Category: Writing

Do We Need a New Bible?

On By AnnIn Activism, Earth care, Healing, poetry, social justice2 Comments

The solar energy system on our house came online in July 2011. For the next fourteen years, few days passed when our inverter reported no energy produced by the sun. Then, in June this summer, it all changed. The status window on the inverter, a necessary device that converts the direct current produced by the sun to alternating current for use in our home, toggled error messages constantly during daylight hours. “Peak overvolt,” “AC Voltage Low,” “AC Voltage High.” Production ceased. Given my determination to support the national Sun Day (https://www.sunday.earth)  on September 21 with a local event, we had to do something! An error-ridden system just would not suffice.

The people who installed our system are no longer in that business, so I called local electricians to help diagnose the problem. But we were put on a back-logged wait list, with no real intent to take us off since we were not a priority for the local electricity experts.

I turned to a recommended solar company headquartered ninety miles away. Weeks passed with no appreciable action, but after the devastating baseball sized hailstorm damaged several Solar installations in Ark City, a repair and maintenance specialist from this company stopped to take a look. He found nothing wrong, and assumed there was an issue with a computer chip in the inverter. His advice was to do a hard reset, that is, turn off the whole system for ten days to two weeks to allow the capacitors inside to fully discharge, then turn it on and hope for the best.

It didn’t resolve the error messaging.

I reported back to the solar company and declared that we were ready to replace the inverter and upgrade our home system. That’s when things became interesting.

On Friday afternoon, J, a system designer/project manager, arrived to do a site visit. We agreed on a 3:00 time via email messages. And at precisely 3:00, his white company pickup rolled to a stop in front of our house.

He’s punctual. Impressive.

J chatted about options as he took pictures of several important components in our system, utility meters, and structures on the property. A friendly, 40-something bearded man, he easily answered our questions. I noticed ear piercings as well as tattoos on his forearms. One tattoo was a caterpillar. Another broadcast in a fairly large font, “Practice Resurrection.”

Who was this guy? What did that mean, practice resurrection? Was he part of a strict religious cult? A rigid fundamentalist?

His knowledge of everything solar was obvious and the time flew by. It crossed my mind to ask about the tattoo, yet in the end I let it be. But later, that phrase wouldn’t let me be and I did a search. It turns out that “Practice resurrection” is part of a poem by Wendell Berry.

This system designer for a solar company has poetry tattooed on his arm for all the world to see. Wendell Berry, no less. Impressive!

My encounter with Wendell Berry and his writing has been a meandering path. Earlier this summer, a good friend presented me with an envelope that held a poem by Wendell Berry. M turned to this poem when he needed solace and he wanted to share it with me. That well-worn envelope is in the bag I carry daily. I shared the “practice resurrection” poem with M that evening, whereupon he loaned me Poetry of Presence II, a small volume of poems he didn’t want to part with permanently. It included a few by Wendell Berry, and M urged me to take a look at the poet’s life.

“Look him up,” he said.

Wendell Berry is not to be confused with Thomas Berry, whose book The Dream of the Earth is one of my cherished tomes. Still, there are similar themes in their writing. A thumbnail bio in the back of the loaned poetry book tells me that Wendell Berry writes poetry, essays, and novels. He is an environmentalist “with one primary message: Either we humans will learn to respect and live in harmony with the natural rhythms of this planet, or we will perish.”

Yes. That is prophecy. And Wendell Berry’s important message becomes clearer by the day as humans who have no business leading us continue to lead us toward devastation. It smacks me that this poet’s words have been swimming through my consciousness for years. I have one of his novels in my treasured books collection—as yet unread, but it’s on my list. It just moved a little higher.

There are eleven of Wendell Berry’s poems in my revered 1991 copy of Earth Prayers from Around the World: 365 Prayers, Poems, and Invocations for Honoring the Earth. Included in this volume is an excerpt from the poem that concludes with the words, “Practice Resurrection.”

What, exactly, does that mean? A description that popped up in another search. To practice resurrection means to embody the spirit of new life, hope, and transformation in the face of death, despair or brokenness. Often this is accomplished in acts of faith and love, through perseverance. It involves a daily commitment to find new life in death, to cultivate resilience, to see possibilities for redemption in difficult situations.

That, my inner voice says, is what we need right now, a sense of partnership with the creative Spirit responsible for all life on our amazing planet.  That, my inner voice adds, is the theme of the novel I’m currently writing. That inner voice, I swear, also adds, that may be the theme of many great works of fiction through the ages.

Excerpts from Berry’s poetic verse prompt more from my nagging inner voice.

Berry: “So, friends, . . . love someone who does not deserve it.”

Fell: Love is the greatest power. Believe it.

Berry: “Denounce the government and embrace the flag. Hope to live in that free republic for which it stands.”

Fell: Berry, who is 91 in 2025, wrote this before 1991. How did he know?!

Berry: “Give your approval to all you cannot understand. Praise ignorance, for what man has not encountered he has not destroyed.”

Fell: And everything he has encountered, he is in the process of destroying.

Berry: “ . . . please women more than men . . .”

Fell: Hear, hear!

Berry: “Put your faith in the two inches of humus that will build under the trees every thousand years. Listen to carrion . . .”

Fell: The cycle of life; from death comes new life.

Berry: “Laugh. Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.”

Fell: Not the fake facts. Consider the factual facts. This is a difficult thing, and yet, laughter is healing. When one can laugh, one can love.

Berry: “As soon as the generals and the politicos can predict the motions of your mind, lose it. . . make tracks in the wrong direction.”

Fell: I am losing my mind.

Berry: “Practice resurrection.”

Which brings me back to the topic of this essay. We need a new Bible. There. I’ve said the thing that’s been on my mind a long time—like decades. Writers know that communication is a give-and-take experience. Half a conversation belongs to the listener. Half the communication through reading belongs to the reader. Given the infinite life experiences of any single life (no two are alike) each reader may interpret a sentence, a verse, a chapter or a book in ways that astonish the writer. This has happened to me, when readers express things they got from my writing that I didn’t know were there. And so, in 2025, with our lives so very different from the ages when scriptures were written, is it any wonder that we misconstrue, misunderstand, and misrepresent the ancient verse?

When our scriptures offer some people excuses to act in cruelty with arrogance rather than teach us how to get along, there is something wrong. When our holy verse teaches that some humans have more rights than others, this is not good. We need lessons and prayers that include reverence and consideration for all peoples around the world, for all life forms created by the Spirit from elements on Earth; we need to cherish and care for the planet as She has cared for us. We need inclusive Scriptures, not exclusive retaliatory verse. We need the insights of various faiths that developed in different locations, including those of indigenous peoples. Inclusive, not exclusive. We need to learn to respect each other, to love with abandon, and to honor those forces and cycles that brought us into being, be they of heaven or of Earth.

