Novel Bites: Maria’s Secret

Novel Bites is a series of short stories from the perspective of secondary characters in my novels. Sometimes the story is straight from the novel, sometimes it’s not – this one is not. Maria’s husband is Joe in Running Away and Peg’s Story (soon to be released). Please comment. Thanks.

“Peggy Sue, Peggy Sue” – Buddy Holly’s song haunts my husband.

Every time it plays, Joe’s gaze turns inward and saddens. I know he’s thinking of Peg, a girl he knew briefly as I planned flowers and music for our wedding.

It’s not what you think. It’s not that kind of connection between them. He was her white knight one sunny day when she most needed one. He rescued her, listened to her, soothed her with stories, and got her safely home – at least with no more damage.

Today, he would have talked her into going to the hospital, stood by her as she talked to police and pressed charges against the boys who so callously used her body. My Joe understands that body and mind and spirit cannot be separated, that what injures one injures all parts of the being. So when he hears that song and remembers, he blames himself for not knowing more than he did at the time, for not being more than he knew how to be.

Joe confessed to me, after his last visit to his brother in Canada, that he’d driven back to the place he dropped her off,  and asked a stranger raking leaves in a yard if a girl named Peg lived in that neighborhood.

The stranger pointed to a house. “She used to live there.”

She ran away and they were told she was swept away by the flood that ruined my wedding plans. Her loss was of course the more tragic event, but the wedding, moved from a riverside venue to a small chapel at the last minute, with a fraction of the guests able to attend, that is what marks the time for me. That she died here haunts my husband – he wonders if she came looking for him, hoping he could help her again, or perhaps still searching for deliverance from her trauma?

And this is why I have a secret from my partner in life. Not from any foolish jealousy. He treasures me – there’s no insecurity between us. No, I hold secret from him that which would only deepen his unreasonable sense that he failed this stranger somehow. It is a secret I share with his aunt. You see, the girl did come looking for my beloved.

She was thin and pale and impressed his aunt as old for her age. It had to have been her, though despite the circumstances in which they met, my husband admitted she was quite pretty with a figure that may have drawn unwanted attention. Auntie says the girl came only the one time, looking quite desperate, and quick to believe when told the Joe she sought was out of the country on his honeymoon. We agree he doesn’t need his guilt reinforced by that knowledge.

Since Auntie shared her story, I share my husband’s unreasonable guilt.

On our wedding day, the storm had passed and the waters had begun to recede, leaving their destruction behind. When we saw the state of the garden by the river, my mother suggested waiting a year for the venue to heal, but I didn’t want to abandon our honeymoon trip to Europe. When I shocked her by suggesting my virginity would not last another year and any wedding that late might be with a rounded belly in the gown, she helped me find the small chapel where my beloved and I exchanged our vows on the date we’d planned.

So you see, the girl was not swept away by the flood waters. She came looking for my Joe while we were on our honeymoon.

But believing she is dead must be easier for her family than always wondering what became of her. I know it would only haunt my husband more to know she may still be out there, still trying to put body, mind, and soul back together.

I know she haunts me.

www.sherimcguinn.com www.amazon.com/author/sherimcguinn

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm8459664/

#lifechangers #sherimcguinn #resilience #NewAdult #runningaway #Lifetimemovie #novels #survivors #womensfiction #freefiction #novelexcerpt #novelbites #metoo #family #rape #MeToo #DefiningMoments

Novel Bites: Nina’s Thanksgiving

Novel Bites is a series of short stories from the perspective of secondary characters in my novels. Sometimes the story is straight from the novel, sometimes it’s not. Nina is Alice’s daughter and narrator of the book, Alice. This is a Thanksgiving when she was younger, before the events in Alice. Please comment. Thanks.

Mom pulls the oven rack out enough to poke the withered orange lumps with a fork.

“Done!” She pulls the pans out and puts them on top of the stove. Eight halves of those little pumpkins she says are the best for pies, face down on cookie sheets.

“Why don’t you just use the canned stuff, like a normal person,” I grumble. I’m twelve and my mother’s no longer perfect.

She shrugs that off. “They taste better from fresh pumpkin.”

“Did you have pies like this when you were a kid? Is that it?” I dig at the issue.

“Yes.” Then she changes the subject like she always does. “We need to let these cool before we scoop them out. Are the ginger snaps ready to roll?”

She won’t ever talk about her childhood. I know her mother died when she was born and she was brought up by her father, and that’s about it. I’m not even sure if he’s dead or alive, and I don’t think she knows, either. But I bet someone always made pumpkin pies this way for the holidays when she was little. I bet she had normal Thanksgiving dinners. We never have.

“Nina.” Her voice breaks into my thoughts. “The cookie dough?”

We mixed up the cookie batter first thing this morning and it’s been cooling in the refrigerator while the pumpkins cooked. Mom’s efficient about energy use – we’ll bake the cookies while the oven’s still warm.

“Yup. All four batches.” I pull the first roll out of the fridge and start peeling the wax paper around it open. We have to make our cookies from scratch, too. Always. Mom won’t buy the frozen stuff. We’ll make six kinds of Christmas cookies, too, everything from the basics of flour, sugar, butter . . . not margarine, no way, not for Mom.

I’d get it if we had family that expected all this tradition stuff, but we don’t. It’s just us. And we’ll take the cookies and pies to the homeless shelter this year and have our Thanksgiving feast there, with a bunch of smelly people who won’t take off their coats because they’re afraid of having them stolen, and raggedy little kids running around screaming. When I was little, we’d go to a soup kitchen. The people there were usually cleaner. Most of them still had homes, I guess.

