Happy October!
It seems like forever since I've updated my
blog, my
FB page, my
Google+, my
GoodReads group or my
Twitter - and, in fact, it has!
I had surgery on my wrist/forearm on September 26th. Simple procedure - a tendon release, clearing up of some "debris" and putting me back together. Naturally, it was on my dominant side, where I've now worn either a cast, splint or brace since mid-May. Typing's fun.
Yay.
My body, unfortunately, doesn't understand "simple." The day after the surgery - a half-day out-patient experience - I was hit with mondo inflammation. It ran from halfway down my hand and all the way up my forearm. Swelling, pain, the whole bit. After several doctor visits and a LOT of pain meds, I landed on steroids and a super-high-powered-makes-you-glow-in-the-dark
(probably not, but this thing had enough warning labels on the bottle to scare the inflammation right out of me!) anti-inflammatory. Doc claimed he'd never seen inflammation like that and said my arm just looked "angry."
Fun.
So, instead of being down for an anticipated 3 days, I blanked on two weeks of my life. I revived enough to pull off my daughter's birthday party on October 6th and to celebrate my own birthday (29, again!) and then hers (4th) on the 8th and 9th. Then, I basically slid back into hibernation for another week.
When I was ready to face my computer again, I set up a ton of free days for ya'll to enjoy. From
today, October 18th, through
Monday, October 22nd,
all SIX of my short stories are free on Kindle. Then,
both of my collections - each with 3 of the short stories - will be
free on October 23rd and October 24th.
FREE BOOKS! FREE BOOKS! FREE BOOKS!
Why am I enticing ya'll with these free eBook days?
Because, finally, at long last, after a never-ending rewriting/editing/proofreading/critiquing/more editing/more proofreading/tweaking/re-tweaking/fussing/more fussing period, I will finally be releasing
THE MOMMY LETTERS on Thursday, October 25th.
YAHOO! To celebrate it's release, it will be priced at $0.99 from October 25th through (US) Thanksgiving Day, November 22nd. After that, it'll go up to $4.99 just in time for Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the Holiday season.
I've also just updated my short stories and collections with the first chapter...more enticement!
(Also, since I'm just running behind on everything this month, I *just* updated this, so if you download free on 10/18, you'll probably get the non-updated version instead of the sneak-peek version. FYI.)
Hope you'll enjoy my free short stories and are as excited as I am that The Mommy Letters is finally coming out! For those of you who have already read my stories, read on for your own special sneak peak!
(Also, I will love you forever and a day if you'd take time to leave a review after reading any of my stories. MWAH!)
The Mommy Letters, Chapter 1
Day number five hundred and twenty-one without Robin began in the same way as the previous five hundred and twenty. Sarah Hartsford’s alarm clock, designed to wake the dead, warbled its obnoxious chorus at the stroke of six in the morning.
Sarah yawned and stretched. Her scant hours of hard-won slumber and the timepiece’s unwelcome noise caused her to swat the silence button with more aggression than it deserved.
The aggression was new. Newer, anyway. At least aggression allowed her to regain control of her life. She wasn’t yet back to her old assertive self, but this attitude change brought her closer by a damn sight.
Sarah sat up and pushed away her lavender overstuffed comforter. She yawned again and reached for her journal. Dr. Kimball, her therapist, wanted her to record thoughts every morning upon awakening. Let out the demons and cage them somewhere other than her head. Life went on, the other woman coached. When a year passed with her youngest daughter still missing, Dr. Kimball began encouraging her to establish a new norm instead of continuing to drown in constant wondering and mourning.
Sarah scribbled in the notebook for a few minutes. She wrote words of anger and anxiety, her neck and shoulder muscles beginning to relax. Sarah had a twenty-year relationship with Dr. Kimball, dating back to her father’s suicide. Despite all of those years of dedicated appointments, she had never gotten past regarding psychiatry with a healthy dose of skepticism. She couldn’t deny, however, that journaling allowed her to start getting back to doing her job as a mom and a town selectman. Well, doing the best she could, considering the dark cloud hanging over her life and family.
Somewhat calmed and in better control, Sarah threw off the remaining vestiges of sleep and glanced at the clock. Just enough time to whip up her customary back-to-school breakfast for Elizabeth and Kathryn before rushing to Town Hall in time for her weekly staff meeting. The Labor Day holiday pushed it out of its normal timeslot, turning this Wednesday into her Monday.