We need to practice resurrection.

 

 

Another Broken Treaty

On By AnnIn Activism, Author friends, Earth care, Eldering, social justiceLeave a comment
Painting by Ardith Fell

Last fall I met Haskell Indian Nations University professor Daniel Wildcat at the Kansas Book Fair in Topeka. He spoke about his recent book On Indigenuity: Learning the Lessons of Mother Earth (2023 Fulcrum Publishing). Robin Wall Kimmerer calls the book “a compelling framework to rethink the role of the western worldview . . .” His presentation proved compelling as well. I left with a deep sense of gratitude for indigenous leadership in these trying times, and an autographed copy of his book.

That was before the 2024 election reduced our hope for a viable future on this planet to warm ashes. One of the latest hits to our collective understanding of America was the firing of 30% of Haskell’s staff on Valentine’s Day this year. Students were left mid-semester without mentors and instructors. Banned faculty evidently faced arrest should they set foot on campus to teach, even at no compensation. Volunteers require federal approval.

Friends in Lawrence tell me that Haskell is one of two schools the government supports through treaties to provide higher education to Native Americans. The other is Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institution. Both schools had significant cuts enacted on Valentine’s Day.

Another treaty with the Indians, broken like many before.

Do we care?

As Daniel writes in his book, “. . . not caring is too lonely a space to occupy.” He exhorts us in an opening poem to “Stand up. For those whose voices are silenced . . . Stand up. With those who fight for justice unmoved by fear and moved by love.”

As he autographed the book I had purchased, I asked how to express gratitude in his native language. Smiling, he coached me.

Thus: For the long-suffering spirit of resilience that never gives up; for the leadership in treating our home planet with the reverence it deserves; for the quick willingness to forgive us European settlers eons of arrogant thoughtlessness—

Sonjae Keriocitae.

(my attempt at phonetic spelling of the Yuchee/Creek expression for “Thank you.” Any inaccuracies belong to me, the student, not to Prof. Wildcat.)

Let us stand up for the Native Americans and others now, as the rogue government rips uncaring through our communities.

Painting by Ardith Fell

Rise Up and Ride

On By AnnIn In the Shadow of the Wind, Just for Today, Nature, Prairie talesLeave a comment

Never, no never, did nature say one thing and wisdom say another.  (Edmund Burke)

Heading to Wichita years ago for a Sunday dinner with my husband’s parents, a stiff breeze buffeted our car.

“Look out for that bird!” I yelled. “Why do they do that?”

“Do what?” Craig asked from the driver’s seat.

“Fly at the car. You know, when we’re driving along, it seems like most of the birds sitting on the roadside wait until we’re almost there and then jump into our path. Haven’t you noticed? That last one was a close call.”

“You’ve heard of bird brains, haven’t you?”

“Very funny. Well then, why don’t half of them fly the other way? No wonder so many birds get hit by cars.”

“There’s another reason.”

“What’s that?”

“The wind. It depends what direction the wind is blowing. Watch. There are a couple of meadowlarks up on the crest of the next hill. They will jump into the wind—right at us—to get airborne.”

I studied the larks as we approached. Sure enough, just before we achieved the crest, they each leapt directly into the path of our car. They swerved sharply and fluttered to the north, over a dormant winter pasture.

“Why not just fly away from the car to begin with?”

“They get lift a lot faster if they jump into the wind,” he said.

“Really? You mean they couldn’t fly if they didn’t meet the wind head-on?”

“Pretty much. It probably depends on wind velocity. I think if the wind isn’t too strong, they could take off with a breeze, but it would take more effort to get airborne going with the wind. You see how they turn and go with the wind once they get in the air?”

We watched another pair of meadowlarks follow the same pattern.

“They know they can get up faster heading into the wind, and if the wind is too strong they won’t get lift unless they face into it,” he said.

~~

Since the inauguration of #47, I have felt like one of those larks. A barrage of insane and appalling executive orders sweeps from the White House with category 5 hurricane force, devastating every state in the union regardless of geographic location or political leaning. I don’t know how to begin to resist the devastation, or even to absorb all the news. You may feel the same way. But unless we get out there to face the onslaught and jump headlong into the gale force winds, we’re sunk. In whatever way each of us can manage, we need to launch against the wind of insanity and rise above it to soar toward a better future. Don’t run. Don’t hide. Don’t ignore the news. Instead, rise up and ride on the wings of the wind. It will make a difference for our future.

The Legacy of Marvin Swanson

On By AnnIn Marvin Swanson, My Favorite Giants, WritingLeave a comment

When Covid rudely interrupted life for most of us, my series of Swanson quotations took a long break. This year I plan to return to sharing some special words left to me by my good friend, writing coach, and life mentor, Marvin Swanson. Though Marvin has been gone nearly 25 years, for me his memory lives on, as well as important lessons shared through the collection of letters he sent me.

Born in western Kansas in 1923, Marvin became afflicted with debilitating arthritis when yet a teenager. For over thirty years, he was an instructor of writing at Fort Hays State University and the University of Kansas, through correspondence courses. Living close to the campus of FHSU, he rented rooms to students and served as a mentor and a kind of foster-parent to those who shared his walls.

Marvin was a founding member of the Western Kansas Association on Concerns of the Disabled. The founding principle, possibly penned by Marvin himself, reads:

We, the members of the Western Kansas Association on Concerns of the Disabled, believe that all disabled persons, regardless of their disability, have the right to choose their own lifestyle. Along with this right comes responsibility. Therefore, we also believe that all disabled persons, no matter the degree of disability, can and should contribute something to society. We have dedicated ourselves and WKACD to the continuation of these principles.”

If contributions could be measured, those of Marvin Edgerton Swanson would rank among the highest humanity has to offer. Though imprisoned in a body wracked with pain, he transcended that condition. His mind, ever observant and quick to compile subtle nuances into gems of wisdom, connected with people of all ages to contribute to the betterment of life for all.

I met Marvin when I attended college at FHSU. We corresponded regularly until shortly before his death. His arthritis compromised his ability to wield a pen so he learned to polish the thoughts he inked onto his monogrammed stationery before writing them down. His letters were deeply well-planned in order to wring the deepest meaning from each word. When I read them again, he comes to life in my mind. The years drop away and it is almost as if I am young again, curled on his sofa, relating my thoughts to him in exchange for his ageless wisdom. Over the coming months, I plan to feature gems of Marvin’s wisdom gleaned from his letters.

