening. I will see if I can convince him and his family to come with us. The Romans are thirsty for blood this day.”

“What are they going to do to Yeshua, father?” Josefa asked, fear shivering through her.

Jairus shook his head. “I don’t know, Josefa. Keep walking.”

Jairus’ brother declined traveling away from Jerusalem, begging Jairus to remain for Passover.

“Traveling on Passover is forbidden. We will be safe here on this side of the city. The Romans are only taking care of a troublemaker, a man who called himself the Son of God.”

“But Uncle Leiber —”

Jairus scowled at his daughter. “Josefa. Be silent. Go prepare the afternoon meal with the women.”

All these years later, Josefa still remembered how darkness fell later that day, how the ground shook and she fell to the dirt courtyard outside her aunt and uncle’s home in fear.

She screamed, reaching out for something to hold onto but finding nothing. As the ground rose up beneath her, the sun darkened and she couldn’t see her parents or anyone else.

“Yeshua! Yeshua! Help me!”

Bricks fell from stone structures around her, striking her and then blackness settled over her and all was still.

“Josefa!” She woke to her mother’s voice that day and again, five years later, she heard her mother call to her.  And again her mother took her in arms and again she told her everything would be okay and prayed over her, asking for Adonai’s protection

A Special Fiction Saturday: The Farmer’s Daughter Chapter 11 Part II

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn fiction3 Comments

I shared the first part of this chapter yesterday. You can find the rest of the chapters HERE.


And, guys (ladies mostly), let me tell you something! I just noticed on Amazon that I got my first negative review on my first book! It’s like a right of passage. I have a feeling I’ll get more because, well, I’m not the best writer ever, but I don’t even care. I know, you’re thinking: “What is wrong with this woman? She’s happy she got a negative review???”

Well, not necessarily, no, but I’m happy that it doesn’t bother me like it used to. In the last few years (especially since I lost my aunt in 2017) I have realized what is most important in life and what others think of me isn’t one of those things. I see the fact I’m not too worried about it and laughed while reading it as progress in my life.

As I read his words out loud to my son I just kept laughing: “It was free and it still cost too much.” I should be crushed, but everyone has different tastes and I’m just learning about all this writing stuff so I’m good with it. So thanks, Anthony, I needed that and the rest of your review (which went on a bit too long, if you ask me.) The fact I drove someone to sit and write a review, even a negative one, makes me smile. I do wish he’d given me a little more constructive criticism than it wasn’t worth his time, but, oh well, I’ll hope for a more passionate negative review in the future.



Alex breathed in deep the smell of hay and the musty smell of female cow as he leaned his head against the cow’s side while he hooked up the milking machine the morning after the rummage sale. Growing up in an urban area outside of Baltimore, he never thought he’d enjoy the comfort of a cow, the warmth of a barn on a crisp spring morning.

He didn’t have to look up to know Molly had walked in behind him. He clearly recognized her footsteps, something he had memorized, much like the way her nose crinkled slightly when she laughed and the way she blew her bangs out of her face when they fell across her forehead while she was working in the barn.

Her footsteps stopped behind him.

“So,” she said and he heard a tinge of aggression in just that one word. “What was that with Ben yesterday?”

Alex shrugged, keeping his eyes on his work.

“I was just harassing him.”

He stood, rubbed some dust off Daisy’s side, his back still to Molly.

“He seemed like a real jerk so I wanted to mess with him.”

Molly cleared her throat. “Well, yes, he is a little jerky – sometimes. I guess.”

She stopped short of asking him why he had acted as if they were dating. She felt the conversation they were having was awkward enough.

“Okay,” she said. “I need to start the milking on the other side, so . . .okay. And thanks for fixing the truck and driving it back to the house.”

Alex reached for the udder cream, not looking at her as he treated Daisy. “Yup. No problem.”

Molly turned away from him and rolled her eyes to the ceiling, silently mocking her anti-climatic exchange with Alex. She had intended to find out not only what the deal with Ben had been but what the recent change in his behavior toward her was about, especially since Liz had been pestering her with questions about it since yesterday during the rummage sale.

“Was he trying to act like you two were dating?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you two dating?”

“No!”

“You would tell me if you were dating right?”

“Liz . . .”

“Well, would you?”

“Yes, Liz, but we’re not dating.”

“So, what was —”

“I have no idea, Liz.”

“You’re going to ask him, right?”

Molly had slapped her forehead against her hand while Liz watched her with wide eyes. “Yes. I will.”

And she had asked him.

He’d given her his answer and now she was going back to work in the barn. She was letting it go. She wasn’t going to push the issue.

Pausing at the bottom of the hayloft she leaned back against the ladder and let out a long breath.

She knew no matter how hard she tried she wasn’t going to be able to let it go, at least in her mind. She knew she’d keep wondering what was changing between her and Alex and if he noticed it too.

Fiction Thursday: Fully Alive Chapter 6

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn fiction, Fiction Thursday4 Comments

Find the other parts of this story HERE or at the link at the top of the page. There are other works of fiction at the top of the page, as well, including The Farmer’s Daughter, Quarantined (a short story), Rekindle (the start of another story story), and links to my two books for sale on digital platforms.

P.S. The character in this section will have a name change before the final publication. I just have decided on the name I want for her yet.

Eliana couldn’t stop thinking about the day her healing had come. Cleaning flour from the bowl, preparing to cook a meal for her sister’s family after so long, tears were warm on her face.

The morning she had been healed she had sat in the room of the home she’d been confined to for so long, weak, her heart heavy with loneliness and despair, the same as almost every morning for 12 years. Her husband Josiah had divorced her years before, declaring her unclean and unfit to bear him children. She watched him with his new wife from a distance, watched their children grow and felt the ache in her own womb for a child of her own.

“He will come with healing in his wings,” she whispered the morning she had been healed, remembering the prophecy of Malachi.

His wings. She wasn’t sure what that meant but she thought of what she had heard – that John the Baptizer had spoken, saying that a man who came to him for baptism was the one they’d been waiting for, the prophesied messiah. This man was a rabbi, a teacher, but whispers said he was so much more. Healings at his hands. Blind men seeing, crippled walking, souls rejoicing. She closed her eyes, pictured the man and what he might look like. What he might be wearing. She pictured his prayer garment and thought of how the corner of it, the tzitziyot, was called the wings of the garment.

The wings of the garment.

The wings.

With wings.

She felt it first in the pit of her stomach, a hard, hopeful knot. From all she had heard this man was indeed the one who would come to heal, not only her, but all mankind.

He had been easy to find. She had simply followed the crowd that pushed against him. She walked with her head covered, the covering pulled across her face with her hands that she clutched before her face, her head bowed.

Even though Eliana felt that this man called Yeshua was the messiah and knew touching his garment could heal her, she was fearful as she approached him. She was impure and she knew that if she touched him – this pure man – he would also become impure. He paused to speak with a man and someone in the crowd bumped her and she stumbled forward. He was so close. So close. She lowered herself to the ground as he stood, slowing reaching out. If she could just touch — Her hand trembled and she clutched her fingers into a fist, biting her lower lip, closing her eyes, hesitating.

“Adonai, Adonai. . .” she whispered, her lips dry.

She opened her eyes, drew a breath slow into her lungs, and stretched out her hand again, a sob gurling deep in her chest as her fingertips brushed the twisted wool at the edge his prayer shawl. Comfort and warmth flowed through her immediately and the pain she had suffered under for so long was gone. It was gone. She couldn’t feel the crunching agony within her womb. She couldn’t feel anything but peace.

The blood she had felt drip slowly down her leg, off and on, so many days for the last 12 years suddenly stopped. She felt dry where she had wet for so long. Eliana stood abruptly and turned to leave, to go home, get away from the crowds, think about what had happened, about what her future might hold now.