Sarah got out of the bed where she now slept alone and padded across the room to her antique triple dresser. A family heirloom, it occupied the entire eastern wall of the bedroom, framed by dormer windows revealing the beautiful vista of the still-blooming valley. A gentle stream of early morning sunlight infused Sarah with additional courage to face the day.
She picked up her hairbrush and drew it through her hair, watching the simple motion in the mirror. A pretty and trim late-thirties brunette, her classical good looks were marred only by lines of worry no amount of sleep could erase.
Sarah’s thoughts drifted back to her two teenaged daughters. She smiled. While the girls favored her in looks, they were their father’s children in activity. Sarah preferred diplomacy and words. The girls, like Shawn, preferred physicality and action. Both starters on their high school’s soccer team, the girls held Tae Kwan Do black belts. Thanks to her first husband’s diligent guidance, the girls shot on par with any officer in Rockingham.
The first day of school. No doubt, her older daughters would still be in bed, enjoying the last moments of inactivity before a busy time of new classes and old friends.
Sarah’s smile vanished. Today would have been Robin’s first day of school, too. Her first first day of school. Sarah remembered how excited Elizabeth and Kathryn had been to finally start kindergarten all those years ago. A sharp pang of sorrow sliced through her. She wouldn’t get to experience the excitement of the first day of school with her baby girl. Her Robin.
Sarah replaced the hairbrush with care. She walked out of her bedroom and toward the large room at the other end of the hall. Her daughters would no doubt be awake…yet ready to feign sleep when she opened the door. She traversed the hall, passing an empty guest room and Robin’s equally empty chamber, counting backwards from ten. She relied on this trick of Dr. Kimball’s to regain her equilibrium and prevent dumping her burdens on her older children.
“Good morning, girls!” Sarah halted right inside the door. Just what she had expected – groans and pillow-covered faces.
“Mo-om. It’s way early. Five more minutes and we’ll get up. Promise!” Elizabeth’s voice sounded quite awake, despite her words to the contrary.
“Come on, girls. Butts outta bed – now!”
The girls groaned again, in perfect unison. When they were younger, the first day of school was the most exciting event of the year, greeted by children ready to run out the door at dawn’s first light. Boy, how times changed. Putting her hands on her hips in an unconscious imitation of her own mother, Sarah tried again.
“I mean it, girls. Elizabeth Anne! Kathryn Marie! You have thirty seconds to get up and start getting ready for school before I get you up!” To her own ears, Sarah sounded stern and motherly. Perhaps she’d struck the right tone to get her daughters moving.
Or not. Giggles spiraled up from the teenagers who used to curl up in her lap for their morning snuggles. Sarah admired their resilience. The last year and a half had been devastating for them, too, but they were quicker to carry on than she had.
Sarah snapped back to the present and her hibernating daughters. She moved farther into their bedroom and developed her plan of attack. So the girls wanted to cover their faces with their pillows? Perfect. She’d jump-start their showers using the glasses of water standing on each of their nightstands.
“Last chance, girls. Up and at ‘em.” Sarah knew the girls heard her walk between their beds and pick up a glass of water with each hand. Elizabeth bolted up and watched her mother while a wary smile played across her face. Kathryn peeked from beneath her pillow before deciding it was safe to sit up.
Sarah replaced each glass and looked at her daughters in turn. “You need to shower and get downstairs or you won’t have time to eat anything before the bus gets here. Don’t you want breakfast? When you hit the shower, I’ll put the pancakes on.”
“Very funny. When’s the last time you made pancakes? Do you even know where the griddle is?” Kathryn’s voice held a note of teasing, resentment buried beneath.
“Yeah, Mom. Funny. You haven’t cooked for us in, like, months. What gives this morning?” Elizabeth’s voice shook. Although not one to engage in confrontation with her mother, the girl could always be counted on to back up her sister.
Sarah strove to use a neutral tone. “Can’t I want to make our traditional back-to-school breakfast for my daughters? You’re right. I haven’t cooked much lately. It’s been crazy between work and keeping all of your activities straight and, and…well, and Robin.”
There. She’d said it out loud: Robin’s name. Her sweet little girl’s face formed in her mind. The only good to come from her second marriage to Jason. Robin took after her mother in both looks and her even-tempered nature. Sarah could not believe she hadn’t seen her little girl in almost eighteen months – five hundred and twenty-one days. A year and a half since Robin and Jason departed for their trip and never returned. Would she ever get to hold her baby in her arms again?