Today’s gem reviews one I shared a few years ago, appropriately a few thoughts about letters.

I’ve been working on an article about the dwindling act of writing personal letters. Up to 80% of our reduced 1st class mail consists of business letters. Will the personal letter exchange gradually disappear in the electronic communication revolution? The personal letter has many unique advantages.

            Ellen Terry, an actress, began writing to George Bernard Shaw when they were both single. They never met. Both married. They wrote for 25 years. Shaw wrote about their correspondence, which has been published: “Let those who complain that it (the Shaw-Ellen Terry “romantic correspondence”)was all on paper remember that only on paper has humanity yet achieved glory, beauty, truth, knowledge, virtue, and abiding love.”

            Imagine, I can read a letter Christopher Columbus wrote describing America or Edgar Allen Poe’s letter revealing the secret of the real tragedy of his life. They’re in a book with many more entitled The World’s Great Letters.  I have it.

            “Letters . . . are, of all the words of men, in my judgment, the best.” (Francis Bacon)

 

A Festive Time at College Hill Coffee

On By AnnIn books, fiction, Firestorm Sonata, Prairie talesLeave a comment

Come chat with Ann and take a look at Firestorm Sonata.

Saturday, September 23, 2023

Noon until 2:00 pm

College Hill Coffee, 403 Soward Street, Winfield, Kansas

About Firestorm Sonata:

In peak condition, scout Sharenda Kamine is certain her field skills will insure her safety as she seeks supplies needed by the fortress she calls home. She must, however, prove her worth to the authoritarian commander of this isolated pocket of survivors. With reluctance, he grants her request to work alone and she heads across dust dunes of what once was southern Kansas, confident she will master any challenge she meets. But she is unprepared to find a window into the past, which simultaneously offers a future ripe with possibilities. She must decide whether she will honor her commitment to the Fort, or escape to freedom with Gran, the only family she knows.

Firestorm Sonata is the third in a series of dramatic stories featuring pianos and their families. It follows Sundrop Sonata (2016) and Sonata of Elsie Lenore (2020). Book 3, Firestorm Sonata, is the first book in the series which is set in a future with very different landscapes than we know today. A Climate Fiction tale, it explores the roles of pianos and musicians in a changing environment such as those predicted by today’s climatologists.

Known to many as the local piano tuner, few people realize that Ann Christine Fell has been a naturalist all her life and taught science in the Winfield schools before she opened her piano business. As a musician, piano technician, photographer, mother, and grandmother, she has gleaned details from a lifetime of wide-ranging experiences that bring her fictional stories to life for Kansas friends and neighbors. She lives on the edge of the scenic Kansas Flint Hills with her husband, her grandson, and her piano.

 

Firestorm Sonata: The Story Behind the Story

On By AnnIn books, Earth care, fiction, Firestorm Sonata, novels, Prairie tales, WritingLeave a comment

The third novel in my Sonata series of adventure tales featuring pianos and their families is now available on Amazon. I have mixed feelings about it. The completion of this journey has been months in the making and I’m relieved to finally get there. It’s been a lot of hard work, with repeated readings and editing through the summer, each time thinking this would be it, and each time finding more things that needed to change. I finally drew a line. This is it. Ready or not. And Firestorm is launched. May she find a path through the maze of words out there in the cyberverse and not disappoint.

Firestorm Sonata:

In peak condition, scout Sharenda Kamine is certain her field skills will insure her safety as she seeks supplies needed by the fortress she calls home. She must, however, prove her worth to the authoritarian commander of this isolated pocket of survivors. With reluctance, he grants her request to work alone and she heads across dust dunes of what once was southern Kansas, confident she will master any challenge she meets. But she is unprepared to find a window into the past, which simultaneously offers a future ripe with possibilities. She must decide whether she will honor her commitment to the Fort, or escape to freedom with Gran, the only family she knows.

This tale is a first for me, to set the events in the future. During my work on the second Sonata, Sonata of Elsie Lenore, a friend I respect, a retired college professor and elder in my community, shared an article with me. “Confronting the Climate Crisis Through Fiction: Visualizing a climate-ravaged world may actually be the key to mobilizing action.” Those who know me well know my passion for the natural world, for the planet Earth. As a college freshman 50 years ago—get that FIFTY—I took a life-changing class called “Can Man Survive?” in the biology department at Fort Hays State University in Kansas. It was based on the then-current knowledge about all the impacts our human activities had on water, air, land—and climate. We’ve known about greenhouse gasses for my entire life. Even longer. Some folks predicted serious impacts early in the industrial revolution, over a hundred years ago.

The evidence is mounting in 2023. This summer is already setting records. Extreme weather events around the world fill the news from catastrophic flooding to record-setting temperatures and untamable fires. Chile, Canada, Greece, Italy, China, India, Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, Sudan, Madagascar, Zimbabwe–the list goes on. In North America, water temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico hit 100+ in places, with 100% mortality in some coral reefs.

My own community cleans up after a straight-line windstorm that downed whole trees in our favorite parks and city streets, demolished our neighbor’s hay storage barn, and wreaked havoc on the county fair. Cleanup will continue for weeks. The cost has soared toward $2,000,000 already in our one small town.  And yet, we humans continue a path deemed to be disastrous for all life on the planet, just so oil companies can reap growing mega-profits at the expense of everything else we hold dear. If fictional tales set in a grim future environment will shake us into action, I decided I must try.

It’s been my privilege to offer continued piano service across south-central Kansas for nearly thirty years. I’ve kept climate records at each job, recording temperature and humidity. It’s increasingly hard to advise piano owners what their best plan of service should be. With seasonal swings in temperature and humidity becoming more unpredictable, the effects on pianos are easy to see. Tuning stability is now a figment of the imagination.

Pianos are my world. So is the prairie ecosystem. I began to ask some hard questions as I twisted those pins on my annual calls. “What’s with all the earthquakes in Kansas and Oklahoma?” In my college geology classes I learned this area is the “stable” part of the continent. Earthquakes are supposed to be extremely rare. And yet here we are.

“What about the wildfires?” Every year we hear about more extreme fires. California, Oregon, Texas, Idaho. There have been successive record-breaking fires that started in Oklahoma and raged across the state line into Kansas, burning hundreds of thousands of grass acres, killing animals (including livestock) that were trapped in its path.April 2016, a fire burned over 400,000 acres, the largest blaze ever in Kansas (at the time);  March 2017, 600,000 acres burned in southwest Kansas, people were evacuated from small towns in the area; December 2021—fires in northwest Kansas, fanned by winds stronger than hurricane force, burned 400,000 acres.

