Third Time's a Charm

On July 22, 2011 I met Claire Darling for the very first time.  At the time, Claire was an 18-year-old high school student by morning, horse trainer by every spare hour after that.  She quickly became a friend of mine because she's sarcastic and self-deprecating, a good soul.  Two-and-a-half years and three books later, she and I are pretty tight.  I've fought for her to fall in love and I cried with her (over and over) when her heart was shattered into pieces.  She's struggled and she's endured.  She's no Super Woman, but that's why she's real.  Well, real is a relative term, but you know what I mean.

Over the past couple of years, I've come to adore good guys Liam and Graham.  I've loved to hate all those shady characters--Rayna, Rowan, and Maureen.  Maybe you've found the strings of your emotions tugged by one or more of them, too.  If that's true for you, then I thank you for investing yourself in my humble words.

There's so much I want to say, but so much I can't because I don't want to give anything away.  That, and I'm so overwhelmed by the day that I don't know where to begin and where to end.  

Maybe Liam says it best in the last paragraph I wrote today that brought the third and final novel to a close:  

"With any luck, tomorrow his big heart will eclipse anything he lacks. At least, this is what I pray as I stare out at the stars strung in the deep blue. I want him to find his own place to belong, because I’ve found that place for myself, a home, and I’m homesick."


Like Liam, I've found a home in Hope Creek and I'm already homesick. 

Thanks, guys, for everything you've given me.  You'll never know what you've done for me.

A Doll For Daphne

I press my lips together and follow him as he leads the way toward the nuns in the back.  He’s so focused he doesn’t realize a soft doll slips from one of the bags under his arm and falls to the ground.

“Liam!”  I call out.  “You--”

A girl with brown ringlets framing her round cheeks runs toward the doll before I catch Liam’s attention.  She looks both ways to be sure no one sees her, then snatches it up and into her arms.  The doll fits perfectly in the crook of her arm and a smile brightens her face.  

“Hey!  Little girl!”  I say.

She freezes and clutches the doll tightly to her body.  Her fearful blue eyes dart to me and back to the doll as I step toward her.     

“Hey!”  I repeat, coming closer.  From a few yards away I can see the tremble in her shoulders.  The little girl drops the doll and runs from me.  

I stoop down and pick the doll up from where she’s landed in a heap.  There’s a smudge of dirt on its plastic cheek and I wipe it away with my thumb.  Liam’s over talking with the nuns, and he glances my way.

“That girl--who is she?”  I ask when I reach them.  I don’t wait for introductions.  One of the nuns, the younger one with round spectacles and a pointy chin, looks like she really wants to give me a quick lesson in manners.

“I’m sorry, dear?”  The older nun says, wrinkling her forehead beneath her habit.

“There was a girl, maybe four years old.  Curly brown hair, blue eyes--or at least, I think they were blue.”  I scan the yard as I describe the little one.

The older woman smiles, bouncing the child on her hip.  “Ah.  You must mean Daphne.”

Do I mean Daphne?  I have no idea.  

“She ran from me.  Do you know where she might have gone?”

The thin, bookish nun nods towards a strand of trees near the rear of the property.  The trees are short and sparse, obviously very young, and don’t offer much shelter.  A little form huddles at the base of the one in the middle, facing away from us.

I peel back the corner of the foil around the cookies and grab a couple, then hand the tray to the young nun.  When I reach Daphne’s hiding spot, I find her with her knees tucked into her chest.  Tears streak her face, which she presses to her knees.

“Can I join you?”  I ask.  I don’t expect an answer, and she doesn’t disappoint.  I sink to the grass, leaving several feet between us.  “My name is Claire.  They told me your name is Daphne.”

She remains quiet except for a soft shudder.

“Daphne’s such a pretty name,”  I continue.  “A pretty name for a pretty girl.”

The little girl raises her head to glare at me.  Blossoms of crimson burn at her cheeks.  “Go away.”  She hides her face again.

I place the doll next to her gently, so gently I’m not sure she knows I’ve done it.  “That’s a nice doll you have there.”

Daphne brings her head up again and starts to say something angry.  Our eyes connect and I glance down at the doll laying next to her.  She looks down, too, and then back at me.

“It’s okay, pick her up.”  I say.  “I brought her for you.  I knew you would take very good care of her.”

The girl scoops the doll into her arms again and snuggles her little cheek against its plastic face.  Her eyes squeeze shut in joy.  When she opens them again, I smile.  “Would you like a cookie?”

She nods and tentatively takes the cookie from my outstretched hand.  Daphne reminds me a lot of Taran--flighty, suspicious, and upset.  Like Taran, I don’t push her.  I eat my cookie as she eats hers. When it's gone I stand up and slip away.  She doesn’t follow behind me like the horse does, but that’s okay.

Right Away, Great Captain!