Sarah shook herself, mentally and physically. She refocused on Katie and Liz, still burrowed in their beds.
“Come on, guys. It’s the start of a new school year. You guys used to love school. I want for us to act like a family again.” She stopped, closed her eyes, and started over. “You’ve got thirty minutes. Get up, get showered and get downstairs. I’ll have the pancakes ready and we’re all going to smile if it kills us. Understand?”
Sarah held her breath and waited. Somehow, it worked.
“Okay, okay. I’m up. Lizzie, if I’m up, you better get moving, too.”
“Go shower, Sis…I showered last night. I’ll help Mom get the pancakes ready and do my hair when you’re done.”
Elizabeth crawled out of bed and walked toward the hallway door while Kathryn headed into the adjoining bathroom. Sarah grinned.
“At last! Sensible daughters. I knew you had it in you! Alright, Elizabeth. Do you want chocolate chip or blueberry pancakes? I think we even have some whipped cream left. Katie, what do you want?”
****
Despite the morning’s slow start and rough patches, the girls managed to get to the bus stop in time, forty-five minutes later. Sarah watched them climb aboard the lumbering vehicle that would carry them to school. The pancakes had been a hit – blueberry for Liz and chocolate chip for Katie. The coming weekend’s soccer match occupied the breakfast table conversation – a safe subject.
Sarah smiled at the outfits they wore to go back to school. When they were younger, she and their father made a huge production out of the first day of school. Every summer ended with a weekend shopping trip to Boston to stock up on new clothes for the coming year.
Although the girls pushed back in recent years, they’d done it up in style this year. Only eighteen months apart, many people confused the girls for twins when they were younger and often wore matching designs. Now high schoolers who wanted no part of clothes chosen by their mother, they still sometimes reverted to matching outfits, especially on special occasions.
Elizabeth was going into her junior year of high school and Kathryn was a sophomore. Sarah had wondered if they were sad, too, missing Robin’s first day of kindergarten. Their matching outfits answered her uncertainty.
Liz and Katie normally preferred loose and flowing clothes in dark colors – Sarah shuddered at the cargo pants they liked to wear to school, paired with baggy shirts designed to defy their femininity. Today had been different. Liz came down for breakfast wearing a lovely yellow knee-length dress embroidered with delicate white flowers. Robin loved yellow. Katie sported an ankle-length flowing skirt in a pattern similar to Lizzie’s dress, topped by a dainty white blouse with filmy cap sleeves of the sheerest gauze.
Robin would call them “pretty princesses” like she always did when she convinced her beloved older sisters to play dress-up. Could she dare to hope Robin was dressed in pretty clothes, wherever she may be?
Her heart ached to spend the day, like so many others, dreaming about Robin. Her mind insisted she had to get in gear if she wanted to maintain some semblance of normalcy. Jason and Robin had been gone for so long with limited clues left behind. Sarah wondered, often, if her fury-fueled suspicion that Jason might have snatched their precious daughter should be replaced by mourning the unexplained disappearance of both.
Right now, she needed to get to work. Later, she’d get to spend time with Liz and Katie, listening to their tales of another first day of school. Those two would be gone to college soon. Not many first days remained.
Sarah surveyed her messy kitchen – chocolate chips strewn on the counter, drying batter drips on the stove. She didn’t have time to restore order. The girls would need to help her clean up when they got home from school.
If she didn’t leave in the next half hour, she’d never make it to Town Hall on time. There was a damn staff meeting this morning. She loved her elected position as a selectman in the small New England town of Rockingham, but had come to hate these weekly meetings, run by a pompous Mayor whose goal in life seemed to be defeating anything Sarah might suggest, spearhead or support.
If only she’d stayed in the running for Mayor last year…but that was a dangerous path to start down this morning.
If only Robin were here, bows tied in her hair and a new outfit to model…but that was a dangerous path, too. Sarah needed to be in tip-top shape to deflect whatever Mayor Dina McWilliams might throw her way.
Sarah squared her shoulders. The mayor would find no chinks in her armor. Dina took advantage of her weaknesses far too often already.
Sarah felt a flare of anger when she thought of the contentious decades-long relationship between herself and the mayor. How disgraceful that Dina’s power games extended beyond the halls of high school and into the realms of public service. Hard to believe they were once the closest of friends. Why did she allow herself to be exploited by that woman while leading her family through the heartbreak of Robin’s disappearance?