“Who touched my clothes?”

The voice of Yeshua startled Eliana and she looked back to see him looking around him, searching the crowd for the person who had touched him. A lightening bolt of fear coursed through her. She had been careful only to touch the tzitziyot, not him. How had he known? Even one of Yeshua’ followers expressed disbelief that he wanted to know who had touched him and pointed out that people were all around him. Anyone of them could have touched him.

“I felt power go out from me.”

Eliana trembled in fear, her breathing shallow. She clutched her hands together to try to stop the shaking. He knew someone had reached out for his healing. He knew.

How could he know?

How could he know unless. . .?

She watched him and fell instantly to her knees.

The words spilled out of her

“It was me, teacher.”

She felt, rather than saw him turn to her. Her eyes were on the ground, trembles shivering through her.  “I have been bleeding, unclean for 12 years. I have been to every doctor. I have tried everything. I was shunned by my family, my community. But when I heard about you – when I heard of those you had healed, I knew – I knew you could take it all away and heal me. I knew you were the one who has been prophesied.”

He kneeled to her level, cupped her chin in his hand. She lifted her eyes slowly, to eyes soft with compassion.

“Your trust has healed you,” he said softly, so soft she could barely hear him. Then he spoke again, louder. “Your trust, daughter, has healed you. Go in peace and be healed of your disease.”

Her sister’s voice yanked Eliana from her memories of the day.

“Eliana! Have you finished the bread?”

“Yes, Ledah, I have.”

“Well, bring it. We are ready for dinner.”

Sunlight poured in through the window of the family home and across the table lined with food. Ledah’s family sat on the floor, children with big brown eyes looking kindly and expectedly at Eliana as she handed her sister the bread mixture. Her sister immediately started cooking the bread over the small fire pit just outside the door.

“We shall celebrate today,” Ledah said with a smile at Eliana as she placed the bread in the bowl. “Jeremiah has slaughtered our best lamb to celebrate your healing. It still makes no sense, but I don’t care. It is a wonderful day!”

Eliana smiled and shrugged. “I don’t understand it either. All I know is when I touched his garment, I was healed. I can’t explain it. I can’t tell you more than that. But I no longer suffer the way I did.”

Ledah shook her head. “It makes no sense, Eliana. A mere man can not heal you by you touching his garment.”

“Then he is not a mere man, is he?”

“Eliana, we have all heard these stories before. Supposed messiahs come to rescue the Jews. Yet here we sit under Roman rule. Don’t start believing all that nonsense now.”

“I don’t know what to believe, yet, but I know what happened to me and I know I am healed, Ledah. I know I have a lightness I have not known for 12 years. This is a gift I can not take lightly.”

Ledah took her older sister’s hand, squeezed it and smiled. “And that’s all that matters. That you are back with us and soon you will live life again among your people.”

Live life again? Eliana didn’t even know what that meant. After so many year alone, watching her husband remarry and have children from afar, she didn’t even know how to enter life again.

She couldn’t imagine any man wanting to marry her, not after she’d been cast aside by her husband. Her chance of having children was gone.

Yet, she had her health again and that in itself opened up hope to her.

And hope? Well, hope meant anything was possible now.

Fiction Friday: The Farmer’s Daughter Chapter 10

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn fiction, Fiction Friday2 Comments

The idea for this book and scenes from it have been swirling in my mind and on the page for probably about a year now. I know a lot of what I share on my blog is going to be edited, tightened, maybe even rewritten. There are two scenes, so far, that I have two different versions written for and I haven’t yet decided which version I’m going to choose to propel the story forward.

The one scene is pivotal for one of my characters and while I’ve been considering changing my initial idea for how her story would play out, I don’t think I’m going to be able to and still move her story where I want it to go in a future book of the series.

I’m cringing at what needs to happen for this character’s story to move forward, but there is no way around it. It has to happen and I’m hoping it comes out the way I want it to.

This writing thing is both a blessing and a curse for an over thinker. I find myself thinking about my characters way more than I should. Every time I share a chapter on here I know that I’ll be heavily editing each chapter in the future and maybe even changing the course of my character’s lives because I change my mind so often. Muhahaha…what power!

Anyhow, enjoy Chapter 10. Catch up with the rest of the story HERE. Find links to the rest of my fiction at the top of the blog.

The sun was high in the sky when Molly carried her lunch to the picnic table her dad had set up outside the barn a few years ago. Her back and legs ached from cleaning out the cow stalls and she knew she’d need a break before she headed to the farm store for her afternoon shift.

She straddled one of the benches and watched Alex sit down across from her, pulling a sub, chips and two sodas from a paper bag.

“Brought your own lunch this time, huh?” she asked.

Alex shrugged. “Nah. Stole Jason’s.”

“Really?” Molly watched him bite into the sub.

He grinned as he chewed. “No. I actually picked up lunch for me and Jason yesterday at Ivy’s Deli. You think I’d come between your brother and a meal? No way. I learned my lesson the hard way in college.”

He pushed a soda toward her. “I’ve got an extra. Want one?”

Molly had promised Liz the night before that she’d cut back on sodas to try to start eating better. She shook her head. “Thanks. I’ll stick to water with lemon.”

She placed her container with a salad with chicken, light Italian dressing and half of an avocado on the table.

Alex scrunched his nose up in disgust. “You’ve got to stop hanging around Liz. All her health food weirdness is rubbing off on you.”

Molly laughed. “That’s not necessarily a bad thing. It won’t hurt me to eat a little healthier. Maybe I can even get you to do it.”

Alex talked around a mouthful of chips. “Nope. Not gonna happen, lady.”

Molly watched her dad walking the fence line across the field as she sipped her water.

Alex followed her gaze. He knew Molly was worried about how hard Robert had been working lately. He also knew she didn’t know about the loan payment that was late and he wasn’t about to tell her. Robert and Walt had given him and Jason the heads up a couple of weeks ago, assuring them that the women in the family would be told as soon as the brothers met with the loan officer. Alex knew Molly would be even more worried if she knew about the loan. He would let Robert tell her and he would when the time was right.

He took the opportunity when she didn’t know he was looking at her to study her. He studied her short nose and her reddish-brown hair that she’d pulled back in a ponytail, the curl that had fallen out and was curving around her ear. He studied her eyes, green with flecks of gold and her lips, perfectly kissable if he could ever bring himself to make that move.

He wondered what she would say if she knew he’d heard the conversation between her and Liz; how she didn’t think she was his type and how she totally was his type. He knew he was eventually going to have to let her know how much his type she was.

“Worried about your dad?” he asked.

“Yeah. He works too hard.”

“He does,” Alex shrugged. “but I don’t think he’d know what to do if he wasn’t working. At least he manages to spend time with you and your brother while he works. My dad’s business was his only focus during my childhood and it still is.”

He laughed softly. “Well, that and his latest mistress.”

Molly and Alex had talked about his dad before and every time Molly felt a twinge of sadness for him. She knew his jokes about his dad were a cover for the hurt still there. She moved her gaze from her dad to look at Alex, tilting her head, thinking what to say next. She stabbed a chunk of lettuce with her fork and decided to take a chance on saying something she knew might alienate him.

“You know, Alex, God can be a father to the fatherless.”

Alex licked mustard off his thumb and looked at Molly through narrowed eyes, a small smile tugging at his mouth. “Yeah? How is that possible when I can’t even see God. Is he going to throw the celestial ball around with me in the clouds or something?”

Molly laughed. “No, but we can talk to God when we’re feeling down or confused or disappointed in someone who should have been there for us.”

“Hmmmm…yeah. I guess I’m not really into that whole talking to someone I can’t see thing.”

