Meanwhile, thing number two. I have a brave friend who is posting his some of his novel, chapter by chapter, on his blog. This is very very brave. I have been honored by a group of readers of my manuscripts, but to put it out there, where anyone who cares to find it can read it, is again, very very brave. Together, we can do hard things, according to blogger Glennon Doyle Melton (and also Jesus) so I will be brave too. Here is the prologue of my second manuscript. More to come, until I finish the Egan.
March 2013
Avery stared at the photograph. It had jumped out at
her, almost biting her, as soon as her fingers found the worn wooden frame deep
in the desk drawer. That it was framed at all, for one thing. That it was old, for
another.
The scant other pictures Avery had found in the desk
were scattered loose in the drawers and featured recent people and places in
her mother’s life. The artist colony in Long Beach. Someone playing guitar by a
fountain. A hand raised in the air with sunlight streaming between the fingers.
They were transient images, not just because the moment they captured was
carefree and fleeting, but as if the people themselves weren’t destined to stay
long on the paper and would dance away at any time.
This picture, with its five solid figures, so
classically arranged in an inverted V, had a sense of permanence that the
others didn’t have. Their somber faces and mid-century Sunday best clothes, the
gnarled old trees and low-slung front porch in the background, spoke of a past
and a future. It was the furthest thing from what Avery associated with her
mother.
Cold, damp air seeped in through the old loose
windows, accompanied by the sound of cars sloshing through puddles. Portland in
March, perfect weather by which to pack your dead mother’s things and punish
yourself. The Goodwill pick-up van was
coming in four hours. Charlie had sparse furniture and kept few personal
belongings, but she had left it all in such random order that it was taking
Avery forever to sort and pack. Charlie would have found humor in that, her
neglect forcing her daughter to make all her final decisions for her. It could
not be over and done with soon enough. The four drawer wooden desk, smoothed on
top by use but splintered underneath; the orange sling back chair; frameless
double bed, potted plants, mismatched furniture. From thrift sores it came and
to thrift stores it would all return.
Avery set the frame upright on the floor by the bottom
desk drawer it had come from, and sat back on her heels. The strangeness of the
photo was riveting, distracting her from her task. Both the photograph and the
packing refused to be ignored. Her eyes darted back and forth from picture to
packing. The woman standing stiffly in the center of the pose; a pile of random
sketches bound for the throw-away box. Four children clustered around the
central figure; car insurance papers peeking out of the take-home file. A grove
of trees behind and to the left of the group; books on seabirds stacked on the
desk chair. The scene became its own still life. Charlie would have appreciated
that, too.
Avery put the picture in the take-home pile and moved
on. That was something she could most definitely do, thanks to her mother: move
on. But she would take the picture home and consider it. It may not even have
belonged to Charlie—she could have bought it at a thrift store, inspiration for
a new art piece. Lodged in her chest, though, was an unusual sense of sureness:
it was Charlie’s. Years later, when the picture was matted and framed on the
wall of her home, she would remember that decision with a sense of gratitude
and a little bewilderment. Because the Avery of the Oregon years was not a
woman of deep conviction.
