Another Novel Teaser

Hey Friends,  
For fear of neglecting yet another blog, I thought I would post another excerpt from my novel.  It just seemed appropriate for today, for some reason.  Some clarification first, since this a from a little later on in my book.  Aubrey is the main character, whose son and husband have died in an accident.  Bill is her father.  Mae Ellen is her step-mother.  Elizabeth was Aubrey's mom, who died when she was young.  Any similarities to persons alive or dead is purely coincidence.  Enjoy.
~L.L.


    The phone rang Monday morning.  It was Bill Crawford's weekly check-in call.  Sometimes they made small talk, and sometimes he dove right into church talk.  Aubrey wasn't sure if it was because of the death of his grandson or just his age, but her dad's evangelicalism had taken a turn toward mania.  She was just glad it wasn't an election year; lectures about national debt and democrats were more than she could bare.  She picked up the phone, "Hey, dad, how are you?"
      "Terrific, honey!  And how's my little girl this morning?" He had his best bubbly attitude on- not a good sign.  She pictured him smiling through his bifocals.
      "Functionally depressed," she answered, pinching the space between her eyebrows to ward off the impending red-wine-before-bed headache.
      "You know, Mae Ellen and I were reading our devotionals this morning and it was just perfect for today.  Funny how He does that.  It was about God taking us through storms to make us stronger in our faith.  Refining fire," he chirped.  Aubrey let out a barely audible groan and wondered which of the six books and pamphlets covering their breakfast table he would be quoting from today.  She knew she enabled their collection by buying them ones by Christians that didn't make her skin crawl: Henri Nouwen, Mother Theresa, and just for kicks- Ghandi. She could see them stacked up next to the piles of mail and magazines.
 
    Bill continued, his voice lowering to a more serious tone.  "After your mother died, I went back to church for the first time since high school."
      "But I haven't stopped going to church..." Aubrey looked up at the sky, as if to ask God if he had put Bill up to this little talk.  Her middle finger itched with irreverence.
      "I know, honey, but I guess what I'm saying is that you just don't know where He's going to lead you." Bill began the list of testimonies.  Aubrey drank her coffee and let her attention drift a little.
 
    She wondered why every American felt they were owed a seventy-eight year time share on earth.  It's not like God had too many qualms about his son staying for only thirty three. It was a lie that anyone got out of this thing alive, and dressing up early deaths as God needing more angels or everything happening for a reason felt sadistic.  It felt like calling God a murderer or body snatcher.  She wondered why people had such a hard time believing that terrible things just happened.  There was certainly enough evidence to support her case.  She was guilty of it, too, though.  Saying that all she had gone though, especially the death of her mother when she was three, had made her the person she is today.   It was the kind of thing that good church goers told one another at their Sunday pep rallies.  In reality, more life experience just makes you older, quicker, Aubrey thought.

    People were always going about trying to make sense out of chaos this way.  Aubrey believed that most of them, given the chance, would change the course of history despite their best efforts to accept it.  They would go back in time and make that one person live longer, that relationship rekindle, that job with the awesome benefits stay afloat in a time when nothing felt secure.  Aubrey naturally would have chosen to be raised by her biological mother, firecracker that she was.  Elizabeth Crawford was a cross between Janis Joplin and Florence Nightingale: a free-spirit who deeply cared for those that needed it most.  The bullying, the abusive boyfriends, the petty girls, insecurities-  she didn't have time for an ounce of it, and she would have made sure her daughters didn't either.  Elizabeth had once keyed her brother in law's car in the night after seeing a bruise on her sister's eye.  It was a warning as much as it was vengeance.  Who wouldn't change history for a woman like that to walk the earth a little longer?

    Now Aubrey could just squint at the memory of her mother and try to glean some of that strength, try to conjure it up out of her genes.  She decided to begin by channeling Elizabeth's knack for blatant honesty.  The woman could tell you that your new baby was ugly, and do it in such a comical, matter of fact way that you'd thank her for it.  Not that she cared to be thanked.  She just wasn't going to smell a cow pie and call it a prize winning pastry.  It was as if Elizabeth sensed very early on that life was entirely too short for that, and for her.  She was right.  Just after Aubrey turned three, Elizabeth died of cancer.

    Bill was still yammering on about God having a plan in all of this.  Aubrey could hardly stand it.  She couldn't stand that the deaths of Cole and Jonah were being boiled down to God trying to stretch and grow her or set her on a new path.  She wanted God to be the Almighty Janitor, not the ice under the tires.  She wanted God to come pick up the pieces.  She wanted Jesus to be wailing his bloody eyes out with her at night, shaking his head, just as grief-stricken as she was that her precious little boy and husband were dead.  She could handle the thought of God turning blood into grace, but she could not handle the idea of God being glad at the opportunity to cultivate her into a Steel Magnolia.

    "Dad, please.  Enough with the pep talk, alright?  You forget I gave my first sermon before you even sat on the board of that church you go to," she spat the words, wanting desperately for him to just side with her in her grief without having to explain it away.  She wanted to hear him say that he still missed her mother, that he would go back, too.
    "I'm sorry, honey, sometimes I get carried away.  I guess I'm still not used to having a daughter as strong as you." He was conciliatory if not eager to end the conversation before inciting Aubrey's full wrath.  She checked her watch, wanting to get to the gym to burn off some of the morning's annoyance.
    "Alright, dad.  Love you.  Bye," she said flatly.  She wondered if turning thirty would finally safeguard her from being lectured by her father and immediately doubted it.