Molly wasn’t deterred. “You can’t see the wind, but you can see the affects of the wind. You can see the wind blowing those tree limbs over there so is the wind real?”

Alex shook his head, laughing softly. “Molly Tanner, you like to screw with people’s minds, don’t you?”

“No. I’m just saying that sometimes we need to think about God differently. Maybe he isn’t just someone up there in the clouds, maybe he’s all around us and affecting our lives more than we think. I don’t know, Alex. I don’t have this all figured out either. I have doubts and —”

“You? You have doubts?”

“Yeah, of course. I’m not perfect. I’m not some angel.”

“No? Now I’m interested,” a broad grin crossed his face as he sat the soda on the table. “Tell me, Molly Tanner, what have you done that would prove to me that you’re no angel.”

Molly cleared her throat and pulled her eyes from his intense gaze, his sly smile. Her cheeks grew warm as he watched her.

“I’ve made mistakes. I’ve had thoughts I shouldn’t have.” Like right now. About how good you look in those jeans and how amazing it would probably be to kiss that mouth. “I’ve said bad things about people. This morning I even cursed when I pinched my finger in the barn door.”

“What did you say? ‘Oh shoot’? ‘My lands’?” Alex laughed.

“Actually, no, it was worse,” Molly answered with a smile of her own. “I’ll just leave it at that.”

“Compared to me, Molly, you are an angel.”

“You’re not so bad that God can’t forgive you and that he can’t still love you. I believe he does. He loves us both, despite our failures and our shortcomings and the ways we think we don’t measure up to his standards.”

Alex sucked down the rest of his soda and dragged the back of his hand across his mouth. “It’s a nice thought, Molly-belle but I don’t know if I buy it. Life seems pretty random and unplanned to me and I like it that way. I don’t like the idea of being a puppet for some higher being in the sky.”

Molly rolled her eyes. “We’re not his puppets. We’re his children and he wants the best for us.”

Alex swung his leg over the picnic table bench and stood up. “OK, little lady. Enough church for today. I’ve got some work to finish up in the barn. See you there?”

Molly drank more of her water. “Not today. I have the afternoon shift at the store and then I told Ginny Jefferies I’d go to an art class with her.”

“Okay. Well, enjoy your art class.”

Alex shook his head when he reached his truck, laughing softly to himself. How had he fallen for a girl like Molly? A girl so pristine and proper in her thoughts she made Mother Theresa look mean. Sure, she claimed she had inappropriate thoughts, but he highly doubted it. Someone who talked and thought that much about a mystical being in the sky didn’t have time for thoughts that weren’t in line with what her parents had taught her.

He tossed what remained of his lunch in his truck and headed toward the barn, still pondering what inappropriate thoughts Molly Tanner might have had.

***

Ned stared at Franny from a faded black and white photograph. The photograph didn’t have to be in color for her to remember his bright green eyes or sandy blond hair he swept off to one side. And how handsome he had looked in his uniform that day he’d signed up for the Army. She’d never imagined that a couple of years later that uniform would take him on a ship, far away from her, to war. But when he came back, he’d dropped to one knee and asked her to marry him. She couldn’t say ‘yes’ fast enough.

She remembered the tender kisses, the soft caresses, oh, yes, she did. Her children and grandchildren probably thought she was too old to remember what it felt like to be in love, to be kissed for the first time by the man you were in love with, but she wasn’t. She remembered it all like it was yesterday.

There was a chill in the air that night and she’d worn her favorite white sweater with the pink flowers for their walk around the town square. He’d been so shy, finally reaching over and taking her hand in his as they circled the gazebo for the third time. He’d stopped in front of the gazebo, under the street lamp, turned toward her and cupped her face in his hands. Her heart had been pounding and when his mouth covered her’s she felt like her insides evaporated into a fine mist. She was floating on air.

He smiled and laughed sheepishly when he pulled back, looking down at her.

“I can’t believe it took me so long to kiss you,” he’d whispered.

She couldn’t believe it hadn’t taken him so long either.

She set the picture back on the top of her dresser, wiping a tear from her cheek. It all seemed like yesterday, but it hadn’t been yesterday. It had been 56 years ago and now here she was, alone in this house, without the man who had made it a home for her.

He’d come home from the war, married her and she’d moved to the farm to become a farmer’s wife. At first, they had lived with his parents and then a new house had been built up the road. It was a tough few years, that’s for sure. Walter was born first, then Hannah, then Robert, back-to-back. Money had been tight, but Ned had worked hard with his father to keep the farm going. Producing the best milk in the region was Ned’s goal and he met that goal year after year until the early 60s when a test on the milk came back saying their milk was unsafe.

Ned was beside himself with worry and sank into a deep depression. It was the first time Franny couldn’t seem to soothe him and not even prayer seemed to help. For two weeks Ned paced and wrung his hands. His milk had to be tested again and until then their milk couldn’t be sold. They’d sold vegetables from the fields at a roadside booth to try to make ends meet until the milk was tested again.

“Sorry, Mr. Tanner,” the inspector had said after the second test, stretching his hand out. “It looks like our test was wrong last time. There’s not a thing wrong with your supply. I hope this hasn’t been too much of an inconvenience.”

Franny had thought Ned might bite clear through his tongue and bottom lip the way he clenched his jaw and pressed his lips together. She knew he was literally biting his tongue.

“Not at all,” he said finally, his grip tight on the inspector’s hand.

Things had run smoother after that, but of course there were always the droughts, the flooding, the occasional years when bugs or frost destroyed entire crops or one disease or another spread through the herd. Still, no matter what life through at them, Ned and Franny had been in it together.

Them and God.

A cord of three strands was not easily broken and they had not been broken, despite it all. That was until Ned’s diagnosis when Franny had felt more broken than she’d ever felt before. She’d overcome two miscarriages, the loss of her parents and one brother, but somehow, she felt like she might never overcome the loss of Ned.

She sighed, catching sight of her Bible on the bedside table. It had a thick layer of dust on it and she knew she should wipe it off and open it, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She was mad at God. Plain and simple. She couldn’t deny it to herself or anyone else, and she knew God already knew. She was mad at him for taking Ned from her when they’d had so many plans together.

Maybe that’s why she’d been so annoyed with the visit by the pastor. There he stood representing the naivety of the Church as a whole. Millions believing what she now struggled to believe — that God was for her and not against her; that he wanted to prosper her and not harm her. Hadn’t the loss of Ned harmed her? What greater purpose had it served to pull him from the earth when he’d finally had the time to relax and enjoy life; to enjoy life with her?

She hadn’t set foot in the church since the day of Ned’s funeral. She couldn’t even bring herself to attend the retirement gathering for Pastor Larson who had officiated not only Ned’s funeral but all three of her children’s weddings. He’d pastored Calvary Church for 45 years and counseled Franny more times than she could even remember. But she couldn’t bring herself to stand under the roof of a building built as God’s house. She didn’t want God to have the chance to even try to talk to her. While her Christian upbringing had taught her that he could talk to her whenever and wherever he wanted, she felt walking herself right into the lion’s den might give him even more opportunity to try to reach her again, when she didn’t want to be reached.

And then there were all those sad looking parishioners waiting for her there. All those people looking at her in pity, treating her like she wasn’t just plain old Franny anymore.

She scoffed, flicking a dead fly off the window sill. She guessed in some ways she wasn’t the same Franny anymore, the more she thought about it. She had definitely changed. Death did that to a person. She was a widow now. Her heart was broken.

Worst of all, she’d lost a piece of herself and maybe even all of who she used to be, and she had no idea how to find herself again.