She had survived tragedy her entire life and always found a way, in time and thanks to Dr. Kimball, to guide her family through the hardest situations.
Sarah hated having failed to stand up to Dina and serve her community. Far worse, Sarah hated that she had withdrawn from being a mom to her older daughters over these last months, the stress of dead-end police investigations overlapping the tension of political games.
The end. Today was a new day. Time for a fresh start. One foot in front of the other. She could miss Robin while still living in the present. Sarah took comfort from the clichés flowing through her mind, strengthening her resolve grew to regain control over all aspects of her life. She refused to look at the cluster of photos on the hutch as she strode from the kitchen. Time to be purposeful, not sentimental.
Well, maybe just a touch. Getting dressed, she donned one of her favorite autumn suits, in Robin’s preferred shade of yellow.
****
Sunny skies and a pleasant, cool breeze decorated the afternoon. Sarah pulled into her driveway, buoyed both by the weather and by the success of her earlier staff meeting.
After years of enduring the mayor’s put-downs and double-entendres, the selectmen and the mayor reached a breakthrough. At last, they made real progress in finalizing next year’s budget. Through Sarah’s diligent planning and firm insistence, they even fit in a couple special projects for the community. Matching smiles showed how pleased the other selectmen were to make headway.
By the end of the three-hour meeting, Sarah basked in the approval the mayor bestowed – grudgingly, of course. She thought it immensely satisfying, after the end of the long session, to receive that phone call from Dina. The other woman, once childhood friend and now political foe, congratulated her on her efforts and wished her a pleasant evening.
Amazing how much she still craved Dina’s approval. Even as she sought to replace her.
Sarah climbed from the sporty light-blue sedan she had purchased the month before. One more step in separating the Sarah of the present from the Sarah of the past. Jason, Robin’s father, dressed in striking suits, seeking to impress all of his potential customers. Nonetheless, the man chose to drive downright dowdy cars.
The new vehicle represented Sarah’s break of his hold on her life. He may have been a good father. Time, on the other hand, allowed her to see what a lousy husband he was. Too bad she hadn’t foreseen that during their whirlwind courtship. But then she would never have had Robin at all.
Sarah grabbed the bag of groceries full of ingredients for tonight’s steak dinner. The girls would be surprised to get two home-cooked meals in one day. They were right – she hadn’t cooked very much these last months. Without having her entire family to share mealtimes, it hadn’t seemed worth the effort.
The end, she reminded herself, ten hours after her first bout of resolve. It wasn’t the same without Robin, and nothing in the world could replace having her home again. Maybe she would come home someday. And, as Dr. Kimball reminded her, maybe she would not. Could not. She had two daughters here and now who needed her focus.
Pasting a small smile on her face, she unlocked the front door of the house and walked inside, stooping to pick up mail pooled under the slot. She continued into the kitchen and set the groceries on the counter. Silence ensconced the house. The girls had soccer practice after school, their team readying for their first game of the season. They should be home soon and would be hungry from running around on the field.
Sarah flipped quickly through the mail. Her natural sense of order dictated how she sorted as she browsed – bills in one pile, magazines for the girls in another, miscellaneous in a third.
She reached the pale yellow envelope at the bottom of the pile. In the background, she heard the front door open to admit the girls. Their voices seemed hushed, however, as she stared at the childlike writing scrawled on the envelope and the single word above her address: Mommy.
“Girls?” she called. “Did you mail me a card? Come in the kitchen, please. Let’s see what you sent me.” Insistent buzzing in her ears blocked the sound of her own voice.
“What are you talking about, Mom? We didn’t send you anything.” Elizabeth’s voice sounded puzzled.
“Why would we mail you a letter? We live with you! Besides, mail is so out. We’d send you a text if we needed something.” Kathryn finished this pronouncement as the girls entered the kitchen.
Sarah shot them an uncertain glance and pulled open the unsealed flap of the envelope. She removed a single yellow sheet and unfolded it, hands shaking.
Dear Mommy,
Help me! Please don’t be mad at me. I’m scared.
Why can’t you see me? I miss you, Mommy.
Love,
Robin
Sarah gasped and stumbled forward to grasp the counter. By the time her daughters reached her side, she could only repeat her youngest daughter’s name.
Robin.
