Stutter Creek Read online

  Stutter Creek

  by

  Ann Swann

  5 Prince Publishing

  Denver, Colorado

  This is a fictional work. The names, characters, incidents, places, and locations are solely the concepts and products of the author’s imagination or are used to create a fictitious story and should not be construed as real.

  5 PRINCE PUBLISHING AND BOOKS, LLC

  PO Box 16507

  Denver, CO 80216

  www.5PrinceBooks.com

  ISBN 13:978-1-939217-50-9 ISBN 10:1-939217-50-4

  Stutter Creek

  Ann Swann

  Copyright Ann Swann 2013

  Published by 5 Prince Publishing

  Front Cover Viola Estrella

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations, reviews, and articles. For any other permission please contact 5 Prince Publishing and Books, LLC.

  First Edition/First Printing June 2013 Printed U.S.A.

  5 PRINCE PUBLISHING AND BOOKS, LLC.

  What people are saying about Ann Swann…

  Like the song, this heart-tugging novel takes us on a journey revealing that love is indeed a many-splendored thing. More than pounding heartbeats. More than passionate kisses. It carries with it the weight of our responsibility in nurturing relationships. Whether we read this before or after our own mistakes, All for Love has a message we need to hear.

  -Gwen P. Choate

  ALL FOR LOVE is not your average romance novel. I would call it Literary Fiction and Family Drama at its best.

  You don't just read a novel by Ann Swann - you literally experience it. I would recommend this novel to anyone who enjoys a story with depth and heart.

  -Deanna S.

  This book is dedicated to my family, my friends,

  and to the lovely readers who keep asking

  when the next book is coming.

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to acknowledge the many-hatted Bernadette Soehner for all she does to keep us inspired, as well as the talented cover artist, Viola Estrella.

  Chapter One

  Amanda Myers was making a conscious effort to keep her heavy foot off the Toyota’s gas pedal when she spied, what appeared to be, a small boy standing beside the road. An old- fashioned newsboy cap nearly obscured his tiny face.

  Mandy hit the brake and steered the Celica toward the gravel shoulder. Even though she would be late for her evening shift at The Water House Bar & Grill, there was no way she could simply drive past a small boy standing beside the road.

  With a practiced hand, she quickly texted her coworker, Myra, and asked her to concoct a cover story for her tardiness. She had intended to call her mom back home in Sunset, New Mexico and let her know how easy her college midterms had been. But that would have to wait.

  The kid had seemed very small in silhouette—maybe five or six years old—and no house or vehicle in sight.

  When Myra texted back to say the boss was on the warpath, Mandy replied, “Well, just tell him I stopped to pick up a boy on the edge of town. That should really turn his face red!” It was an inside joke. Everyone knew when the boss’s face was red it was wise to give him a wide berth.

  Myra sent back a row of question marks.

  “L8R,” Mandy responded. She looked all around. She had assumed the little guy would come dashing up to the car as soon as she had come to a stop. But even when she could no longer hear the crunch of her tires on gravel, he still hadn’t materialized.

  I didn’t pass him by that much.

  Craning her neck to see past the Toyota’s blind spot, Mandy dropped the phone into the center console drink holder and shoved the gearshift into park. A thick stand of live oaks cast a deep shadow over the bar ditch. The setting sun made the trees appear as black-paper cutouts in a landscape collage.

  After checking her mirrors to make sure no one was behind her, Mandy pressed the button to lower the passenger-side window.

  It was almost all the way down when a man yanked open the door and exploded into her world like a tornado into a trailer park. Her hand flew to the gearshift, but she couldn’t engage it. Even as her flight instinct kicked in, part of her mind was telling her this was almost certainly the same strange guy who had requested her section at the restaurant the night before. His eyes had seemed to follow her all around the crowded dining room, and his oily stench had made him stand out like a spot of mold on white linen.

  Mandy drew in breath to scream; her hand scrambling across the console for her phone or the gearshift, whichever came first, but he was too fast. With lightning speed, he dove across the seat and slapped a rectangle of duct tape across her mouth. At the same time, he buried his free hand knuckle deep in the thick blonde braid at the base of her skull even as his other hand slid down to her windpipe and began to squeeze.

  Mandy’s fight instinct kicked in then, and she whipped her head back and forth in an effort to dislodge his hands. His stench, and the oily filth of his unkempt hair, was sickening. She clawed at his eyes, ripped at his skin, but it was no use. The psycho laughed and simply leaned his head back out of her reach.

  That’s when Mandy began to claw at her own face, attempting to scratch the silver tape off her mouth. It didn’t matter. There was no one around to hear her scream even if she could have gotten it off.

  She wasn’t a quitter, though. Mandy did her best to get her feet out from under the steering column to kick. But he was pressing down on her with his whole weight. She was trapped. Calmly, the psycho took one hand off her throat, doubled up his fist, and hit her so hard the back of her skull struck the driver’s side window with an audible whap!