She hated that she’d taken her anger with God out on young Pastor Fields. He didn’t deserve it. He’d only been trying to reach out, to offer her comfort in her time of need. Maybe she would find a way to apologize to him. Hopefully at the bake sale. If she could bring herself to go and face all the sad eyes and pushed out bottom lips, the tilting heads and the voices that spoke to her as if she was child.

As if she’d lost all her facilities simply because she’d lost her husband.

 “Oh, Mrs. Tanner, so good to see you. How are you, hon’?”

“Let me do that for you, Mrs. Tanner.”

Heads cocked to one side with pity-filled expressions as they said things like, “Ned was a good man.” Or, “We sure do miss him.” Or, “It must be lonely up there in that house with Ned gone.”

She knew they all meant well, but she could only smile and nod and thank them so often before she wanted to scream and run away. Even if her old legs would let her run away, she knew her eyesight wouldn’t. She was having more and more trouble seeing. She was running into the corners of tables, tripping over shoes she’d forgot to put on the shoe rack, losing her glasses and maybe even her mind. Wouldn’t that just be her luck? Losing her husband, her eyesight, and her mental facilities in less than two years.

Lately it seemed that if she didn’t have bad luck, she wouldn’t have any luck at all.

Fiction Thursday: Rekindle, A Short Story Part 1

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn fiction, Fiction Thursday2 Comments

In April I shared Quarantined, a short story based on current events. This week I had an idea for a second short story jumping off from the characters I mentioned in Quarantined. This is the first part. You can find links to my other fiction serials I’m sharing on the blog at the top of the page under “Fully Alive” and “The Farmer’s Daughter.” Links to my books for sale are also available under the link at Books for Sale at the top of the page.

Matthew Grant’s conversation with his brother Liam had made him uncomfortable.

Liam’s marriage was in shambles, but Matthew knew Liam still loved his wife Maddie and Maddie still loved Liam. If they didn’t still love each other they wouldn’t be struggling so much with the idea of divorce. It couldn’t be easy being quarantined together during a pandemic with all the issues they had with each other but Matthew was glad they were. Maybe they’d work out some of those issues and save what had been a great union at one time. As it was, their divorce proceedings had been delayed because of the pandemic. As Matthew saw it, this was a way for them to buy more time and truly be sure the divorce was what they wanted.

What made Matthew uncomfortable wasn’t only that he could hear pain mixed with longing in his brother’s voice when they had talked on the video call. It was also that he wondered, worried even, if similar marital trials might one day pull at his own marriage. Maybe it already was happening and he had been too wrapped up in himself to realize it.

Matthew and Cassie hadn’t had a lot of time alone lately. Their life had been a runaway train since the election two years ago. In Washington he faced daily drama and conflict whether he wanted to or not. Becoming the youngest head of the Intel Committee hadn’t helped slow things down any either.

Then there was this crazy never-before-seen virus that seemed to come out of nowhere a few weeks ago and now had him at home with his family, waiting to see if he developed any symptoms after being exposed to it more than a week ago. He was convinced if he had the virus he would have developed symptoms by now, but he stayed home to make sure things looked good to the press and his constituents. Making sure things “looked good and right” to others seemed to be 90 percent of his job anymore, leaving little room for him to actually accomplish the things he’d been elected to do.

All the drama in the House of Representatives left him little time to focus on Cassie or the kids and he regretted that. He regretted it even more when his brother’s march toward divorce had become a growing reality. He’d never pictured Liam and Maddie divorced. They were the perfect couple. They’d weathered some hard storms, including the miscarriages, but Matthew had been sure the challenges would bring them closer together. In fact, he thought it had but maybe he’d been too wrapped up in the campaign to pay attention.

Matthew and Liam’s parents had provided for them the perfect example of a stable, loving marriage. Married 54 years, Bert and Phyllis Grant made it clear each day how much they loved each other. Sure, they had argued, even in front of their children, but those arguments had been resolved usually before the sun had gone down and with a fair amount of ‘making up’. Matthew and Liam, and his sister Lana had been grateful the majority of that making up had gone on behind closed doors.

Standing from the couch to stretch, Matthew looked out the window at his own three children playing ball in the backyard and felt a twinge of guilt. Getting pregnant and carrying three babies to term had been easy for him and Cassie. They’d never had to face the heartbreak of not being able to get pregnant or of a miscarriage. Matthew felt like he’d take it all for granted.

He looked around his living room, well decorated with expensive furniture and commissioned paintings, and thought about how much of his life he had taken for granted, especially lately. He’d taken for granted the newer model car he drove, the highly rated bed he slept on, the full refrigerator and even fuller bank account.

He rubbed his hand along his chin and turned toward the kitchen where Cassie was making a late lunch for him and the kids. Her dark brown hair fell to her waist in a tight braid, the bottom of it grazing the top of the waist band of a pair of red workout shorts. Her favorite tshirt, featuring Johnny Cash wearing a cowboy hat, fit her medium build well, hugging all the areas it should, especially for the benefit of her husband admiring the view that he hadn’t admired for a long time. He watched her stirring the taco meat in the skillet and his gaze traveled down her legs and back up again, thinking about the first time they’d met in an English lecture at college.

“Pst.”

He’d leaned over the desk to try to get her attention but she was intently focused on the professor. He had tried again.

“Pst.”

She glared over her shoulder at him.

“Do you have an extra pen?” he whispered.

She rolled her eyes, ignored him, tapping the end of her own pen against her cheek gently as she kept her eyes focused forward.

“It’s just,” he leaned a little closer so he didn’t interrupt the other students. “I left my pen back in my dorm room and I want to make sure I’m taking notes.”

He was glad he had leaned a little closer. She smelled amazing. What was that perfume? He had no idea but it was intoxicating. Maybe it was her shampoo.  The fluorescent light from the lecture hall was reflecting off her luxurious black strands of hair and he pondered what it would feel like to reach out and touch it. But he didn’t reach out and touch it. That would be weird. Even a 19-year old college freshman like himself knew that.

A year later, though, he was touching that soft dark hair while he kissed Cassie for the first time outside her dorm after their third date. And over the years he’d sank his hands in that hair in moments of tenderness and moments of passion. A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as he watched  his wife and thought about a few of those moments, including that time in the back of his new car after he’d landed that job at the law firm outside of Boston.

He could deny it. It wasn’t only the material things of his life that he had taken for granted. He had also been taking Cassie for granted. For far too long.

Fiction Friday: The Farmer’s Daughter, Chapter 9

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn fiction, Fiction Friday, the farmer's daughter6 Comments

We are on Chapter 9 already of The Farmer’s Daughter and I will tell you I’m not sure what’s coming after Chapter 11 because I haven’t hit a writer’s block but I have hit a challenge of where I want to put certain chapters or events and how I want to write a couple of them. I also worry about the chapters I share on the blog being too long, but well, if they are too long for you, just don’t read them. *wink*

Let me know in the comments if you’re falling in love with the characters as much as I am and what direction you hope to see the story take.

If you’re interested in other fiction pieces I’ve written you can find them here on the blog (links at the top of the page), or on Amazon and B&N.

If you want to follow the rest of The Farmer’s Daughter, from the beginning, click HERE.


Alex cracked open a soda and leaned back against the porch railing of the old farmhouse, looking out over the recently harvested fields and breathing in                             deep the smell of freshly cut hay. He missed his normal beer, but alcohol had become too much of a crutch for him these last few years. He was doing his best to drink less beer and more water and soda.

He rubbed his hand across the stubble on his chin and jawline, pondering if he should shave it off before he headed back to the barn after lunch. He’d been clean shaven when he first arrived at the Tanner’s farm, five years ago. He couldn’t even believe that next week would make it five years exactly. So much had changed for him since that day.

