It’s About the Journey , livre ebook

iUniverse - Jeffrey Petzke

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

95 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

Due to local prejudice, Jeff and Cassie should not be together, and yet he is drawn to Cassie and her daughter, both of who might heal his broken heart.
They say life isn’t a walk in the park, but what if your life restarts that way? It turns out that simply pushing a little girl on a swing can change so many things, like your beliefs, your mood, and even your future. For divorced Jeff, this comes as quite the surprise, as does his reaction to Cassie and her daughter Kyra.
Cassie is white, while Kyra is black, and due to his upbringing, Jeff is at first conflicted by his attraction. Everyone in his small town is racist, and his grandmother taught him to be the same—but he might just be willing to change to have Cassie and Kyra in his life like rays of sunshine breaking through the dark.
Previously, Jeff would never have seen someone like Cassie as “the one,” but that viewpoint soon changes as he gets to know her. Despite economic and racial confusion, their relationship grows. Jeff learns things he never expected. He especially learns that just hearing a special someone’s voice makes his day better and that loss can not only break a heart but also break a smile.

Sujets

Romance contemporaine

Fiction

Romance

Informations

Publié par	iUniverse
Date de parution	31 janvier 2023
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781663249258
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

It’s About the Journey
Jeffrey Petzke

IT’S ABOUT THE JOURNEY

Copyright © 2023 Jeffrey Petzke.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

iUniverse
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.iuniverse.com
844-349-9409

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-6632-4926-5 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6632-4925-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022923543

iUniverse rev. date: 01/31/2023
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34

Know that closure is only an idea. You may always wonder and dream about special events and people all your life. Deep in you, your soul allows contradictory feelings. Don’t let them take over your life. “Work to achieve a gentle, clear ending.” If you want a happy ending, you need to know where to stop the story!
Chapter 1

