This week’s writing news is that the editing on Lies, Magic, and Nightmares continues–the dang manuscript is still over 150,000 words in length, so I’m searching for any bloat I can find to cut from the novel since longer book = higher print costs.
But back to the excerpt of the week. Here we go with this week’s section from Part Two of Soul Cages (PG-13). If you’re just joining us, you can find links to the sections of Part One here.
Soul Cages
L. M. May
Copyright © 2011 by L. M. May
Published by Osuna Publishing
This story is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, dialogue, and locales are either drawn from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, and locales is entirely coincidental.
Part Two. Broken Masks
25
Even through my bedroom door I heard Dad. He yelled, “You drag me all the way home, in the middle of the work day, for this! Honestly, Kelly, it could have waited until tonight.”
I opened my door a crack. From the sound of it, my parents had paused outside the kitchen. I couldn’t quite make out Mom’s response.
“Give me a break!” Dad bellowed. “What is this, a contest between you and Gena on who has the most perfect kids?” Lower, he added, “We don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning such a competition. Marian isn’t perfect, by any means, and well—Henry is Henry.”
Mom murmured something while crying.
“Yes,” Dad said, irritation in his voice. “I do believe in Pastor Andervender’s healing gift, and I do want him to help Henry. I had a long talk with Mr. Rickmand and Mrs. Girady on Sunday. Their stories are remarkable—even more so than when you interviewed them by phone.”
From Mom’s tones, she was pleading for something.
“All right, all right. I’ll talk to Marian now. But look, then I’m taking the car and going straight back to work.” A pause, probably Dad looking at the time. “I can at least make the one o’clock staff meeting.”
I heard them move into the bedroom hall, so I got away from my door and messed around with a half-empty moving box.
Mom said, “I’m going to lie down. I can’t take anymore of this right now.”
“What?” Dad said. “Don’t you want to hear what Marian has to say?”
“No. I just can’t handle it right now. Tell me how it goes.” The main bedroom door slammed shut.
He rapped on my open door. “Marian, can I come in?”
“Sure.” I grabbed stacks of notebooks and pencils out of the box, and put them in my desk.
“Well, uh, I hear there was an argument this morning.” Dad closed the door behind him, and stood there, fiddling with his cell phone clip.
I sat in my desk chair and leaned against its back for support. And I thought about the ugly meeting with Andervender, and Mom’s outrage, and wondered if Dad would blame me for what had happened.
Dad blew out a breath. “I hear you and Trent got, ahem, close, and you didn’t tell us about it.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I thought we were in love. I broke up with him not long after we started ‘being close.’ Found out he was seeing Sage behind my back.”
“Ah. That explains a lot.” Dad nodded. “That’s the problem with guys, give them what they want, they run off. Save yourself for marriage.” Dad eyed my waist. “You and Trent broke up in January…”
I wanted to sink through the chair in embarrassment. “I didn’t get pregnant.” Dad twitched as I said pregnant. “And when I found out he’d been cheating on me, I got tested even though I made him use a—” I floundered, “protection. Everything tested okay.”
“Oh. You do realize you’ve been lucky?”
“Yeah.” I rested my chin on my hand. If I could have, I would have gone back in time to erase my entire relationship with Trent, but that was impossible.
“Look, I made bad mistakes myself before I met your mother—but she’s right to be angry about you not telling us what was going on. You lied to us about Trent.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Take it from me. It’s not worth it. Wait until you’ve gotten married.” Dad turned beet red. “And if you got questions that need answering, you can ask me.” He opened his arms, and I walked over for his hug.
Then Dad stepped back but held onto my hands. “Your mother is going through a hard time right now. If we don’t find a cure for Henry, we’ll be taking care of him for the rest of our lives, and then you’ll be taking care of him for the rest of yours. She wants to live a life that’s more meaningful, and we need to support her in that.”
I opened my mouth to protest.
“Yes, I know Pastor Andervender is too far out there for you. I’m finding him a bit whacked on a few things myself. But being in his church with her best friend makes your mom happy. And she’s been miserable since Henry’s diagnosis. We owe it to her to let her be happy for a little while.” He let go of my hands. “I know you want to go Juan Tabo, but for Henry’s sake you need to consider going to First Beginnings instead. He’s going to be schooled there. There’s much you could teach them about how to handle a kid with Asperger’s.”
Every word felt like a brick dropped onto my back to carry. I can’t do this, it’s too much.
Dad chucked me under the chin. “That’s my girl.” He sighed. “Well, I’m going to let your mother know we’ve talked it all out, grab a sandwich, and then head back in. I’ll be a bit late tonight.”
I had the nagging suspicion he was telling me so I could break the news to Mom when he didn’t come home at six.
************** End of Part Two. 25. *****************
If you are reading this after December 23, 2013, you should be able to click here to go to the main information page of Soul Cages to find Part Two. 26.
Soul Cages is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Smashwords, iBookstore, Kobo, and other e-bookstores. A print edition is now available on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and through independent bookstores either in stock or through order (ISBN-13 is 978-0615870465). Links can change over time, so click here to go to the main page for Soul Cages if any links don’t work.
Cheers, L.M.
Filed under: L. M. May, News, Soul Cages, Story Samples