  Then, he went back to her throat. As his deceptively thin fingers crushed her windpipe, Mandy’s grip on reality began to loosen. Tiny strobes flashed inside her skull.

  He squeezed even harder; the tips of his fingers disappearing into the flesh of her throat.

  At the last second, as her world began to grow dark, a memory flashed through Mandy’s mind. She remembered how, as a small girl of six, she had begun to worry about running out of air because if you couldn’t see something, how did you know how much of it was left? She could see balloons, though. So she had begged her mom to buy several packages of the colorful party staples, which she’d then blown up and stored in her bedroom closet. Her mom humored her. Her older sister, Kami, however, couldn’t let a good thing like that go unnoticed.

  She had waited until Mandy was out, then she’d tied all the balloons together and attached them to the stop sign on the corner. Mandy had felt so humiliated when she came home from school and saw them. She’d wanted to get them down and put them back in her closet, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She would have let herself run out of air before giving her sister that satisfaction.

  The balloon bouquet had wilted quickly in the hot New Mexico sun.

  Now, even as she was dying, Mandy grasped the irony of that memory. She really had run out of air. Her last coherent thought—as the fireworks behind her eyelids exploded in the grand finale—was of those wilting, multicolored balloons.

  Chapter Two

  Standing in the patch of sunlight, the blond giant smiled crookedly and Beth knew it was John. She rushed forward to embrace him. He was shirtless, wearing nothing but a pair of old cutoffs, his bronze skin glistening with water from the creek. His hair was long, tied back in a ponytail with a knotted length of twine. He was an eighteen-year-old demigod stumbling around the forest in search of his subjects.

  He opened his arms at her approach. “Beth.” His voice was just as she remembered. She melted into the shelter of his embrace. Her damp, sun-warmed skin met his and she s
ighed. She was wearing a red bikini top and her own stringy-hemmed cutoffs.

  Slowly, she raised her face. The top of her head barely grazed his shoulder. She had to stand on her tip-toes even though he was leaning down—then their lips met, and the brilliant rays of sunlight falling through the pines illuminated his face like that of a saint in a stained-glass window. “Saint John,” she laughed.

  He laughed with her.

  Beth shook her head to clear the memories.

  Actually, it wasn’t a memory so much as it was an embellished wish. John Stockton was not a figment of her imagination, nor was he a dream-guy. He was a real memory, but it was a childhood memory. A teenage dream. He had been her first crush.

  They’d met one summer at Stutter Creek when she and her dad had made their annual vacation trip to their cabin in the mountains. But that was so long ago—the only reason he kept invading her thoughts now was because she’d recently lost her dad. Coming on the heels of her painful divorce from the second love of her life, it had been doubly hard. She had no one to lean on.

  Revisiting her memories of John, okay embellishing her memories of the boy her Dad had jokingly called Big John because of his height, was just another way of coping with the sudden silence that now enveloped her. Beth knew she’d probably never see John again, except in her dreams.

  She lay back in the pillows and drifted away. The over-the-counter sleep aid was beginning to help. This time, her thoughts became a late summer picnic. It was a family outing with her dad and her husband, Sam. Her daughter, Abby, was there, too. She was just a toddler. They were in a soft green park. Mature pre-autumn maple trees shaded a clear pond ringed with soldiers of pampas grass swaying in the breeze. Fish were jumping, birds flitting from branch to branch, and her old crazy quilt was spread with a mini-feast of sandwiches, chips, and soft drinks. To top it all off, there were fat slices of gooey chocolate cake peeking through the transparent plastic lids of Rubbermaid keepers.

  In the dream, the sky was clear but for a thin scarf of cirrus clouds draped across the horizon. It was a typical West Texas summer’s eve. Beth felt so happy watching Sam, her handsome husband, and her father playing Frisbee near the water. Sam, strong and lithe in his khaki shorts and her dad, boyish as ever in his faded jeans and running shoes, were playing keep-away from her darling, Abby, who was dashing back and forth between them. She was so adorable, twirling and dancing, trying to steal the Frisbee along with a bit of attention, her blond curls and stocky little-girl body clad in pink Osh-kosh overalls and flowery bucket hat.

  Sitting on the sidelines, enjoying the air as well as the view, Beth closed her eyes and turned her face up to the westering sun, eager to let the rays coat her skin in their warm liquid silk. What a fantastic day. Her family, her life, everything was perfect. All that was missing was that old song about a wonderful world.

  Then, a long black shadow fell across her face blotting out the sun.

  She awoke.

  The world was inside out; no color, no birds, no pond, just that damn shadow. Her eyes were open, but the room was cave-black except a thin slice of moonlight falling slantwise across the floor from the tall narrow window. Once she saw that slice of light, Beth understood what had happened.