I try one more time. “Why can’t we go to the soup kitchen instead?”

Mom gives me the look, the one that says we’ve already been over this. There aren’t as many volunteers at the homeless shelter and I need to be less judgmental. If she lost her job, we could end up homeless.

But she’s a teacher and she’s been doing it long enough to have tenure, which means they can’t just fire her. She’d have to like murder someone in class or the school would have to collapse or something. She’s also dead set on this Thanksgiving tradition.

“I’ll help you with all the cooking, but I’m not going this year.” I try to sound as firm as she does when she’s giving me no choice. “Mary invited me to their house.”

Mom just looks at me. I’m not sure if she’s disappointed or what. But she’s not saying “No” right away, so maybe there’s a chance.

I work on it. “They’re having the whole family, her cousins I met last summer and a bunch more relatives, so one more won’t be any problem. Her mother said it was okay.”

Mom sighs and nods. “You’ve never had that kind of Thanksgiving. You should. It’s special.”

“I can go?” I almost didn’t bother asking! And she caved right away!

She smiles like it hurts and blinks like maybe she’s holding back tears, but she nods yes and I hug her, hard.

“Thanks, Mom!”

“I’ll miss you.” She says it quietly and it tugs at my heart, but this is something I need to do.

Guilt makes me try to explain. “I need to have one Thanksgiving with a bunch of people who know and care about each other, not strangers sharing an especially big meal.”

“I know,” she says. “When I was little, we didn’t have real family, but we had a huge group of friends who gathered together for the holidays – and baked the pumpkins for the pies – then when I was older, it was just two of us, and sometimes we ended up . . . anyway, yes, you can spend this holiday with Mary and her family. It’ll be good for you.”

“Were you homeless?” Maybe that’s why she never talks about it.

She smiles as if she’s having a memory that makes her feel warm. “Between homes. Sometimes we were between homes. Go call Mary, then get back here and help me with these cookies.”

www.sherimcguinn.com www.amazon.com/author/sherimcguinn

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm8459664/

#resilience #backstory #YA #freefiction #YoungAdultFiction #Alice #strongwomen #fiction #GivingThanks

Novel Bites: Lizzie from Running Away

Novel Bites is a series of short stories from the perspective of secondary characters in my novels. Sometimes the story is straight from the novel, sometimes it’s not. Lizzie is sister to Maggie, daughter of Peg. This is the part of Lizzie's story. Please comment. Thanks.

Lizzie's Story

John Swanson has only been in our class for a week. I think he’s trying to be noticed by playing devil’s advocate.

Mr. Ludes doesn’t mind. He likes any class participation. He pushes up his glass as he says, “Tyrants come to power by manipulating public opinion and often by doing things that are right. Remember, the Great Depression was world-wide. People in Germany were starving. Hitler promised to make things better, and he did. Employment increased when he first came to power. And he started youth groups—that sounds like a good thing, doesn’t it? Hitler seemed like a hero to many people.”

“Well, they all must have been really stupid, then,” John snorts.

“No! They weren’t stupid.” My voice startles me, and the rest of the class. I’ve been very quiet this year.

Mr. Ludes grins. We are actively engaged in learning.

John mutters something that makes the people near him snicker.

I stare at my fingertips with their raw cuticles where I’ve been chewing and ripping bits of my own flesh. My voice is quiet but steady. “When people are evil, they’re really good at hiding it. In fact, that’s what makes the difference between someone who does some bad things and someone who really is bad.”

“Yeah, right. Sounds like Sunday school crap.” John snorts. His buddies grin.

I pull my hands into fists so I don’t see the bloody evidence. “No. It’s not from church.” I don’t even go to church, except the support group meets there.

Mr. Ludes asks us to think about it. “You’re old enough, there’s probably been a time someone tricked you, or broke a promise, or seemed nicer than they were.”

I stop listening and stare out the window. Looking off into the sky is the centering technique that helps me hold it together when I want to scream. When I glance back at the clock, the eyes of another girl who never talks catch mine and hold for a moment. We instantaneously share knowledge we don’t want to have. The bell rings and we escape together.

“I’m Cindy,” she says. “Wanna ditch lunch?”

We slip out to a spot under the bleachers where we can have privacy. Her story is my sister’s, abuse by a step-father, delivered in short, tough phrases. Mine is different.

“At first, we both thought he was a creep. And Maggie did start acting out, but he made her sound so much worse, especially next to me. Mom had always taken it for granted that I’d do well in school, but Richard made a big deal about every A. He convinced Mom to let me babysit on school nights, and when he caught me sneaking one of his beers to take with me, he just winked and pretended he hadn’t seen anything. I was the good girl; Maggie was evil or on her way to it.”

“Guess I was lucky I don’t have a sister,” Cindy says.

“I was beginning to like him.” I swallow hard. “When Maggie complained about the way he treated her, I ignored her and figured it had a lot to do with the way she was acting.” I can’t hold them in anymore – the tears stream down my face. “I blamed her in my head, even though I never came out and said it. Our counseling group says he was manipulating both of us, that I shouldn’t feel bad. Maggie even says not to worry about it.”

“She must really love you.”

“She does. But it’s not just that I feel guilty. I would have been next . . . What if someone else tricks me?” My fear is reflected in Cindy’s eyes. Will we ever be whole?

www.sherimcguinn.com http://www.amazon.com/author/sherimcguinn

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm8459664/

#runningaway #acquaintancerape #sexabuse #YA #genocide #freefiction #YoungAdultFiction #metoo #fiction #powerandrape #MeToo