Seeking Glory , livre ebook

Outskirts Press - Patricia Hamilton Shook

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135 pages

English

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Description

Life is never static. Just when you think you finally have everything under control, that illusion is shattered...and the life you once knew has spun off in unimaginable directions. Seeking Glory is an eloquent novel that explores the complexities of family relationships. With themes of loss, recovery, estrangement, and reconciliation woven throughout, it tells the story of a woman who seeks to uncover the truth about her young granddaughter's origins.

Sujets

Women

Fiction

Informations

Publié par	Outskirts Press
Date de parution	11 septembre 2018
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781977203977
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Seeking Glory
A Novel About Relationships, Loss, and Finding Your Way Home
All Rights Reserved.
Copyright © 2018 Patricia Hamilton Shook
v6.0

This is a work of fiction. The events and characters described herein are imaginary and are not intended to refer to specific places or living persons. The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author and do not represent the opinions or thoughts of the publisher. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and/or legal right to publish all the materials in this book.

This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Outskirts Press, Inc.
http://www.outskirtspress.com

ISBN: 978-1-9772-0397-7

Cover Photo © 2018 gettyimages.com. All rights reserved - used with permission.

Outskirts Press and the “OP” logo are trademarks belonging to Outskirts Press, Inc.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

In Memory of

Jeanne Marie Fitzgerald

with whom I shared
many wonderful summer vacations on Cape Cod

I would like to thank my family and friends for their support and advice over the long process of creating Seeking Glory. My thanks in particular to those who read the drafts of Seeking Glory and offered many valuable suggestions that made the book better as well as to my husband and son who traveled around the Cape with me researching and photographing the sites where the story of Kate and her granddaughter Glory took place.

I would like to add that in writing Seeking Glory I have attempted to portray its many themes and settings as accurately as possible. Any mistakes/misrepresentations are mine and unintentional.

PROLOGUE
The sun had long since set behind the mountains and the full moon had risen, a creamy white orb resting high among the stars. A light wind stirred the grasses, blowing sandy soil across the valley. The long, low ranch buildings were dark shadows spread over the landscape, still in the moonlit darkness. A lone shadow detached itself from the others, moving quickly into and out of the cool white light such that anyone watching might have wondered if it wasn’t a trick of the early autumn night. The minutes stretched by in the soft darkness until a tiny flicker of light suddenly appeared, etched into the shadows of the buildings. It remained a single, bright yellow flame for few more minutes, almost as though someone had lit a candle in one of the unseen windows, before blossoming rapidly, orange and yellow petals spreading upward and outward. Within seconds, bright columns of light were rising into the night toward the starry sky, throwing the scene into a stark contrast of light and dark. As they did so, the first scream broke the silence, followed by shouts and calls of “Fire! Fire!” People poured from the shadowed ranch buildings, spilling out into the fields, lit by fire and moonlight. A voice calling for the fire brigade rose above the others and several of the shadowy figures ran toward a nearby water tower. Some people clustered around a single dark figure commanding the shouting, weeping crowd. “We’re not going to save it! Make sure everyone’s out! Get over to the nursery and get the children out!”
The fire illuminated the sky, bright shafts of spreading light, now yellow and orange against the outline of mountains, engulfing the wooden structures of the ranch as another group of shadowy forms ran toward a small adjoining building. Moments later, they were racing back out, pulling crying shadow-children behind them, others, bundled in blankets, in their arms. As they headed in the direction of the dark outline of the person calling commands, another small group of shadows detached itself from the building the children and their rescuers had just left, slipping into a darkness unlit by fire, moving silently and swiftly toward the mountains until they blended once more into the blackness.