Then there were the Canadian fires this summer that burned for weeks, sending ash and smoke into the air across northern US. And Maui—MAUI?? An island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with a drought and a spark? The death toll from the Maui fire continues to grow.

I tried to imagine what my home county would look like after an extended drought, followed by a massive firestorm. Perhaps lightning would ignite an oil spill created by one of those fracking earthquakes. Add to the mix technology that can’t receive satellite signals, towers that topple in storms, and no way to receive news from the rest of the world.

The field of stepping stones.

What would my piano family do? What would become of them and their pianos? Would it even matter anymore if basic survival was the most pressing need? Unfortunately basic survival is already the most pressing need for far too many of Earth’s creatures, including pockets of human beings.

Thus, Firestorm Sonata was born. My deepest thanks to everyone who begged for another tale, who listened when I felt discouraged, and who offered words that bolstered me to keep on writing. You all comprise the village which raised Firestorm Sonata from a small seed to fruition. May she have wings to take her beyond my imagination and in her own way make our planet and our future a little brighter for all living things.

 

Of Snow and Violins

On By AnnIn books, children's books, Earth care, fiction1 Comment

I don’t recall a time when I didn’t love books. I must have been hooked at my first page in my first picture book. Naturally, I wanted to write them also. English class in Junior High expanded my love of language. When the home economics teacher there assigned everyone to write a picture book for preschool children, a passion was born. I embarked on a lifelong adventure with words.

Though there have been lengthy gaps when I was too involved with family matters to spend time with a pen and typewriter, whenever I could  I outlined projects, made deadlines for myself, subscribed to writing magazines, and submitted my work.

One early project started with a dream.  I don’t recall my age when this dream seared itself into my subconscious, but upon recollection it was an outlandish and delightful story. In my young adulthood, married but BC (before children) I decided to write the dream story as a picture book. It involved a couple of seals and a polar bear in the Arctic, a snowman, and a violin. A violin you ask? Yes. A violin.

Not skilled with paint or colored pencils, I figured I could illustrate this Arctic story using my photographic skills. I needed only to make the characters. I designed patterns to sew stuffed animals as well as stuffed snowmen and a violin. After careful construction, I lined up the cast on a board covered with quilt batting sprinkled with glitter, set up my trusty OM-1 35mm SLR on a tripod, and headed into the morning sunshine outside the little farmhouse we rented in Morton County, Kansas.

Crowned with a bluer-than-blue sky, the still morning was perfect for the illustrative slides. I had a blast moving the characters through the plot and snapping photos of every scene. When the slides returned from the processor, I had the story and the illustrations. I submitted the idea and samples to a few children’s book publishers, and received their kind rejections. I eventually chose Plan B and took the collection of stuffed animals, a slide projector, screen, and the story to several local libraries as a guest reader for their children’s story times. Again, I had a blast and the kids enjoyed hands-on time with the characters from the story.

The years raced by. Life happened. My own children arrived. Daily routines became strictly regimented trying to keep up with everyone’s activities. Other than a session or two sharing the story with my own kids, the stuffed characters were stored away in a big plastic tub until last December.

As Christmas approached last year, I recognized there was no good reason to hide the stuffed animals away. My daughters were grown with children of their own—and half of the grandkids were already too old for picture books. Either I pull the old critters out of the closet, or I never would. I gifted a couple to my 6-year-old granddaughter for Christmas and took along the set of photos to read her the story. On our homeward journey I realized that I now had the means to publish A Very Special Snowman myself. After digitizing the illustrations and formatting a children’s book, I sent this same granddaughter her very own copy of the book featuring the Arctic characters for her 7th birthday in March.

I launched the decades-old project to the public Thursday April 20. The “Women Score Higher” conference in Wichita solicited women authors as vendors and I was happy to be able to bring a variety of books for many different readers, including the freshly published A Very Special Snowman.

A few days after 7-year-old Mia received her book in the mail, her 9-year-old sister wrote to me saying she was writing a book and wanted to know how to publish it. It makes a grandmother proud.

Even with a peaceful ending for two careless seal pups, A Very Special Snowman is a little sad for me. Since those days of innocence long ago, the emergency situation in the Arctic has escalated as our warming Earth melts the polar ice. The fate of Arctic animals like polar bears and seals has taken a perilous turn since my early writing years.

But every stage of this project has been a thrill for me—from the dream, to construction of the characters, to photographing the scenes, telling the story, and designing a book in 2023. And the piercing blue sky in the photos of 1979 amazes me still, a reminder that this precious planet is very much worth defending for all of us, polar bears and seals included.

 

 

Who is Elsie Lenore?

On By AnnIn books, Cuba, fiction, Music and pianos, novels, Prairie tales, Sonata of Elsie Lenore, WritingLeave a comment

The fourth book I have available at the Christmasland Writers of the Wheat event is a sequel to Sundrop Sonata, the 2020 suspense novel Sonata of Elsie Lenore.  Released just before COVID shut everything down, Elsie had a rough launch, but she’s hanging in there.

The story begins fifteen years after Sundrop concludes. Izzy anticipates the birth of her first grandchild. Daughter Melody has married a Cuban pianist, Stefano Valdez who was stranded in New Orleans (or what was left of it) after a horrific tropical storm battered the area.  Mel’s interest in relief work dates to the time her mother compromised the family’s safety to help an orphan girl.  Her work takes her to disaster sites from coast to coast in a world increasingly plagued by intense storms.

With his career thriving and a baby on the way, life looks good to Stefano Valdez until a postcard from the past shatters his world. Days before the expected birth, he heads south to find the author of the card, a sister he long believed to have perished in the storm that left him a refugee in New Orleans. Trailing her to Cuba, he unwittingly places his Kansas family in the sights of the crime ring that destroyed his sister. Will he discover the hidden message in her hastily-penned words in time to save his family?

Sonata of Elsie Lenore is Stefano’s story, from southern Kansas to Cuba and back again, where he discovers that Mel has left him to work a tsunami disaster site on the west coast.

Chapter One

LENA VALDEZ CRINGED when her husband hammered the Steinway piano lid with his fist.

His rage growing, Enrique’s knuckle bones threatened to burst through his skin. “I told you,” he said, “no more of this Lecuona crap. Do the jazz. Tonight we want the best Cuban jazz.”   The youngest of the three Diaz brothers punctuated every other syllable with his fist until the piano’s heavy bass strings vibrated with a rising cacophony.