“Hey, Dad, this is Alex. He needs a job,” Jason had said a few moments after they had walked in the Tanner’s farmhouse, two years after their college graduation. He was grinning while Alex’s face flushed red with embarrassment. He felt like a loser whose friend had to find a job for him because he was too inept to find one himself.

Robert, sitting at the kitchen table, peered around the newspaper he was reading and looked Alex up and down, a somber look on his face.

“Know anything about farming?” he asked.

“No, sir,” Alex said honestly, shoving his hands down in his jean pockets nervously. “But I’m willing to learn.”

Robert laid the paper down, leaned back in his chair and frowned. He tapped his fingers on the table and then a smile slowly tilted his mouth upward.

“It’s a good thing Jason already mentioned you might be coming home with him. We need a hired hand to help around the farm. My wife’s parents’ home will be able to move into by the end of the week since they’re moving to a condo in town.”

Robert stood and reached his hand out toward Alex. Alex took it, shaking it firmly.

“Glad to have you on board,” Robert said.

In the next year, Alex worked hard, wanting to please the man he saw care for his family, day in and day out, rarely taking a break, on constant call with farm work, first with his father and brother and then when the elder Tanner passed away, his brother and son. He’d watched Robert try hard to help his fellow farmers, buying their land when they could no longer farm, offering them jobs on his farm or at the family’s farm store. He’d been there when Robert’s father had disappeared further into dementia, then passed away, and he’d watched the family’s farm store expand from selling organic meats and dairy, eggs and vegetables to now offering flowers, plants, and even farming and gardening equipment.

Over those years, Robert had become like a father to Alex, teaching him how to work hard, how to run a business, and more importantly, how to care for a family. So far, though, Alex wasn’t anywhere near starting a family, or ready to care for one on his own. There were days he wasn’t even sure this was what he wanted for his future – to work on a small family farm in the middle of nowhere.

But there were other days, when he looked back on a day filled with accomplishments, when he could sit back and smell the freshly harvested field, that he could imagine himself living his whole life growing food in the soil, caring for the cows that gave the nation its’ dairy, and helping a family support themselves through the work of their hands.

Annie had become the mother he’d never had in his own – caring, nurturing, and understanding. After six months of living in the home Annie had grown up in and working for her husband, he’d found himself sick with a cold and alternating between shivering and burning up as he cleaned out the stalls.

“Alex, you need to come inside and let me make you some tea and honey,” Annie said, standing in the barn doorway, dressed in brown overalls and a thick winter coat.

“I’m okay, Mrs. Tanner, but th – “

“Don’t argue, young man,” Annie said. “You’ll be no good to anyone if that junk gets into your lungs. Get on in here. Robert can do without you for a few hours. You’ll have some tea and lay down in the spare room. No use arguing.”

She turned quickly and began walking toward the house.

Robert stood up from where he’d been inspecting the underside of a cow and jerked his head toward his retreating wife.

“You’d better listen to her. When she gets something into her head, she won’t let it go. Besides, Henry is coming in at 10 and I know he can help us while you rest.”

Inside the house, Annie set a cup of steaming hot tea in front of him at the table.

“Try leaning over that and breathing it in. It will help your nose loosen up.”

Alex nodded and did as he was told.

“Did your mom do this to you when you were young? I bet she did. All my bossing around is probably making you feel like a little boy again.”

Alex stared at the steam swirling up toward him and thought about his mom, how she’d almost never been maternal, though he was sure she had loved him and his brother. When he and Sam were sick, she had sent them to their rooms and set toast and juice in front of them and turned on a cartoon. She never felt foreheads or took temperatures, but sometimes took them to the doctor if the illness hit them hard enough.

“My mom wasn’t really – uh- maternal,” he said with a shrug. “She loved me and Sam. She just didn’t know how to be . . . comforting, I guess you would say.”

Annie turned from the stove and looked at him with furrowed eyebrows. “I’m sorry to hear that. That must have been hard for you and your brother.”

Alex shrugged again. “In some ways. But we turned out okay. I always considered us lucky. We were well fed, had whatever we wanted, except the attention of our parents, of course. They didn’t beat us, so there’s that at least.”

Annie sighed and held her hand against Alex’s forehead.

“But a little love shown shouldn’t have been too much to ask. You’re burning up. I’ll get that spare room set up for you. I want you to sip that tea and then I’ll give you a dose of elderberry syrup and pull out the Vapo rub and put it by the bed. I’ll make chicken soup for lunch.”

Alex shook his head as she walked toward the stairs, amazed at her kindness, especially toward someone who wasn’t even a member of her family. It wasn’t long, though, that Alex began to feel like a member of the family. Jason had already been like another brother. Robert became his surrogate father, Annie his surrogate mother. Even Franny and Ned treated him like he was one of their own, or at least Ned did before he forgot who almost everyone was.

And then there was Molly.

Beautiful, sweet Molly.

He let out a deep breath, clutched at his hair and lowered his head into his hands, trying to shake the image of her shapely figure backlit by the setting sun, standing across from him in the barn. He remembered clearly the day he’d first noticed how beautiful she’d become, how grown up she was looking. It had been three years ago and they had been talking about their favorite music, where they saw themselves in ten years, and what the future held for small family farms, a topic Alex never imagined he’d be concerned with.

“I guess I figured I would be writing for a major magazine or newspaper by now,” Molly said, leaning back against a hay bale, sliding her arms behind her head. “Maybe that’s just not what God has planned for me or maybe I messed up his plans by not finishing my degree. I don’t know. Do you think we can mess up God’s plans?”

Alex felt uneasy but tried not to show it.

“Not sure,” he said casually, leaning on the rake handle. “I’ve never thought much about God, let alone if He, She, or They, has ever directed my path in life. If a higher power is up there, it would have been nicer if he’d directed my life in a few different directions over the years.”

The sunlight pouring in from the window high in the top of the barn hit Molly’s hair and highlighted her red-blond curls. Her skin was smooth, her eyes bright, her shirt pulled tightly against her full, shapely figure. His pulse quickened and he quickly looked away from the curve of her throat, knowing his gaze would keep slipping lower if he let it. He mentally scolded himself, feeling like a dirty old man until he remembered they were still both in their 20s at the time, him only four years older. It wasn’t as if he was old enough to be her father.

Molly looked over at him, moving her arms from behind her head and leaning on her elbow against the hay bale.

He saw compassion in her eyes as she spoke. “But, don’t you think that one of the greatest gifts God could have given us is our own free will? We make our own decisions and sometimes we make the wrong ones because we don’t listen to what God is telling us so maybe it isn’t that he didn’t direct our life but we didn’t follow his directions.”

Alex laughed and shook his head. “I’m not the one you want to have a deep theological discussion with.” He tapped his temple with his finger. “There’s nothing deep in here.”

Molly smiled and his stomach quivered in a way he’d never felt before. “I highly doubt that, Alex Stone. I have a feeling there’s a lot more to you than you let on.”

She tossed a handful of straw at him and skipped past him on the way to the house. He’d watched her walk away, his eyes lingering on her retreating figure before he took a deep breath and softly exhaled a curse word.

“Dang, Molly Tanner, how’d you get so beautiful?” he’d asked himself out loud, maybe a bit too loud. He’d looked around quickly to make sure Jason or Robert weren’t somewhere behind him.

For two years now he had tried to ignore the way she was starting to affect him – the pounding heart, the rush of excitement that rumbled through his veins when he heard her voice or saw her walking across the yard toward the barn.

Why couldn’t he just make a move on her already? He’d never felt afraid to tell, even show a girl how he’d felt – until he met Molly. Molly was different, but he couldn’t really explain how. Maybe it was because he’d developed a friendship with Molly before he’d started feeling a strong attraction to her. Before meeting Molly, he’d always acted on instinct, moving into a physical relationship even if he hadn’t spent time getting to know the woman.