CHAPTER 1
K ate pulled the door shut to the Sea Witch Art and Gifts and sighed. Another hot summer day was winding to a close, the setting sun sending shafts of soft yellow light through the scrub pine that fringed the parking area. Business was slower than she would have liked in what should be the busiest season of the year, and Kate was worried. The Sea Witch was her baby, her dream that she had nurtured over the last twenty years of her life; she had made it a success, but the possibility of losing everything despite all her hard work always loomed for her. Kate sighed again and tried to shrug off fears of a shrinking economy, of a drop in tourism on Cape Cod. She walked slowly across the deserted parking area, climbed into her battered Toyota, and prepared to head home.
Before pulling out onto Route 6A, the “King’s Highway,” she looked back at the Sea Witch. Her beloved store sat there in the soft light of evening, a single-story structure built of cedar shingles weathered gray by time and salt air. In the windows, set in white frames bordered with black shutters, could be seen collections of cranberry glass, pottery, and sculptures, along with handmade dolls and wreaths, a collection of wind chimes hanging above them. Kate was proud of her stock, most the work of local artisans. When the store was open, the art and crafts spilled out onto the beach grass growing in the sandy soil in front of the store—fishermen’s floats in blue, yellow, orange, and red, windsocks blowing in the breeze alongside brightly colored whirligigs, propellers spinning. The deep red geraniums in their white wooden boxes looked lonely without them. Kate smiled to herself and pulled out into the traffic on 6A. Now I’m getting a little maudlin about this, I suppose , she thought.
Kate drove, following the road as it wound through the village of Yarmouth Port, one of several quintessinal Cape Cod villages along the King’s Highway. Shops, art galleries, antique stores, and bed-and-breakfast inns lined the route, all representing the charm of Old Cape Cod at its best. Kate rolled down her window, feeling the soft breeze caress her face and ruffle her short, dark hair. Signaling a left turn as she waited for a break in the stream of traffic, she pulled down the visor and glanced at herself in the attached mirror. The face that gazed back at her looked tired, the large, dark eyes shadowed, the lines around her mouth emphasized. She pushed her hair back from her face, running her hand through it in exasperation. Fine and straight, now laced with gray, “It always looks like it needs brushing,” she mused. A car on the other side of the road honked its horn, and Kate, startled out of her brief reflection, made the turn with a wave of her hand to an elderly man driving a handsome Lincoln Continental.
As she headed south across the Cape toward Nantucket Sound, she left behind the quaint charm of the King’s Highway and entered the emptier stretch of land between Cape Cod Bay and the Sound, through the middle of the Cape’s upper arm. Here, charm gave way to more practical business-oriented structures. Side roads led off into groups of suburban tract homes much like those found further north around Boston. In the gaps between the tracts of ranch houses and the industrial parks and strip malls, small groves of scrub pines and oak trees stood, definition fading in the gathering twilight.
Kate continued on until she reached the intersection with Route 28, slowing to a stop as the signal turned from yellow to red. Gazing at the convenience store to her right, she tried to recall whether she needed any milk, or whether she wanted to take a quick detour down 28 to pick up a cold drink, maybe an iced coffee with a shot of espresso. Distractedly, her eye took in the commercial scrawl of this stretch of 28. The town of Yarmouth, like other Cape Cod towns, was composed of villages, in this case, three in all. But of all the fifteen towns on the Cape, the Yarmouth villages probably provided some of the greatest contrasts in terms of ambiance and attitude within one town. The portion of Yarmouth along Rte 28, where Kate was now, was a commercial strip that featured a seemingly endless stream of motels, restaurants, and stores of every description, along with miniature golf courses, bowling alleys, and video game arcades, and, in the summer especially, bumper-to-bumper traffic.
The traffic light changed, causing the current sea of cars in front of Kate to part, and with a firm decision not to consume espresso at this late hour, she crossed onto a side street leading to a small development of homes clustered on the strip of land between Route 28 and the Sound. Many of them were summer homes while others, like her own, had been converted into year-round dwellings. Kate pulled into her driveway, her eyes sweeping over the lines of her familiar house, a simple one-story, gray-shingled ranch, with a screened-in porch at one end. Kate rolled into the covered carport located at the end opposite the porch and parked. Sliding out from behind the steering wheel, she stood and stretched wearily before walking along the flagstone pathway toward the front door, her glance taking in her border flower garden, rows of pansies and golden marigolds wilting in the heat of summer flanked by clumps of dejected-looking orange day lilies, the browning grass in the front yard. Sometime soon, she was going to have to find some time to deal with the yard, Kate told herself, but it won’t be tonight.
As she climbed the short flight of brick steps, she considered the state of her refrigerator and wondered what she might fix herself for dinner. Cooking is one of the hardest parts about living alone, she t