She shrank from every blow.

“Understand?” he yelled.

“Sí, Enrique,” she said.

“Get to the jazz. I’m counting on you tonight. ¿Comprendes?”

She looked down, her fingers rubbing the familiar ivory ridges of the piano keys.

“¿Lena?” he said.

She felt rather than saw his arm rise and spoke with haste. “Please, Enrique. Don’t hit the piano.”

“Jazz then. Hear me?”

She nodded. Yes, she heard him. How could she not? She could hardly recall a time he spoke to her without yelling. “Sí, I will play jazz.”

“One hour. Then we dress for the show. No more Lecuona.”

She flexed her fingers, took a deep breath, and leaned into the keys. A recent island melody by Jorge Marin swelled from the piano. Swinging with the beat, Enrique danced out the door of the Caribbean Breeze, a nightclub in New Orleans.

Her hands flew over the keys as she coaxed melodious rhythms from the worn Steinway. It wasn’t that she hated jazz. After all, jazz expressed Cuba’s heart and soul. It sang of the courage and beauty of her countrymen. She loved jazz, but she loved classics more and she needed Lecuona right now. Their mother raised her and her brother on Lecuona, embracing classical Cuban tradition.

Lena completed the Marin number and stifled a sob.

“You okay Señorita?” Roberto, the bartender and manager of the nightclub, peeked in from a back room.

She nodded. “I will be fine.”

“I heard some yelling,” he said  and  cocked his  head,  inviting her to say more.

She forced a laugh.  “Enrique. He’s always yelling,” she explained away the outburst. “It will be fine.”

“If you’re sure.” He turned back into the storage room.

She waited a moment,  gathering her nerve,  her fingers silent on the piano keys. In a timid voice, she said, “Roberto?”

When  he  didn’t respond,  she  tried again,  louder.  “Roberto?”

He stuck his head through the swinging door again. “You say something?”

“I just wondered if you would tell me where I could mail a postal card.” She fished a postcard from her handbag.

“Sending greetings from good old New Orleans?” he said with a smile.

“Sí. I want to contact my brother.”

“Stefano? How is he anyway? I heard he’d tied the knot with a beauty from up north somewhere.”

She nodded. “I just want to let him know I am here. Where could I mail the card?”

He extended his hand. “Leave it with me. I’ll make sure it goes out tomorrow.”

“Gracias, Roberto.”

The bartender disappeared into the back room with her card.  Lena took a deep  breath before she  continued  her  rehearsal. If only Stefano would meet her here. Would he even get the postcard in time? He didn’t know she was booked at the Caribbean Breeze, their old favorite nightclub. Maybe he wouldn’t even believe she was here, set to perform on Mama’s piano, “Elsie Lenore.” He sure didn’t know she’d married into a family of drug smugglers or that she was miserable.

He didn’t know.

She launched into another Marin number. At its close, she whispered into the keys, “Elsie—Elsie, what will I do?”

Unexpectedly, her mother’s voice whispered in her mind. “We do what we must.”

In a flash of recollection she visualized the lewd sneer of her former stepfather as he appraised her youthful body and her mother stepping between them— “Not my daughter, you bastard!” Her mother had split up with that man before the next week passed.

A year later a new gentle suitor presented her mother with the same Steinway she’d lost after the Revolution. A gift from her father when she was young, she had fondly dubbed the piano Elsie Lenore. It was offered as a wedding gift for the woman  he’d loved all his life  and Lena’s mother could not refuse his proposal. Lena and Stefano had grown to love that piano as much as their mother did.

Her mother’s voice whispered again. We do what we must.

“Yes, we do.”  Lena’s  hands  teased  the  keys as she pondered her limited options. Elsie Lenore and her brother Stefano offered one thin thread of hope. Surely he would understand. He had to.

Her fingers caressed the keys and cajoled an Afro-Cuban piece from the belly of the piano. The melody grew, and then waned. She dropped her left hand and allowed her right hand to sketch a rhythmic melody up the keys as she diverted her left hand to the piano case.

Following the melodic sequence, she ran her fingertips to the treble end of the mahogany trim at her waist and pried upward. With a full-keyboard glissando, she moved to the bass end and inched up the trim until the keyslip was free of its mounting screws. She placed it across the music desk without the slightest click.

The music soared again when her left hand joined in. She strummed repeated staccato chords, lifted her hands at the finale, and froze, listening.

Silencio.

Roberto must have gone out for a few moments. Nobody remained inside the club.

She retrieved a set of dining utensils and a paper napkin from the nearest table and spread the napkin beneath the bass keys. Slipping the knife tip underneath a key, she scraped against the key frame, teasing a fine white dust to the edge. She repeated the process under four keys, and scraped the powder onto the napkin. Tossing the knife to the floor, she lifted the napkin’s corners, cradled the powder into its middle, and with a sigh folded it into a tiny envelope. Her brother would have been proud to know she’d learned some intricacies of piano construction. She, for her part, was grateful for his fascination with the technical side of the instrument.

“Gracias, Stefano,” she whispered.

She tucked the parcel securely into her cleavage, replaced the trim, and lost herself in the music.

 

To find out what happens next, drop by the Christmasland Event with Writers of the Wheat December 3, 4:00 pm until 9:00, at the Sunflower Plaza, 417 East Gilbert in Wichita. There will be something for every reader’s taste.

Writers of the Wheat is a loosely organized group of Kansas authors who support each other in writing, as well as marketing, their work.

 

 

How About a Little Suspense?

On By AnnIn books, fiction, Music and pianos, novels, Prairie tales, Sundrop Sonata, Writing1 Comment

After completion of the memoir in 2014, I plunged into crafting a tale of fiction. Using personal expertise in the field of music, piano teaching, and piano tuning, a story based on abandonment and revenge wrote itself in my head. Today’s featured book is my first suspense novel, Sundrop Sonata, published in 2016. It was a lot of fun to write, and has gathered several awards and great reviews, which launched my plan to write a few more piano suspense tales, the Sonata series.

What is this Sonata about? With her passion for helping people, piano tuner Isabel Woods loves her job–but passion can be a dangerous thing. Reluctantly agreeing to harbor a client’s autistic daughter, Izzy’s good intentions unexpectedly expose her own family to a fiend with a chilling agenda. Human trafficking and bio-terrorism are no longer just buzz words from the nightly news. For Izzy, they have become terrifying and real. As the deadly Sundrop Sonata begins to play, Izzy has one chance to save the people and the country she loves armed with nothing more than courage, intelligence, and her esoteric knowledge of pianos.