I never thought I would end up joining a club like Parents Without Partners, much less dragging my kids with me to the first meeting, but there we were on Saturday, November 4, 1989, standing in line at a Burger King in Bellevue, Washington, along with twenty-five other single parents and their kids. I felt just like I did when I showed up at my first high school dance without a date, but it helped to pretend that Gabe, age four, Jason, age three, and I were having an ordinary Saturday at Burger King as we had done hundreds of times before. The plan was to have lunch with club members, followed by a Saturday afternoon matinee.
“I’m done, Dad,” Gabe said, swallowing his last french fry and rubbing his salty, greasy hand on his jeans. While we waited for Jason to finish his meal, I listened to bits and pieces of conversation. The dating game was in full swing.
This was not my kind of scene. I wanted to go home. I never should have let my best friend, Abbey, talk me into signing up for this. I stood up to leave, but Gabe and Jason begged me to stay so they could play with two young boys who had migrated to our table. Reluctantly, I decided to stay.
“If you don’t eat your lunch, you’re not going to see the movie,” said a deep, raspy female voice behind me. She sounded confident as she disciplined her child. I resisted the urge to turn around, as it would have been impolite.
After lunch, we walked to the adjacent community park to let the kids play until movie time. Gabe and Jason wanted to swing.
“Push me high, Daddy!” Jason said. Gabe chimed in with his brother.
A little black girl about Jason’s size stood at the swing next to him. She wore a faded pink T-shirt and a tattered pink jacket. Her afro made her round, dimpled face seem smaller than it really was. Her dark-brown baby-doll eyes slowly looked up at me.
“Dad, I think she wants to swing,” Jason said.
“Want to swing?” I asked.
She smiled, deepening her dimples, and said, “Mm-hmm.”
I looked for her parent but saw no other African American people in the park. What I did see was an attractive white woman who appeared to be in her early thirties, sitting at a bench forty feet away, taking a deep drag on a cigarette. Her long, dark hair fell over her shoulders as she leaned over and tapped her cigarette ashes onto the sidewalk. The sun broke briefly through the gray clouds, its rays landing on her bent-over body, radiating a red halo over her hair.
My body was interested, but my mind was not. I was not a smoker, and I never dated women who smoked. It was not a rule I was willing to break. She was a beauty though. Her legs were long and slender, and she had a nearly perfect figure. I imagined I could almost wrap my hands all the way around her waist.
She looked up and saw me staring at her. She stood up quickly and moved briskly toward me. She was about five feet ten and wore a blue silk baseball jacket, the kind you might find at a sporting goods store. Underneath was a red T-shirt tucked into faded jeans that fit her curve for curve as if it were her own skin.
I looked away and hoped I had not offended her. When I turned to help the little black girl into the swing, the woman rushed toward me. Her freckled face was clean and wholesome looking. I stepped aside to prevent her from running into me.
“Push me, will you please, sir?” the little girl asked.
The woman stepped back in silent consent. I lifted the girl into her swing and pushed her gently. She pumped her legs, swinging back and forth as fast as she could to catch up with Gabe and Jason. I pushed her again, a little harder this time, and she squealed when she caught up with the boys.
As the time inched closer to the start of the movie, the woman lifted the little girl from her swing.
“Thank you for swinging me, sir,” she said, dimpling her cheeks again. Her manner of speech was surprisingly adult. She gazed at me. “You have pretty blue eyes, sir,” she said.
“Thank you,” I replied.
The woman stiffened, grabbed the girl’s hand, and they hurried away.
We walked to the theater and sat with the rest of the group. I sat in the aisle seat and waited for the movie Look Who’s Talking, starring John Travolta and Kirstie Alley, to start.
“Excuse me, do you mind if we sit with you?” asked the raspy female voice from lunch.
“Okay, sure,” I replied, not looking up.
“If you don’t mind,” she said, “I would prefer sitting in the aisle seat.”
With the remark, I looked up and recognized that the raspy voice belonged to the dark-haired woman from the park, the one with the curvy figure. The little girl I helped swing was standing next to her, still holding her hand.
Just to be polite, I moved down two seats. The girl sat next to me. Halfway through the movie, she surprised me by crawling into my lap. The woman glanced at me, concerned.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said.
She seemed relieved and turned back to the movie. The girl relaxed in my lap and fell into a heavy sleep. After the movie ended, with a little nudge from me, the girl woke up, and the woman carried her out of the theater. The boys and I walked to the parking lot at Burger King.
“Hello,” the woman said. She and the black girl stood next to a green Hyundai parked a few spaces away from us. “I’m Cassie Baker, and this is my daughter Kyra,” the woman said. “Thanks for swinging her.”
Still sleepy-eyed from her nap, the girl waved feebly. Jason said hello, and Gabe waved without looking up.
“Going to pizza on Thursday?” she asked.
“I don’t have my kids that night,” I informed her.
“Don’t you like pizza anyway?”
“I guess,” I said. “Well, see you later.”
I disliked pushy women and left before she said anything else. I dropped the boys off at my ex-wife’s house and drove home to my new bachelor pad.
Chapter 2

After Jennifer and I divorced, my possessions included a suitcase full of clothes, a 1989 Mazda pickup truck, a black 1988 BMW 528 with a sunroof, a boat, and a pet parakeet named CK—a get-well gift from my friend Lori. She heard I was having back surgery, so she gave me the bird for entertainment during the long, bedridden days following the operation. At the pet store, Lori knew CK was the one when she stuck her hand in a birdcage full of parakeets, and CK came over and jumped on her finger right away.
CK liked to climb under my covers, hop out again, and walk away. He was smart for a bird. He went back to his cage to poop, to sleep, and to eat, though he liked to share Popsicles with me in my bed. I taught him to let me push his head down, and then he would bend way over, stand up, and walk off. He was hilarious and was good company for me after the surgery. However, CK hated noisy kids. They chased him around the room, which made him nervous. I learned to keep him in his cage when Gabe and Jason visited.
During the separation from Jen, I lived in a small apartment until the divorce became final. In the meantime, I heard about a fire-damaged condominium on Lake Sammamish at the Villa Marina, east of Seattle, where it was possible to moor the boat. The damage turned out to be a gaping twenty-eight-foot hole in the ceiling. I saw clear through to the upstairs neighbor’s floor. The owners wanted to sell the place as is. I bought it for $28,000.
Abbey Bishop was in charge of remodeling my condominium while I continued to work long hours in an effort to repair my postdivorce financial situation and maintain child suppo