Six days of reminding you all that “Finding Home – Tyler’s Story” is about to be available on Amazon as an e-book. It will take me a few more weeks to get the details down for print versions to be available and a few months to create an audio version. I’m going to attempt an audio file for tomorrow’s post.
Next in line for publication is a novel called- “We Are Survivors- An American Apocalypse”. Drew had plans to divorce Penny and finally enjoy his life with his girlfriend. Penny had plans to travel as she faced an empty nest with her twin twenty-three-year-olds moving out. Seth only wanted the fall’s crop of apples to bring in enough income to cover expenses for the winter. All these plans go up in smoke when a politically motivated explosion at a mining site causes catastrophic earthquakes, tsunamis and nuclear power breaches across America. Not only does a gap open to a paramilitary group waiting for just this moment, but Penny’s family is strung across the nation, and she fears her husband of twenty-three years is dead. Meanwhile, she takes refuge with Seth, an apple farmer who happened to fall into the same crevice as she in the heart of Indianapolis.
This story is as much about surviving in an apocalypse as it is about the relationships that form, that break and redefine during times of turmoil and fear.
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Here’s today’s excerpt from Finding Home:
I hate arriving late on the job. I stand in the doorway of a half-finished entrance hall. The orchestrated synchrony of men hanging drywall, taping, plastering, and sanding is in full swing. Conversations fly across the room. Jack focuses on applying mud as though he were painting the Mona Lisa. Luke and Ethan are madmen with the screw gun, throwing up sheets of drywall as though they are as light as poster board.
Jerry comes into the room and tells me I’m on helper duty, so I’m everyone’s lackey. Same pay, so really, I can’t complain. By the end of the day, I’ve earned the gratitude of every man, keeping them supplied and moving stuff out of their way.
Jerry takes me aside. “If you can stay a couple more hours and get the place tidied up, I’ll pay you for a full day. Some clients are coming by tomorrow morning and I need the place to look organized—like a homeowner’s idea of organized.”
“Sure,” I say. I can’t believe my luck. I was already missing every dollar I lost by starting late.
Jerry tells me to lock up before I go. I don’t even put my earbuds in. The sound in the house soothes me. The occasional creak, the broom scraping bristles across the floor, my dusty footsteps peeling off the sticky mats, the slosh of a bucket of water—these are the comfortable sounds of solitude.
I need this time to think, to consider what Anne told me, and what that means.
The sound of tires stopping short in the dirt yard outside the house breaks my train of thought. Four doors slam. I go to the window just as Brent and Linda’s three other brothers burst through the door.
Mama was right: I should have watched my step.
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Have a great day everyone! Clare
Clare Graith 