He knew it wasn’t only a fear of rejection stopping him from telling Molly how he felt. He worried how Robert, Annie and Jason would react. Would they see him as someone who had taken advantage of their kindness simply to get close to their beautiful daughter and sister? He couldn’t imagine losing their respect and love, yet he also couldn’t imagine his future without telling Molly how he felt.

Rejection and fear of the reactions of others, including Molly’s, wasn’t Alex’s only concern, though. He’d had a fear of attempting longtime commitment for years, always afraid he’d end up like his parents – in a loveless marriage of convenience. What if he told Molly how he felt, only to pull away from her in fear, refusing to open himself up to her fully and hurting her in the process? Could he even open himself to her? He couldn’t deny he was afraid to try. He’d never been able to do open himself up with any other woman. When they’d tried to go deeper than surface level, he’d broken it off and walked away from them, ignoring their calls or visits.

At one point he’d even considered leaving the farm, going back to Maryland, looking for work in computers, so he didn’t have to face his feelings for Molly. His attraction to her had always been stronger than the fear, though, and he’d stayed on, happy simply to be near her.

Now, though, he wanted to be more than near her, more than simply a co-worker. He wanted to be her confidant and her to be his. And he wanted to hold her, to show her he felt a tenderness for her he’d never felt for anyone else. More than simply wanting a relationship with her, he somehow felt he needed it.

***

Mavis Porter was already busy giving orders in the church basement when Molly arrived with the Tanner’s contributions of chocolate and carrot cakes two days before the sale.

“We’ll need someone to man the purse and the shoe areas,” Mavis said, clipboard in hand, her blue-gray hair piled on her head in a tight bun, her face long and mouth pursed together.

“I’m available,” Dixie West said, though Molly noticed the reluctance in her voice.

Mavis scribbled on the clipboard.

“Dixie in purses and shoes,” she said, focused on the clipboard. “Perfect.” She spoke to Molly without even looking up.

“Molly, are those the cakes from you and your mom?”

Molly opened her mouth to answer.

“Good,” Mavis said before Molly could answer, her eyes still focused on the clipboard. “Put them over in the kitchen with the others. I have you down to watch the table from 8:30 to noon on Saturday. Will that do?”

Molly opened her mouth to answer.

“Good,” Mavis said, again before Molly could answer. “Make sure you’re on time this year, please.”

Mavis swung around and marched across the basement floor, never looking up from her precious clipboard.

Molly sighed and carried the box with the cakes to the kitchen. One day she was going to find a way to stand up to Mavis Porter, but today was apparently not that day.

“On bake sale duty again?” Maddie Simpson asked, unloading her own cakes onto the counter in the kitchen.

“Of course,” Molly said. “At least she only put me on for four hours this time, unlike last year when I had to sit there all day.”

“I’m on kids clothes again this year,” Maddie said with an eye roll. “I have the morning shift.”

Molly winced. “That might be worse than the baked goods table.”

“All those moms ripping apart the table, looking for the cutest clothes in the just the right sizes,” Maddie said, shaking her head. “And then the pushing and the shoving when two moms grab the same outfit. Last year I thought we were going to have to call Reggie to break them apart.”

Molly laughed, thinking of Chief Reggie Stanton pushing his way between two battling moms, his large belly a barrier between them. Reggie led a small police force of five police officers, including himself. The small town of Spencer was lucky not to have a high crime rate, but the Spencer Police Department was there to break up fist fights, respond to car accidents and fires, and answer the call if someone locked themselves out of their car or a cat got stuck up a tree.

The chief was there to oversee it all and sometimes he even managed to do something. It wasn’t unusual to see Reggie standing to one side shouting orders to one of his officers.

“That’s right, Sgt. McGee. Get him down and you can cuff him while I read him his rights.”

“Don’t be afraid to stand up to, ‘im, Billy. He’s not that much bigger than you.”

“If you keep running that mouth of yours, I’ll have Officer Wilson here take you outside and read you your rights, you understand?”

Reggie even managed to yell orders for the driver to stop when Officer John Vanfleet was dragged down Route 220 at 25 mph while trying to open the car door of a suspected drunk driver.

“Stop! If you don’t stop, I’ll have you up on charges of attempted murder!” he yelled, not even bothering to try to chase the car.

It took two other officers to jump into the passenger side window and rip the car into neutral, finally stopping it.

For all his moments of laziness, though, Reggie was still the glue that held the force together, always willing to go to bat for his officers at the borough council meeting, asking for better healthcare or raises or even new uniforms or equipment.

Alice Bouse walked into the kitchen and sat a box of pies on the counter.

“What duty did you get this year?” she asked Molly.

“Manning the bake sale, like every year,” Molly said

“She’s nothing if not predictable,” Alice said with a heavy sigh. “I’m stuck on the register for the first half of the morning. I hate that job. That’s where people try to haggle us down in our prices. Every year I have to remind people ‘this is for charity.’ It really gets old after a while.”

“We’re all old,” Helen Maynard said slinging her box onto the counter and pulling out bags of homemade cookies, already labeled for sale.

“No, I said, the price haggling gets old,” Alice said.

“That too,” Helen said.

Emily Fields, Pastor Joe’s wife entered the kitchen with a box of pies.

“Is this where I should put the baked goods?” she asked softly.

“This is the place,” Molly said with a smile and a lavish gesture toward the counter.

“So glad you are contributing, Mrs. Fields,” Helen said. “Your pies are fantastic. That blueberry one you made for the potluck supper for the graduates at church was outstanding.”

Emily’s straight auburn hair pushed back off her face with a dark blue head band, highlighted her pale skin and bright green eyes.

She laughed and her cheeks flushed red, making her skin even more iridescent. “Oh, thank you. Pies seem to be the only thing I can bake. I have the innate talent of ruining even boxed cakes and burning all cookies. And please call me Emily. Mrs. Fields makes me feel so old.”

“You’re definitely not old,” Maddie laughed. “You’re one of the youngest pastor’s wives we’ve had at this church since I first started attending as a child.”

Alice started stacking Emily’s pies next to hers. “But you know who is old? Millie Baker. Did you all hear about what she did?”

Molly and the others shook their head.

“Well, she thought she was hitting the brake in her car this morning outside the Dollar General but instead she hit the accelerator and drove right into the side of the building.”

“No!” Maddie said. “Is she okay?”

“Yep, but the store isn’t,” Helen said. “Lew Derry was behind the counter and Lanny Wheeler said it was the fastest he’d ever seen him move, considering he’s usually high on that weed he smokes.”

“My goodness,” Alice said, shaking her head. “Someone is going to have to tell Millie she can’t drive anymore. She’s not safe on the road. That Dollar Store could have been the playground and that brick wall could have been a child.”

Helen shook her head. “Well, I’m not telling her. She’ll probably hit me with that cane of hers. Make her daughter do it.”

Molly laughed. “I should have my Aunt Hannah do it. She’s the one who told my grandmother she shouldn’t be driving anymore when she drove into the back of that garbage truck.”

“How did she take it?” Maddie asked.

“Not well,” Molly said. “We caught her behind the wheel last week.”

“So maybe Hannah isn’t the best person to talk to Millie,” Alice laughed.

“It’s not Aunt Hannah’s fault. Grandma is terribly stubborn.”

Helen took a chocolate chip cookie out of one of her bags and bit into it.

“How’s your grandma been doing anyhow?” she asked. “Besides driving into the back of garbage trucks. Since your grandpa passed, I mean.”

Molly took out the last of her cakes and sighed. “She’s struggling, to be honest, but she wouldn’t want me to share that with anyone else so I probably shouldn’t be. . .”