I'm guilty of turning on an album and leaving it on repeat for days.  Months, even.  My husband hates this about me because he and I tend to have very opposite tastes in music (him:  Anything Country.  Me:  Florence + the Machine, which is totally a genre, by the way!).  Though it's not working at the moment, we had an iPod jack in our room where we could plug in our iPods or phones and play our music over speakers in the ceiling or on the porch.

At some point while Moe was sick, I turned on Right Away, Great Captain and left it on.  I remember walking away from  his still-warm but lifeless body on the grass and wandering back to the house wondering what could possibly be left without him.  The only thing to do was crawl into bed in the middle of a sunny day and cry.  Right Away, Great Captain crooned me to sleep on that horrible, beautiful day.  I let it play on in the days to follow because it held Moe and I together, this thread of mournful music.

Tonight I'm getting ready to say good-bye to one of my characters and I don't want to because it's like letting my boy slip through my fingers again.  My heart hurts and it feels right to play Right Away, Great Captain! again to pull myself back into the grief.  

It's no more than two lines into the first song before I can see him stumbling and feel his slick neck against my cheek.  The curl of dread tightens in my belly as I watch the vet check his pupils and slowed breathing over and over and over until he is satisfied and I know it's done.  I'm broken, with pieces that will never go back together quite right.

Sixteen months and it surprises me how sharp the pain still is and how little it takes to bring me back to that good-bye.  That is the power and wonder of art.

Oh.  How will I ever do this?

Joy

Do you know joy?  I do.

I hear it in the giggle of the girl bouncing along with her pony's trot.

Do you know joy?  I do.

I see it in the grin of the man whose legs cannot move him, but his horse can.

Do you know joy?  I do.

I feel it in the happy step of an animal connecting with their human.

Do you know joy?  You should.

The Problem

Liam

When I finally felt steady enough to rejoin Alfie, he'd moved on to replacing a broken fence board in one of the paddocks.  He didn't say a word about my breakdown, and I’m thankful for it.  I helped him in silence, holding the plank steady as he secured it to the fence post with a hammer and several nails.  Alfie was getting on in years, he shouldn’t be doing this work on his own.  

He took a breather after the next board was up, and stared off towards the few horses still living here.  

“Tell me about the horses, Alf.  It’s nice to see you, but they’re why I’m here.”

Alfie swiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand then gave a short nod.  “I hated to bring you back, y’know, but with Rowan out of the picture, I didn’t know who to ask.  Besides, you always were better with the horses than him.  He’s got a wicked temper, that one.”

“That he does.”  I agreed.   

We walked down the fence row until we stood in front of one of the few occupied enclosures.  “We’ve got six horses still here, but no one with any horse sense at all wants to help with them, especially the one mare in particular.”  I turned my head in the direction he's looking, toward the rear of the paddock to our right.  When she noticed us watching, the dark horse inside snapped her body into alert, her head high, eyes wide, and ears pricked.  Minus her sun-bleached coat from living outdoors, she was a nice-looking horse and would make someone a fine jumper.  The bone structure was all there, I could see it, but so was the fear.  The longer we stared, the more her terror echoed back.  Without taking her eyes or ears from us, she shrank back against the fence.

“That’s Tarantella.”

I scrunched up my face.  “Tarantula?  Like the spider?”  

“No, no.  Tarantella.  It’s a dance--Spanish, you know?”  Alfie hummed a tune and snapped his fingers as he crossed and uncrossed his arms a couple of times and shuffled his feet.  It looked like no dance I’d ever seen or probably would ever see again, thank heavens.  

With a shake of my head, I said, "You'd better stick to horses, Alf."  

He chuckled and stopped dancing, "Anyway, Tarantella... she was going by the name ‘Taran’, but some of the kids started on with calling her ‘Spider’, so you’re not so far off.”

Spider wasn't a friendly kind of nickname. I wasn't sure what to think about that.

I unlatched the gate to her paddock and walked inside.  Taran pinned herself up against the boards of the fence in response, but otherwise regarded me with curiosity.  “She looks all right,”  I said, fastening the gate closed behind me.  “So, then, what’s the problem?”

It happened then, quite literally, with the blink of an eye.  The dark horse studied me for all of three seconds before blinking her eye and charging after me.  There was no time to fumble with the gate--she’d be on me before I could have made it that far, anyway.  My only option was to climb the fence, and with any luck I would be faster than her.  With thundering hooves at my back, I launched myself at the fence and scrambled over.  Taran clamped her teeth around the heel of my boot before I could swing it over.  The old man was doubled over laughing at me dangling in a rather unpleasant position, with one leg in safety, the other in a wild horse’s mouth, and my crotch somewhere in the middle.  

“That,”  He sighed, wiping the tears from his eyes, “is our problem.”

