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168 pages

English

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In 1935 all Annalise Stern wanted was to have what all of her friends had - a husband and a respectable, predicable life as a housewife and mother. On the verge of achieving that dream with Jacob Miller, a medical student, things fall apart when he abruptly leaves for Europe. Along with celebrities like Hemingway and Dorothy Parker, he has decided to take part in the Spanish Civil War, determined to save Spain from a fascist backed revolution. Desperate to save her engagement, Annalise goes after him. But on the ship to Spain, she is accidentally pressed against a man and instantly experiences deja vu. She knows him! But she has never seen him before. From that moment she begins a life altering journey that marks the end of her innocent yesterday and begins an uncertain tomorrow.

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Historical romance

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Publié par	First Edition Design Publishing
Date de parution	15 octobre 2017
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781506904788
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0360€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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THEEND OF YESTERDAY
ANovel by
E.M. CORBIN

FirstEdition Design Publishing
Sarasota,Florida USA
TheEnd of Yesterday
Copyright©2017 E. M. Corbin

ISBN978-1506-904-77-1 PRINT
ISBN978-1506-904-78-8 EBOOK

LCCN2017948995

July2017

Publishedand Distributed by
FirstEdition Design Publishing, Inc.
P.O.Box 20217, Sarasota, FL 34276-3217
www.firsteditiondesignpublishing.com

ALLRIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book publication may be reproduced, stored ina retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means ─ electronic,mechanical, photo-copy, recording, or any other ─ except brief quotation inreviews, without the prior permission of the author or publisher.
TOSTEPHANIE
Foryour perpetual help, and love and encouragement.
PROLOGUE
1938

It was her father on the phone.
After her ordeal in Spain, her motherhad sent him to Paris to rescue her. Her parents, despite their divorce, werealways agreeable where their daughter was concerned.
But Analise did not need to berescued.
She needed to be understood. And Markneeded to be understood. And Spain needed to be understood. Yet both she andMark knew that neither her parents nor anyone else would ever understand orsympathize with them. Still it was good to hear her father’s voice. He alwaysspoke with a youthful eagerness that lent persuasiveness to whatever he said.
“Is that you, Ana? - Thank God,you’re safe! Listen, do you want to meet me here? I’m at the Ritz, or do youwant me to come there? Anything you say’s fine with me.”
“- I’ll meet you at your hotel, Papa.You can buy me lunch.”
The Ritz was world famous. Herfather’s lavishly furnished room reduced hers to little more than four wallsand a bed. He greeted her at the door with a big grin and outstretched arms andshe went to him and he hugged her. He always smelled of cigars and Bay Rumshaving lotion. Then he held her at arm’s length to look at her. There was acertain air about her now that he could not quite identify. What had happenedto her in Spain?
He led her over to a small couch andstudied her face as they sat. She smiled and gave him an account of herexperience in Spain. She knew her recital was sketchy, but neither he noranyone else would ever believe what had really happened so why bother.Nevertheless, she braced herself for an onslaught of questions.
Instead he reached into his suit coatpocket and produced an envelope. “Here,” he said, handing it to her, “that’syour passage on the ship . We can leave tomorrow afternoon. I have to getback as soon as possible. The government wants we should get into production assoon as possible. War pictures.”
“- I can’t take this, Papa. Didn’tMom tell you? About Mark?”
He sat back and stared at her. Hisstare used to reduce her to rebellious outbursts and occasional tears. Now shestared back. He was of middle height, tanned and youthful looking with a fullhead of hair and mouth that suggested a friendly smile.
“- Do you know what you’re saying?”he asked quietly. “You’re not a child, Ana. I shouldn’t have to explain it toyou. For God’s sake, think of your mother tearing her heart out with worry allthese months. Did you get bombed? Shot? Dead? No letters, nothing but worry,now this. Such a daughter no one should have. This doctor you’re engaged to –Jacob - he’s a nice boy….”
“I didn’t come here to quarrel withyou, Papa,” she said quietly but firmly. “I’m not leaving Mark and that’s allthere is to it. This isn’t one of your movies where everything is nice and tidyat the end. I wouldn’t be alive today if it hadn’t been for Mark.”
He saw she was determined. After amoment “- So alright. Alright, I’ll give this Mark money, what he wants. Whatelse can I do? I’ll buy him a ticket home but please, listen to me, don’tdestroy your life, and his. Yes, his, don’t forget. America is what itis, Ana. Germany is what it is. Better maybe he should stay here. The Frenchtreat those people well, but us - Jews?” He shook his head – “You can’t stayhere with war coming and Hitler….”
CHAPTER 1
1934