Sundrop Sonata will be available at the Christmasland Event with Writers of the Wheat December 3, 4:00 pm until 9:00, at the Sunflower Plaza in Wichita. Writers of the Wheat is a loosely organized group of Kansas authors who support each other in writing, as well as marketing, their work. Join us at the Sunflower Plaza, 417 East Gilbert in Wichita,  December 3. There will be something for every reader’s taste.

Chapter One

IZZY

A chill shot down my spine the instant our eyes met. Nola Pack looked ten years older than she had a week ago when we met in town. She stood in her open doorway, clenching its frame. Her red eyes sought mine as a breeze teased her disheveled hair. The ranch wife I remembered from previous meetings would never have appeared with even one stray hair on her immaculate swept-up bun.

I smiled and greeted her, but her grave face stole the sunshine from the bright spring morning. I no longer heard songbirds sing in the nearby flowering orchard as I searched for clues to her distress.

Nola didn’t return my smile, nor did she speak. Her bloodshot eyes narrowed as she studied my face. She stepped aside, still clutching the ranch house door with a grip that raised veins on the back of her hand. I stepped into the picturesque entryway, put my tool case down, and stooped to remove my shoes.

“No. It’s fine. Come in,” she said.

“You don’t want me to remove my shoes?”

“Not today, Mrs. Woods. Come in.”

“If you’re sure,” I said, wiping my shoes on the entry mat before I stepped onto her white carpet. “And please call me Izzy.”

Awash with sunshine, the music room issued a warm invitation. A sofa and two chairs faced the walnut grand piano across the room, its lid open on full stick. A violin leaned against a matching walnut music stand that filled the piano’s graceful curve.

“What an improvement over the old upright,” I said. “When did it arrive?”

“About ten days ago.”

“Anything I need to know before I begin? Problems? Concerns?”

Her brow narrowed. Still unsmiling, she shook her head and looked over my shoulder to the window beyond the piano. I set my tool case against the wall and tucked a stray curl into the hair clip on the back of my head. “I’ll get started then,” I said over my shoulder.

“Wait, please,” Nola said. “I need your help.” She closed her eyes. Her voice almost a whisper, I strained to understand her words.

“You don’t want me to tune your piano?” I asked.

“No. Not now.”

“A few minutes then? Or did you mean not today?”

“Not today.” Her voice carried unmistakable urgency. “Please. Come with me.” She turned and walked into the hallway beyond the living room.

Another chill raced through my body. I stood rooted to the white carpet. Nola turned and looked at me from the other end of the hall. With a frantic wave she beckoned me to follow.

I walked from the music room, past four closed doors. Two doors displayed a child’s colorful paintings. I knew there were children in the house, or at least a child. During an earlier call a girl had peeked at me for a moment before Nola scolded her. I had never been invited beyond the music room though, until today.

The hallway opened into a glassed-in dining room aflame with spring sunshine. Nola led me outside to a redwood deck extending over a pond, water slapping the rocks beneath us. In the far corner of the deck, a slender girl slumped on a lounge, her arms wrapped around her chest. She stared at the blue water, humming in a split voice that sounded as if she sang in two pitches at once.

I tilted my head toward Nola and narrowed my eyes.

Nola met my puzzled gaze. “She’s talking to herself. She does it when she’s under stress.” Her voice was devoid of any emotion, fear still in the undercurrents.

Nola brushed aside a tree branch bursting with fragrant blossoms and knelt at the girl’s knees. In a soft voice she said, “Laura, this is Isabel Woods, the lady I told you about. She’s our piano tuner.”

The girl didn’t move. If anything, she hugged herself a little tighter.

“Look at me, sweetheart,” Nola said.

The girl turned to her mother, but her gaze shot beyond Nola toward me. Her eyes didn’t appear to focus. I offered a tiny smile, but Laura didn’t respond.

LAURA

Laura Pack squeezed herself, as if tightening her grip on her own shoulders could wring the stench from her mind. All morning the awful smell had overwhelmed her. The pungent odor of putrid diapers drove her mad. Baby poop. Hour after hour, the reek of excrement filled her mind. She couldn’t sleep. She even tasted the stuff. She swallowed, desperate to stop the bile rising in her throat.

Why this happened, she didn’t know. Every time she faced her fears, every time her world went wrong, this same awful odor permeated her nostrils and filled her brain. Mama didn’t believe her. She would shake her head and say she made it all up, that there was no rotten smell because Mama couldn’t smell it.

But after that awful phone call, Laura sure could.

And it grew stronger and stronger until it filled her mind. Mama had decided to send her away. So she’d be safe, Mama said. She didn’t think it would make her safe. She didn’t think she’d ever be safe without Mama.

Laura heard her mother call her name. It sounded so far away. She turned her head, dazed. The awful smell – why wouldn’t it stop?

I can’t see you, Mama. I can’t see you. Don’t look at me. I don’t want to see you. Can’t see you. Can’t see you. Can’t see. Why do I have to go? Why? Why? Why? Don’t want to go. Won’t go. I won’t. I won’t see you, Mama. Don’t look at me. No. No. Baby poop. No.

No – wait. Look at me. I want to see you. Look at me. I see you. I see you, Mama. I’m scared. I’m so scared. It smells so bad. I hear you. I hear your voice. You say I’ll be safe. I’ll be safer. Why? Why? Why? You come too. Be safe. Be safe, Mama. Be safer. Look at me. I can see you. I see you. I don’t want to go. Don’t want to.

Laura’s gaze focused on the piano tuner. The strange woman’s frizzy gray curls struggled to escape from the loose clasp on her head. Laura found no comfort in this stranger. Not even when the woman smiled.

I don’t know that lady. Who is she? I’m scared. Scared, Mama. I see you. I see you, Mama. I see her. She’s looking at me. She’s smiling. I see her. Okay. If you want me to go, I’ll go. I see her. She smiles. She’s kind. She’s kind of – not you!

Don’t want to go. Don’t want to, Mama. Don’t want to. Don’t want to. Don’t want to leave you. Baby poop, Mama. It’s baby poop. You come too. Be safe. Safer, Mama. Come too. Come with me. I see you, mama. I see you – I see you – I see you. I love you, Mama.

Nola clasped her daughter’s hands in her own. She pulled the girl to a stand and pressed Laura’s hands together over her heart. Their eyes met.

IZZY

After a few silent seconds, Nola nodded once. She turned to me.

In a shaking voice she said, “I don’t know how to ask you this. We need your help. Could you – please – would you take Laura for a while? We’re desperate.”