Emily laid her hand against Molly’s arm. “We’ll be praying for her.”

“Thank you,” Molly said. “I’d appreciate that. Losing Grandpa was hard enough but now having to admit she doesn’t see as well as she used to — it’s just been hard on her.”

Joe huffed into the kitchen carrying a cardboard box filled to the top with pies.

“Are those more of Emily’s pies?” Alice asked.

“Sure are,” Joe said. “Best blueberry pie around.”

“Oh wow!” Maddie said. “You must have been baking for days! These look great. I am definitely going to be picking up one.”

Across the room Mavis gestured, showing Jeffrey Staples where to move the tables and chairs for the sale.

Pastor Joe glanced through the open window as he unloaded the pies. “So, I see Mavis’ organization skills come in handy for this rummage sale. What a blessing to have someone with that gift in our church.”

“I didn’t realize that being bossy was a God-given gift,” Maddie said with a snort.

Pastor Joe laughed. “Well, I think maybe it can be. Even if we don’t always see it that way. Those with that gift often keep us on track.”

Molly smiled as she helped the pastor stack the pies. “They also keep us closer to God while we pray for him to give us strength to deal with them.”

The other ladies laughed and nodded their heads in agreement while Pastor Joe just smiled and shook his head, deciding he would keep his comments to himself.

Fiction Friday: The Farmer’s Daughter Chapter 8

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn fiction, Fiction Friday8 Comments

Catch up on Molly’s story HERE. As always, this is a story in progress and there very well could be some typos, plot holes and errors.

An update on A New Beginning that I put up on Kindle this week. I have temporarily removed it to fix some errors and issues and hope to have it back up for sale on Monday. A Story to Tell, the first story about Blanche is currently available on Kindle Unlimited (free for members of Kindle Unlimited on Amazon) and will be on sale for $.99 next week for those who don’t have Kindle Unlimited.


“Hey, Molly, guess who I saw in town this morning.”

“No idea.”

“Ben Oliver.”

Molly’s muscles tensed at the name.

It was a name she didn’t like hearing and had hoped she’d never hear again.

She kneeled next to Daisy the cow and prepped her for a milking session. “Oh yeah? Where did you see him?”

“At the gym.”

“Ah. I see.”

Molly hoped Jason would drop the subject. She didn’t want to think about Ben, let alone talk about him, especially in front of Alex.

“Who’s Ben Oliver?” Alex asked, preparing another cow in the stall across from her.

Molly inwardly groaned. Shut up, Alex.

“Molly’s old boyfriend.”

Shut up, Jason.

Alex’s head popped up over the back of a cow. “Boyfriend? Oh yeah?” He grinned. “Do share.”

Jason leaned against a beam, arms folded across his chest, grinning.

“Yep. They were pretty hot and heavy before he left for college in Boston or somewhere.”

Molly’s heart pounded faster. She was furious at Jason for teasing her about Ben, but how would Jason know how much Ben had hurt her the night he’d broke it off with her? Molly had a feeling if he had known not only would he not have been teasing her, but he probably would have punched Ben in the face.

She didn’t know if she would call anything about her and Ben’s relationship ‘hot and heavy.’ They’d only dated a couple of years as two young, inexperienced high school students. He’d been her first major crush, her first kiss and then her first heartbreak.

They’d broken things off when Ben had left for college. Actually, no. Ben had broken things off but if he hadn’t, Molly would have. Especially after what he’d said to his friends when he thought she wasn’t listening.

“He’s a lawyer now,” Jason told Alex. “I don’t know why he’s back here. He can’t be thinking of opening a law office here. There’s definitely less money here than in a big city.”

Alex shrugged. “You never know. There’s probably more legal possibilities in a small town like this than most of us realize. Real estate transactions, divorces, custody battles —”

“Maybe he can represent all those drunk drivers we read about in the Spencer Chronicle,” Jason said with a snort.

Jason stepped away from the beam and reached for a pitchfork. “I still say he’d make more money in a bigger city.”

Alex adjusted the milking machine on one of the cows. “Who knows, though. Maybe he didn’t come back for money.”

He looked at Molly and winked. She saw the wink out of the corner of her eye and ignored it. “Maybe he came back so he can win Molly back.”

Jason shoved the pitchfork into a pile of hay, lifted it and tossed some inside one of the cow’s stalls.

 “Hear that, Molly?” he asked. “Maybe you’ll be the wife of a rich lawyer one day.”

Molly inwardly cringed. She finished hooking up the last of the cows and walked back toward the feed room. “Hey, Alex, keep an eye on the girls. I’m going to get some feed. I’ll be back.”

Alex sipped from a bottle of water as Molly walked past him, noticing the tension in her face. He tried to read the expression, wondering if it was anger, longing, or something else. He vaguely remembered hearing about this Ben guy before. That had been a couple of years ago. From what he’d gathered, Ben had been a high school boyfriend of Molly’s, but their relationship hadn’t been serious. Now he wondered what had happened between the two to make Molly so uncomfortable at the mention of his name.

“So, were they serious?” Alex asked when Molly was out of earshot as he grabbed another rag to wipe the next cow’s udder.

Jason tossed more hay into the stalls. “Who?”

Alex looked over the top of the cow. “What do you mean who? Molly and this Ben guy.”

Jason shrugged and stooped to lift another pitchfork full of hay. “Yeah. I think so. For a while anyhow. I can’t really remember why they stopped dating. I guess because Ben went so far away for college. I always felt bad they broke up. I thought they were a good fit, you know?”

Alex’s eyes narrowed as he looked toward the back of the barn. “Yeah. Uh-huh. I guess.”

He wondered how Molly and this Ben were a good fit. What made anyone a good fit anyhow? If they liked the same things, maybe. Had the same interests. Shared the same faith.

Did Ben and Molly share the same faith? Did Molly miss Ben and if she did then why had her expression been so vague and not more joyful at the mention of his name?

He mentally scolded himself for all the questions he was asking himself. He’d never asked so many questions in his life. Alex Stone, what are you doing right now? This is none of your business. You have no claim on Molly because you can’t even tell Molly how you feel about her, you coward.

 Alex finished hooking up the cows in his row to the milking machine and stretched his arms out to the side, yawning.

“Out late again last night?” Jason asked. “I didn’t see you when I got back from Ellie’s.”

“Actually, no. I couldn’t sleep. Took a drive, sat and looked at the moon for a while and came home.”

Alex wasn’t about to tell Jason he’d sat and looked at the moon and thought about Molly part of that time. He’d also thought about his past, stupid decisions he’d made over the years, what his future might hold, and wondered what his dad was up to since he barely heard from him anymore.

He unhooked the machine from the first cow in his row, changing the topic. “So, when are you going to ask Ellie to marry you anyhow?

Jason rolled his eyes. “You sound like my mom.”

“Well?”

“I don’t know. I like how it is now. Things are good.”

“Yeah, but don’t you Christians believe in waiting until marriage?”

Jason looked at Alex and laughed. “Not all of our lives revolve around that, dude.”

Alex grinned. “Yeah, but still. Don’t you want to —”

“Hey,” Jason said, holding his hand up toward Alex. “I’m not talking about this with you.”

“Maybe that’s why you’re so uptight sometimes. Maybe you would be less stressed if you and Ellie —”

Jason gently shoved Alex in the arm. “I said I’m not talking about that with you, got it?” He smiled and propped the pitchfork against a wall. “Seriously, though, I have considered proposing to Ellie. And not just for that reason. I really . . .”

Alex wanted to laugh at the red flushing along Jason’s cheeks but with Jason being twice his size he was afraid of ending up with a broken nose.