Analise wanted to be just like herfriends Sarah and Miriam, Connie and Agatha. Their lives were spent in thewarm, safe cocoon of matrimony, untouched by the gloom of the Depression orrumors of war or whispers of rape or talk of robbery. Tuesday followed Mondaywith pleasant regularity. Milk and bread arrived on their door step eachmorning and later the morning paper; they knew the butcher and the baker andthe grocer by name and they in turn knew theirs. Their lives were normal. Shewanted that; every girl did. Each of her friends had been rescued from the hoveringshame of being left behind – of growing old and unmarried and unwantedand unloved.
Analise was slender with thoughtfulgreen eyes and a young girl’s open smile. By nature self-critical and anxiousto please, she would seldom argue or raise her voice. Her dark hair was worn ina chignon that kept her slender neck clear and free. She was careful to followthe fashion of pleated skirts and round collared sweaters. Everyone who knewher said she was nice and considerate and inoffensive. And she was. Still,beneath it all was a hidden streak of determination that would later shape herworld in a shocking fashion. She was what followed the word “ but .”
To prepare herself to be likeeverybody else, she thoughtfully read the “textbooks” concerning matrimony. Therewas the Ladies’ Home Journal’s Book on the Business of Housekeeping , and McCall’s and Ladies’ Companion explaining the intricacies of refrigeratorsand mattresses and linoleum flooring. The “text books” quietly advised the goodwife to know who Babe Ruth was and that FDR was the president and that Communistswere bad and – sometimes – one might find an oblique reference to a thingcalled “family planning.”
Girls of her class were often encouragedto attend college, not primarily to get an education, but to find a husband andwhen she was a sophomore, Analise was thrilled to find herself among thechosen. She became engaged to Jacob Miller. She was ecstatic. She wassuccessful. She would soon be a married lady like everyone she knew!
Yet now, three years later, she felthim slipping away like a soapy, expensive platter. She was making an effort tocatch the platter before it shattered on the floor. It seemed she could almostmeasure the distance growing between them. Then the diamond ring on her fingerfelt like someone’s borrowed jewelry.
Occasionally, to persuade herselfthat her engagement to Jacob was not in jeopardy, she caressed her engagementring with her thumb, treasuring what it meant – a culmination of her havinggrown from a little girl playing with dolls to a young woman experiencing ahandsome man saying, “I love you” and making her feel especially chosen.
But she knew he was slipping away andthe devastating fear of being left behind seemed more real now that shehad had her chance.
***
When she was fourteen, in privateschool in Manhattan, still too young to fully understand the nuances andimplications of boy meets girl, she had begun learning the intricate dance ofcourtship with Saul.
He was a tall, awkward boy whopretended he had friends when he hadn’t any. He would stand near groups ofpopular kids as though he were a part of their group. They resolutely ignoredhim. Some of it was his own doing because he avoided any activity with theother boys that could cause him a bruise or a bump.
Analise felt he needed looking after.
Saul liked to hike in Central Parksearching for odd colored stones that he collected with an air of triumph. Oneday he finally marshaled the courage to mumble an eye evading invitation. Wouldshe like to hunt rocks with him?
Her first thought was, “ Ugh! ”It sounded dirty! But she smiled and murmured, “Yes,” though it meant goinginto the woods - that domain of ugly, crawly insects that raced up your legsand over your arms and even down your back! They bit you and flew andbeat against your face! She scrunched her shoulders. Still she went. She wore along sleeve shirt and hugged herself.
Determined to acquire an interest inrocks and stones, she borrowed books from the library that showed pictures ofpink and blue and gray stones and she studied their names and shared what heknew with Saul. She even pointed a delicate finger to a stone or two that layhalf buried in dirt, refraining from picking them up herself.
When his parents lost their money inthe Stock Market crash in 1929, they could no longer keep him in privateschool. They drifted apart.
The summer she was seventeen, she metManny while she and her mother were on vacation in Connecticut. He took hercanoeing. She went although she was afraid of the water because she could notswim. They spent afternoons on a nearby lake. Since both of them had to paddle,she found the task exhausting and, smiling, had to beg off frequently to rest.
Manny said she would be morecomfortable in a swim suit. She sensed a danger in that. Smiling, she demurred.They quarreled about it; it was more a thing of pouting than anything else butshe stopped seeing him.
Finally there was Jacob, a medicalstudent at NYU. Almost from the first, she wanted to own him. He was tall, alittle stooped and he wore wire rim glasses; his hair was parted in the middleand it made him look like an artist. Jacob had a disarming, boyish smile and hedidn’t mind in the least that she was a little thin, slender really.
That was when she began to think of theglorious state of marriage and was surprised to feel twinges of jealousy whenother girls were around. It made her feel a little ashamed; they were herfriends, but still she monitored the distance between him and them.
He cared deeply for people andwondered when the Depression would end and why no one cared enough about thepeople who suffered and went hungry or stood in block-long soup lines andcouldn’t afford medical care. He almost shouted that it was obscene. Shetreasured that about him and adopted his pure, clean outrage