Oh, my God. I don’t believe this. I coughed, choking on my response.

Laura pulled away from her mother.

“She could be in danger and I need time to sort things out,” Nola said.

I glanced from mother to daughter. The girl’s shoulders shook as she sobbed, her head buried in her hands.

What was I to do? I couldn’t take a strange child with me, drive out the driveway, head toward – head where? My appointments filled the day’s schedule. This would never work. What in the world was happening here?

But, I’d never been one to turn down a plea for help. What could I do?

“Please.” Nola’s whisper screamed in my ears.

I shook my head. “I need to think.”

“We don’t have time.”

“Are there no family members? Grandparents? Aunts or uncles?” I asked.

“My family lives in New York. They’re too far away. I need help now.”

“What about neighbors or friends?”

“I don’t know anyone around here. Except you. ”

That I could believe. The Pack family was a mystery to their neighbors. Hints and stray comments dropped when I tuned pianos a couple miles up the road confirmed nobody knew these people. They had no local friends. Just the piano tuner.

Incredible.

“Ranch hands?” I said. “You must have hired help.”

“I don’t trust them.”

“Is that why you think Laura’s in danger?”

“Please. There isn’t time to explain.”

I scratched my head through the mess of curls. Frizzy Izzy. I was living up to my childhood nickname, the hair an outward manifestation of my inner turmoil. “Have you called the sheriff?” I said.

“No. I can’t call the police.”

“Maybe you should.”

“Please. I can’t involve them.”

“This is crazy,” I said. “I can tell you’re desperate. But you haven’t told me why. You want me to pack up your daughter, the girl you’ve never even introduced to me on prior visits – load her up and take her away. But why? ”

“It’s an emergency. I need Laura to leave for a while.”

“I kind of want to leave too. In fact, you’re making me want to race from here as fast as I can go. But I don’t know why.”

“Just take Laura with you. Please.”

She had me. Could Nola read people enough to guess I’d find it impossible to refuse? My passion to help others usually served me well. I was, after all, in a service profession, traveling all over the countryside to tune pianos for people. Service with a smile, was the homily I always told myself. Make harmony from discord. And I loved the work. I loved the people. I found pianos fascinating, each one a variation on an ingenious theme.

This, however, was a first. This was different. Not a discordant piano today. This time, I was being pulled into a desperate situation.

Nola, should I tune your life?

A knot of anxiety hardened in my stomach. I didn’t know how to refuse. “For how long? How long is a while?” I asked.

“Might be only an hour or two. Perhaps a couple of days. I’ll call you when the crisis is over. Don’t call me.”

Chills raced through my body. “Why not? What if something happens?” I said. “What if I need to get in touch?”

“I’ll contact you as soon as I can. Just don’t call me.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Take the girl. No police. Don’t call Nola.

Laura wilted into the deck lounge and wailed.

In a soft voice, Nola said, “Izzy, believe me, if there was any other way, we would never put you in this position. The situation blew up on me this morning. You’re the miracle we need right now.”

“Please tell me why you’re so afraid,” I said.

She shook her head. “There’s no time. You need to go now.”

I touched the girl’s trembling shoulder with my fingertips. “Laura, are you okay with this? Will you come with me until your mother calls?”

Still sobbing, Laura ventured a tiny nod and turned to her mother. They grabbed each other in a desperate embrace.

Nola gently pushed the girl away. Taking her hand, she said, “Let’s go.”

She pulled Laura through the open doorway and gathered a few bags from the dining table. We dashed down the hall and into the music room, the bags in Nola’s arms brushing Laura’s artwork as she ran. I collected my tool case and hurried out to the waiting Blazer.

After I tossed my tools on the back seat, Nola handed me a briefcase. “Don’t lose this,” she said. “These things can’t be replaced.”

What does she mean? Another wrinkle.

I scrutinized her for a moment before I set the briefcase behind the driver’s seat.

Nola deposited Laura’s bags on the back seat and tucked her daughter into the passenger seat. She leaned inside and kissed the child.

“God be with you, Laura. I’ll see you soon.” A tear dropped into the girl’s stringy blond tresses.

Nola wiped another tear from her cheek and glanced at me. “Now quickly – go!”

I turned the Blazer onto the long gravel drive and spun the wheels as we left.

Accelerando, Isabel. Step on it.

We jiggled across the pasture lane. Laura shrank against the opposite door and wailed. Her thin voice vacillated with bumps in the road. At the end of the long driveway, we rumbled across the cattle guard and through stone pillars. The remotely controlled gate surged to life as soon as we cleared it.

“Your mom must be listening,” I said.

Laura’s strange two-tone whine rose a notch in volume.

I braked enough to navigate the turn onto the deserted county road. Heading south, I floored the accelerator. Less than two miles later, we met a two-ton flatbed pickup. It raced toward us, engine roaring.

“That guy’s in a hurry,” I said.

Laura gasped. Mouth open, eyes wide, she clung to the door, her gaze riveted on the truck. She ducked, hiding her eyes behind her long hair.

“Laura?”
The truck aimed straight for us. I swung the steering wheel right and braked hard. The farm truck thundered by as my Blazer crept along the shoulder. “Dang, take your half out of the middle,” I said.

Laura dissolved into hysterical sobs.

I pushed our speed again. We sailed along the road, sunlight streaming through the windshield. The bright morning mocked the grim mood inside our cab. Tears streamed across Laura’s cheeks. She reached up with her right arm and wiped her face with her sweatshirt sleeve. I reached over and squeezed her rigid hand.

“That was a close one, wasn’t it? You recognized the truck. Did you know the driver?”

Laura nodded. Her chest heaved. She worked her jaw, as if trying to speak, but her words didn’t form through her wail. She screwed up her face, knotted her hands into fists and managed to blurt in her strange split-tone voice, “My dad.”

“Your dad?”

She nodded and shrieked heart-wrenching sobs.

Her dad?

Was he the source of Nola’s panic this morning? Were her urgency and desperation because her angry husband headed home? Why would Laura’s life be endangered at her father’s hands?

I wished I could have stolen a look at the truck driver. I’d never met Laura’s dad. In all the previous service calls, not once had he been home. Did he look into my car? Did he recognize Laura? The thought horrified me.

“Honey, do you think your dad saw you as we passed?”

She shook her head. She must have watched his face, even if I didn’t get a peek.

“Is your dad the reason your mom sent you with me?”

A hesitation. Then a quick nod. This was a family dispute.

Nola’s words echoed in my mind. Her life is in danger. I shuddered.

In danger from her dad. Something she failed to mention.