Grab On and Go For It! - An Interview with Rebecca Lamoreaux

Three-year-old Rebecca Lamoreaux wanted to be a writer.  Writing, at her young age, translated into etching circles into the margins of her books with crayon.  She loved dreaming up fantastic tales and then retelling them to others.  The magic of stories had clearly captured her heart.     

Her grade school teachers nurtured Rebecca’s love of storytelling.  When she was about seven years old, she was selected to participate in a special program for students who showed promise in writing.  Through this program, Rebecca remembers finishing her first story.  She has been writing ever since.  

Though she has dabbled in all kinds of genres, she mainly writes fantasy, romance, historical fiction, and magical realism.  Her historical romance novel, Lord Hyacinthe, is scheduled for publication through Pandamoon Publishing in April of 2014.  

Rebecca places high value on sharing within the writing community, but she did not always feel that way.  For years she viewed other writers as competition and feared her ideas might be stolen if she confided in the wrong person.  Her perspective changed when a friend contacted her in November of 2012 and invited her to join a group of authors on Facebook.  The Authors Think Tank group on Facebook became Rebecca’s first experience with a community of writers committed to helping other writers.  So impressed with groups such as the Author Think Tank, she sought out more writing communities.  Rebecca joined ANWA, American Night Writer’s Association, a network for women writers who are also affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  The best thing she did for her writing career was attending writer’s conferences.  After meeting other writers at an ANWA conference, Rebecca’s writing improved because of the influence of her growing writing community.  And when a publisher came across her novel during a contest on Twitter, a panicked Rebecca turned to her community to help tighten up her story and help her land her book deal.  

Rebecca’s advice to me, a floundering writer staring down self-publishing after turning down a book deal?  “Grab on and go for it!”

She knows what she’s talking about.

***

Check out Rebecca’s blog out at http://rebeccalamoreaux-anauthorinprogress.blogspot.com, or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/AuthorRebeccaLamoreaux

I Don't Want to Fight

The young couple doesn't see it coming, their convertible top down and wrapped up in the warmth of the day.  My family and I see it, though.

We're waiting in a line of cars at a stoplight when half a dozen guys pile out of a car ahead of us, and it's clear they're up to no good.  Some of the men have wrapped their knuckles with thick chains, and others clutch empty beer bottles by their necks.  They're stalking towards the cute couple who haven't noticed them yet, and my stomach twists with realization.

My son-in-law, Bert, jumps out of the car before we can stop him.  My daughter claws at his shirt and tries to scream some sense in to his brain, but it's no use.  Bert's always had a strong sense of justice.  Either that or he doesn't put much value on his own life.

The light changes and the convertible speeds off before the thugs reach them, but their group is still looking for a target and they set their sights on the most likely target:  Bert.  It happens in slow motion, but it still happens.  One of the guys smashes his bottle over Bert's head and blood trickles in his face.

I don't want to fight.  There's three times as many of them as there are of us.  I'm not much of a gambler, but those odds aren't good, even with a firecracker like Bert on your side.  Like it or not, though, I can't leave him out there alone.  They'll kill him.  With a backward glance at my wife, daughter, and young son, I bolt from the car and into the battle.  I still don't want to fight.

Two-to-one.  If we survive this, I might kill Bert myself.

I don't see the guy until he's clocked me in the side of the head and I'm sprawled on the ground.  He brings the pointed toes of his boots to my face and kicks me over and over, sending spikes of pain through my jaw and behind my eyelids.  It's not enough to him that I am on the ground, that I didn't want this fight.  It's obvious that he won't stop until he's made his point clear.  As far as I'm concerned, the point of his shoe has done quite enough talking.

Elise flies from the car and launches herself on the back of my attacker.  On her way out of the car, she grabbed the closest thing in reach, a can of oil, which she now uses to hammer away at his thick skull.  She stuns him long enough to give me a chance to stagger to my feet, but I can't stop him from wrenching her free and kicking her in the face with those horrible, awful boots.

I didn't want to fight.

We drive ourselves, licking our wounds, to General Hospital.  Bert needs stitches, and I'm not sure what Elise and I need.  A uniformed officer comes to arrest us for beating up a group of men, but his mouth and the charges drop when he surveys our assortment of injuries.  

A couple days later our friend Benny takes in Elise's cuts and bruises and asks us to name names.  "You'll never hear from those guys again," he vows.  I don't doubt Benny one bit, and I appreciate the gesture, but I don't tell him anything.

Our bruises haven't healed up before one of the smaller thugs struts into the store.  He's alone and looking for another fight.  The tips of Bert's ears flame as he orders him off the property.  I keep an eye on the man as he slinks away toward the restaurant next door.  A wave of rage courses through me and I think how easy it would be to get my revenge on just one man, the runt of the bunch.  With a shake of my head, I turn away from the window where I have a clear view of him glaring over at us.

I don't want to fight.