“I can see myself growing old with her.” Jason finished his sentence after he cleared his throat and looked away, clearly embarrassed by the tenderness he’d just revealed.

Alex patted him on the shoulder. “Then you’re going to have to pull that trigger soon, buddy. Ellie’s not going to wait forever, you know.”

Jason unhooked some more of the cows. “What about you?”

Alex frowned. “What about me?”

“You think you’ll ever settle down?”

Now it was Alex’s turn to flush red. He turned his face quickly away from his friend, bending down to unhook the milking equipment from Daisy, his favorite Jersey. “Eh, who knows. Not something I think about too much.”

Alex wasn’t lying. He really hadn’t thought about settling down. Not in the same way Jason was thinking about it anyhow. What Alex had been thinking about lately was how much he’d fallen in love with farming, with waking up each morning knowing he would be doing something that mattered; something that would provide food for families across the country. He rubbed Daisy’s ears and let her nuzzle his hand.

He’d fallen in love with the smell of fresh cut hay, of cows mooing in the distance, with barn cats, and even with the sweet smell of manure when it was spread in the spring.

As for finding a woman to marry, Alex wasn’t sure yet. He’d never thought about himself married but if he did ever marry he knew he wanted to marry someone just like Molly Tanner, the girl who wasn’t afraid to compete with him in a burping competition or make a hilarious fart joke like one of the guys. Molly was real and if he ever did marry that was what he wanted in a wife – authenticity, kindness and devotion. He had a good feeling he would find all those things in Molly because he already saw them in her.

He chuckled softly. What was he doing even thinking about Molly and marriage in the same vein? Alex Stone and marriage were two things that didn’t go together.

“What’s so funny?” Jason asked.

“Nothing,” Alex said quickly. “Nothing at all.”

***

Molly slammed the lever to the feed machine up hard and kicked a metal bucket across the barn floor. Why did Jason have to bring up Ben anyhow?

She still remembered well the night Ben broke up with her. They’d gone to the movies, had lunch at a café in town and he had driven her home and walked her to her front porch. She’d expected a kiss before he headed home to finish packing for college, but instead he’d motioned toward the porch swing.

“Hey, Mols, can I talk to you for a minute?”

There was a cool breeze blowing, golden sunlight was pouring across the fields, and a heifer mooed softly in the barn. One of the barn cats rubbed against her shin and she reached down and stroked its head and back.

“Sure.”

They sat next to each other, but Molly noticed Ben sat back slightly away from her, instead of pulling her close like he usually did. When he sighed, turning toward her, taking her hands in his, she knew something was wrong.

“This isn’t an easy thing for me to talk to you about, Mols,” he said softly. “But I’m — I mean, it’s just. . .”

He paused, took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The rest of what he had to say came out quickly and abruptly.

“You know I’ve been working a lot with Angie at the ice cream shop on the weekends?”

Of course, she knew he’d been working with Angie. Angie Phillippi. Skinny. Blond. Long legs. Perfect. All the things Molly wasn’t.

She was starting to feel uneasy. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, so, yeah. We — Angie and I — we’ve grown close this summer and, the thing is, I think we’ve fallen for each other.”

“Oh.”

Molly swallowed hard, a heavy lump forming in the center of her chest.

“Molly you know how much I care about you, but,” Ben shifted nervously on the swing. “I feel different when I am with Angie. I feel — I don’t know. I feel like she really gets me. We’re into the same things. We laugh at each other’s jokes. . .”

I laugh at your jokes, Molly thought.

“She’s . . . I don’t know. She’s someone I can’t imagine not being in my life and it’s not fair to you to keep stringing you along when I know I want to be with Angie.”

I can’t imagine you not being in my life, Molly thought.

Molly nodded slowly, pulling her hands from Ben’s grip. “Oh.”

She wished she could say more than “Oh,” but she seemed to be at a loss for words.

“I’m sorry, Molly. I really am.”

Molly forced a smile.

“It’s okay,” she finally managed to say, pushing the buzzing feeling in her chest – the one that signaled her emotions were about to override her brain – deep down because she was not, no, she was not going to cry in front of Ben Oliver, her first ever crush and boyfriend. “You can’t help how you feel.”

Her voice sounded far away, like someone else’s. What was she even saying? She didn’t believe any of the words flying out of her mouth, but she had to say them to hurry this conservation along, to end it quickly before she sobbed in Ben’s face and made a fool of herself.

Ben sat back slightly, his shoulders relaxing. “I am so relieved you understand. I never wanted to hurt you. I just knew I had to be honest with you, though, and with myself.”

He leaned forward and took her hands in his again. His dark brown eyes focused on hers. “I will always remember our time together, okay? And you’ll always be special to me.”

Molly suddenly felt like a first grader being talked to by their teacher.

“If I’m so special, then why are you breaking up with me?” she wanted to ask, but she didn’t, because she didn’t really want to hear the reason again.

Instead, she told him that she was okay, that she was happy for him, that this was for the best. She was glad he had told her now, instead of waiting until after he left for college, she assured him.

Of course, they’d still be friends.

Of course, she’d write him at college.

Of course, she’d always remember the good times.

Yes. Good luck at college.

She reassured him again she’d be fine and then he’d left with a gentle, brief kiss on her cheek. After he’d left, and she walked into the house, she answered her parents concerned expressions by telling them she and Ben were taking a break while he went to college and that was fine with her. Then she lied again, telling them she was relieved because she had felt herself drifting away from Ben for a few months now. He’d be away at college, going to law school, and she’d be at the community college, pursuing a degree in English, or writing, or something similar. There hadn’t been a future for them anyhow, right?

She hadn’t told Jason because he’d been away at college, hanging out with Alex and earning a degree he’d use when he came back to the farm.

Her parents had said they understood, asked if she was going to be okay, and each gave her hugs.

“Yep. I’m good.”

She had smiled broadly and walked up the stairs to her room. Behind the closed door she blasted Garth Brooks from her stereo, sat at on her bed, laid there on her side for a few moments starring at the blank wall of  her bedroom and then cried until her throat and chest burned.

As if Ben’s breaking up with her to date Angie hadn’t been enough, Molly was in the convenience store a week later when she heard Ben’s voice from another aisle.

“Yeah, I know it is weird,” he was saying. “But it was time. Molly’s a nice girl, but Angie. Dang. Angie. She’s hot. She’s got legs that go for miles. And she’s so slender she just fits against me perfectly, you know?”

One of Ben’s friends laughed a laugh Molly could only think to describe as a dirty laugh. “Fits against you? Dude, how far have things gone with Angie?”

Ben joined the laughter. “That’s personal, man. All I can say is she has way more experience than Molly Tanner ever did or ever will.”

Molly’s sob had caught in her throat as she sat the soda and chips she’d been holding onto the counter and darted outside. Tears streaked her face all the way back to the farm, her hands tightly gripping the steering wheel of her grandfather’s old pickup. At church the pastor always acted like God cared more about what a person looked like inside, but Molly knew that wasn’t what Ben cared about. Somehow, it seemed to matter more at that moment what Ben cared about.

As she drove, she vowed to never again let herself fall for someone like she had fallen for Ben. She’d never let those walls down again, let any man see the deepest parts of her. She was going to keep her distance from men from now on, keep herself from feeling the pain she felt now.

She vowed that one day she’d lose weight and make Ben Oliver regret he’d walked away from her all those years ago. Watching the feed fill the wheelbarrow, Molly felt self-focused anger rage through her. Ben wasn’t going to regret he’d left her if he saw her now. She’d never lost that weight and had maybe gained more. What she hadn’t gained was more experience at whatever she should have had experience at, at whatever experience Angie had had. She was still the same, fat Molly and there was no way Ben would ever regret he had broken up with her