| Author: | Jessica Whitethread | ISBN: | 9781310192067 |
| Publisher: | Jessica Whitethread | Publication: | December 6, 2013 |
| Imprint: | Smashwords | Language: | English |
| Author: | Jessica Whitethread |
| ISBN: | 9781310192067 |
| Publisher: | Jessica Whitethread |
| Publication: | December 6, 2013 |
| Imprint: | Smashwords |
| Language: | English |
Summary:
Joanna’s worst fears have been realized. Is everything over? Does anything come next for her? With her characteristic combination of courage, stubbornness, and denial, Joanna sets out to pick up the pieces and try to find in the outside world what she did not know she wanted before she went to work in the Armistead mansion. Can it truly be found again? Or is the answer to set her sights and standards lower and try to make do? The journey before her is long, rough, and she has only the slightest expectation that it will take her where she wants to go, but there is nowhere to go but forward.
Excerpt:
Once you see through the armor of a man like that, it begins to seem a little bit pathetic. All the show was there with none of the substance, like a bluff in a poker game. It had never been that way with Armistead. What had he said? 'I am not made uncomfortable by your resistence. I admire it,' is what he had told me. I had believed him absolutely, when he had said that. It was absolutely true. I knew him well enough to appreciate the total honesty of that attitude. He never felt challenged. He never put on airs. He was simply ... in control.
And compared to a man like that, Chandler was just a guy approaching middle age who didn't have very much figured out. He was successful, I suppose, at least in the context of a little town like Delano, but hardly a world-beater. Sometimes I hated him for it, and sometimes I hated myself for it. I hated myself for being so entitled, for thinking I deserved a better man than Chandler, for thinking that some small-town nobody like me deserved the rare kind of man who walks through life without mis-step or hesitation and can take anyone he wants along for the ride. And in the end, it all became too much. It didn't matter who was to blame, him or me. I had to end it.
He shrugged when I told him, kissed me on the forehead, and went off into the world. "Well, it was fun," he said as he left. "Don't throw out my number." I felt a little guilty as I got the sense that it was something he said a lot. He wasn't such a bad guy, just not the answer to my problem.
But then again, was there an answer to my problem? At least one not named Ewan? Sometimes I felt like a moth flitting around the foot of a lamp post. For the second time I drove up to the hill that looks across the small valley to the Armistead mansion. Again it was dark and the lights were in the windows and I could even make out a couple shapes moving around behind the thin shades. Lord help me, I thought as I drove back into town.
Summary:
Joanna’s worst fears have been realized. Is everything over? Does anything come next for her? With her characteristic combination of courage, stubbornness, and denial, Joanna sets out to pick up the pieces and try to find in the outside world what she did not know she wanted before she went to work in the Armistead mansion. Can it truly be found again? Or is the answer to set her sights and standards lower and try to make do? The journey before her is long, rough, and she has only the slightest expectation that it will take her where she wants to go, but there is nowhere to go but forward.
Excerpt:
Once you see through the armor of a man like that, it begins to seem a little bit pathetic. All the show was there with none of the substance, like a bluff in a poker game. It had never been that way with Armistead. What had he said? 'I am not made uncomfortable by your resistence. I admire it,' is what he had told me. I had believed him absolutely, when he had said that. It was absolutely true. I knew him well enough to appreciate the total honesty of that attitude. He never felt challenged. He never put on airs. He was simply ... in control.
And compared to a man like that, Chandler was just a guy approaching middle age who didn't have very much figured out. He was successful, I suppose, at least in the context of a little town like Delano, but hardly a world-beater. Sometimes I hated him for it, and sometimes I hated myself for it. I hated myself for being so entitled, for thinking I deserved a better man than Chandler, for thinking that some small-town nobody like me deserved the rare kind of man who walks through life without mis-step or hesitation and can take anyone he wants along for the ride. And in the end, it all became too much. It didn't matter who was to blame, him or me. I had to end it.
He shrugged when I told him, kissed me on the forehead, and went off into the world. "Well, it was fun," he said as he left. "Don't throw out my number." I felt a little guilty as I got the sense that it was something he said a lot. He wasn't such a bad guy, just not the answer to my problem.
But then again, was there an answer to my problem? At least one not named Ewan? Sometimes I felt like a moth flitting around the foot of a lamp post. For the second time I drove up to the hill that looks across the small valley to the Armistead mansion. Again it was dark and the lights were in the windows and I could even make out a couple shapes moving around behind the thin shades. Lord help me, I thought as I drove back into town.