No police, Nola had begged. Why not?

“It’ll be all right, Laura,” I said to reassure her.

Would it though? I was unconvinced.

 

To find out what happens next, drop by the

Christmasland Writers of the Wheat event!

December 3, 2021, 4:00 – 9:00 pm.

Sunflower Plaza, 417 East Gilbert in Wichita.

What is a Windshadow?

On By AnnIn faith, Family, Healing, In the Shadow of the Wind, Loss and Grief, memoir, WritingLeave a comment

Over the next few days, I will post information about each of the four books I have available. All of them will be part of the Christmasland Event with Writers of the Wheat December 3, 4:00 pm until 9:00, at the Sunflower Plaza in Wichita. Writers of the Wheat is a loosely organized group of Kansas authors who support each other in writing, as well as marketing, their work. Join us at the Sunflower Plaza, 417 East Gilbert in Wichita,  December 3. There will be something for every reader’s taste.

Today, I feature my first published book, a memoir titled In the Shadow of the Wind. Though I have aspired to write books as long as I can remember, it was this one that had to come first. It uncorked the bottle of my creativity, so to speak. Released in 2014, I continue to be amazed at the response of new readers. It seems to connect with new folks scattered from coast to coast, and I am humbly grateful to the Winds of the Spirit for making the story known to those who struggle with their own personal grief and need encouragement.

What is it about?

Following a series of tragic losses, at age thirty I found myself in a strange world, anticipating a lonely future.  Widowed, and grieving the loss of two infants, I retreated to the wilderness for comfort and healing. Planning to stay forty days, I set up a solitary camp on the Neosho River bank of my family’s abandoned farm homestead. Marooned by rising flood water after only a few days, I had to face my own mortality.

I discovered that there is life after loss. Through a sequence of extraordinary events, In the Shadow of the Wind tells my story: how an ordinary woman learned to dance on the threshold of fear, to cherish every moment of life, and to believe in my inner resources to conquer adversity.

Prologue from the Book

“It’s okay, Daisy Pup,” I said. The small spaniel whined. I drew her to my chest and we cuddled together. Thunder exploded in the air above our little tent. The after-rumbles faded. Seconds later rain pelted the nylon roof of my fair-weather shelter. Daisy shivered in my arms. “It’ll be okay.” I tried to convince myself.

I felt foolish. How could I have thought this was a good idea? How could I have dreamed that I would be able to withstand forty days in the wilderness? The rain turned my plan into a futile effort that bordered on the edge of insanity.

A drop of water stabbed my forehead. In the gray afternoon light, I saw hundreds of droplets hang heavily from the inside of the tent roof. The threat of a cold shower hovered  inches away.

“Good Lord, Daisy—it’s going to rain inside the tent.”

There was no escape from the chill in the air. No escape from the fingers of cold that crept up from below. No escape from—“Oh, my God, the sleeping bag is wet.”

I shifted sideways in the orange tent and discovered we huddled in a growing pool of water, now about an inch deep. “Oh, God, this is crazy.”

My canine companion stood and shook.

“You need to go out?”

She wagged her stubby tail and shook again. I unzipped the door and she jumped into the deluge. I grabbed my boots and began to pull one over a damp sock. On second thought, I tied the laces together, removed my socks, and backed out of the low-slung tent. I pulled my backpack into the soggy afternoon, zipped the tent door shut, and stood barefoot in black ooze.

Daisy splashed through standing water. She located a slight rise, squatted, and relieved herself. I glanced at the sodden landscape. Water stood everywhere, and I was already soaked in the downpour. What were we to do? I turned in a circle and searched for shelter. An old wooden railroad boxcar, the only structure that remained on the abandoned farm, stood right behind the tent.

I stooped to look under the boxcar. We could wiggle under it. I quickly discarded that idea. The prospect of lying in muck was no better than sitting in a wet tent. Padlocks secured the sliding doors of the boxcar. Even if I had a key, I doubted I could budge them enough to allow entrance. The aged wooden sides looked weathered and soft. One ragged gap at the leading edge of the north door panel appeared almost large enough for me to wiggle inside.

I slogged to the side of the boxcar and grasped the lower edge of one ragged slat. I tugged on the worn end. With my entire weight behind my efforts, I ripped off inches at a time until the opening had grown twice as large.

“Come here, Daisy. Let’s check this out.” She was instantly at my mud-covered heels. I patted the dark floor of the boxcar, standing forty inches off the ground. Daisy leaped. With an assist from me, she scrambled into the dark interior. I stuffed my backpack behind her, slogged to the tent and pulled my boots and the bedding into the storm. I struggled to maintain balance as I slipped back to the hole in the door and crammed the bundle of blankets inside. Then I leaned into the darkness of the abandoned car and jumped. On my stomach, legs dangling out the opening, I snaked forward a few inches. With flailing arms, I reached into the darkness in search of something to grab.

There. Something metallic. Perhaps an old piece of farm equipment. I didn’t know. I could see very little. But it didn’t budge, so I was able to pull myself into the relatively dry interior of the old boxcar. Across the car, Daisy snuffled and sneezed a couple times. I stood and felt my way around the area. After locating a pile of old shingles along the south wall, I propped the backpack on the floor beside them. I shook the damp bedding. My clothing was soaked through, so I wrapped the blankets and sleeping bag around my shoulders. I sat on the shingles and leaned against the wall of the boxcar.

Daisy bounded onto my lap. We shared each other’s warmth as the deluge continued outside. Moments after we both settled down, I heard scratching noises inside the boxcar. Light-footed creatures scampered about the interior. I hugged Daisy a little tighter. I could see pinpoints of light here and there, small eyes that reflected the afternoon light filtering in through holes in the wall. Oh, my God.

Rats. Lots of them.

 I screamed. “I am such a fool, Daisy. Why do you put up with me?”

She licked my chin.

I spoke to my late husband Craig. “What am I going to do? I don’t think I can do this. I can’t live without you.”

He, of course, didn’t answer. I was on my own.

Daisy whined softly and licked my chin as if she understood. The storm mirrored the anguish in my heart. The entire universe wept with me. “What are we going to do, girl? I don’t know where we’re heading. I only know where we’ve been.”

When I met Craig, we thought we had all the time in the world. A decade was hard to visualize. Had we known that all our joys, our plans, and dreams, would have to be packed into one decade, would we have spent our days differently? Would our choices have been laced with more love and wisdom, or with desperate lunacy? Based on the law of averages, we had every reason to expect several decades together.

Yet there was barely one.

“It’s not fair! It’s not fair!” I railed against the universe.