  She had finally fallen asleep. But even the sleep-aid hadn’t been able to protect her from the dream. Every time she closed her eyes, the blackness came and swallowed her family. She was reminded of her grandmother and how the elderly woman had often suffered from bad dreams and what she’d referred to as “visits.”

  Beth had always thought the woman was a little off until her grandfather had passed away, that is. Then she had experienced such a clear vision of him standing at the end of her bed, waiting to say goodbye, that she had never doubted her Grandmother’s stories again. When she had mentioned it to her Gran, the older woman had simply hugged her and with tears in her eyes, she’d said, “Your momma, she got visits, too.”

  Beth hadn’t really known how to respond to that. Her mom had died of toxemia shortly after Beth was born. When her Gran had passed several years later, Beth had awoken—apparently at the very moment of the elder woman’s death from a stroke—to the old John Denver song, “Leaving on a Jet Plane.” She awoke hearing the line that said something like, “All my bags are packed and I’m waiting outside your door.” The song went on to say “I don’t want to wake you up to say goodbye . . .”

  Beth never doubted that it was her Gran, stopping by just like her Granddad had done so many years before. Then, when the same song just happened to be playing on the car radio three days later on the way to the funeral . . . that had really convinced her she had been “visited.”

  “I haven’t heard that song in twenty years,” Sam had remarked.

  She had almost told him about her dream, then. But he had made her feel so silly when she’d told him about her Grandfather stopping by years earlier, that she hadn’t bothered to try and talk to him about her Gran’s visit.

  Beth sighed. None of that was very comforting now. If anything, it made her worry about the awful shadow-dreams even more. And her waking reality was almost as bad. The truth sizzled around her like lightning from a broken sky: her family was gone. She was alone in the dark house because Sam had given up their marriage to pursue happiness with a younger woman. Her father had died from cancer, and Abby, her only child, had eloped with her fiancée just a few short months after Sam moved out.

  Beth suspected the elopement was partly Abby’s way of coping with the pain of losing her dad and granddad in one fell swoop. And if her new son-in-law hadn’t taken a teaching position in Italy, Beth would have been even more thrilled for them. Now, she was just sad. And lonely.

  Too bad I can’t do something like elope, she thought. Just run off and start anew. On the other hand, maybe even a minor change of scenery would help.

  Chest tight, she got up and patrolled the silent house. She felt like a ghost in her own life. What had happened to the last twenty years? Had it been nothing but a dream? Had her whole life been nothing but a dream? Thoughts, images, and memories roiled through her mind like river rapids, unceasing.

  Finally, circuit through the silent house complete, Beth curled up in the living room recliner and turned on the television. At least the noise drowned out the silence. The bluish light of an old movie reminded her of all those Friday nights when she was a child right here in Sandy, Texas sneaking into the midnight living room to watch Shock Theater when her dad had already gone to bed.

  She was so exhausted she never even noticed the tiny dots of color that darted here and there around the room. There were dozens of pinpricks of light, every hue and color of the rainbow. Gradually coalescing, they swarmed around her gently, like a delicate diaphanous shawl. Maybe she didn’t see them, but perhaps she sensed them for closing her eyes, Beth finally slipped back into sleep, peacefully.

  Sunlight woke her the second time. It was just beginning to break through the white eyelet curtains she had made two years ago. Back when the world was right and her life had been populated with loved ones and plans for the future.

  She was lying in the center of Abby’s soft bed just like she’d done almost every night since the elopement. Though she was certain she had retreated to the recliner at one point, it seemed as if it was growing more and more difficult to tell the dreams from the waking.

  Glad to see daylight, Beth untangled herself from the heap of sheets and blankets twisted around her feet. If only it was that easy to untangle the remnants of my life, she thought.

  Tears formed at the corners of her eyes. It was such a beautiful morning. The March sunlight falling across the bed was almost as warm and golden as that in her previous dream-park.

  Sadness washed over her again. There was no escaping it, no place to hide. Not even sleep could shield her. Her father was gone. Even though she’d known he was terminal, she hadn’t been ready. Though he’d suffered horribly, even with the morphine, she still wanted him back. She knew it was sel
fish; she knew he was better off. But she missed him, needed him. They’d always had such a connection. She’d assumed it was because he’d been her only parent, but maybe it was more than that. Maybe there was something even deeper.

  Thinking of her father was bad enough, but then there was Sam, gone but not gone. Betrayer. She didn’t want to think about that, refused to think about it. Refused to acknowledge how her entire life had hinged on her husband and her dad.

  She clutched the pillow to her face, and screamed out her pain and anger again, and again, and again until her throat was raw and there was nothing left inside but an old riverbed where tears had once flowed.

  After a few moments, she felt what she was hoping to feel—empty and dry. But she knew the riverbed wasn’t really dry. Those tears were still there, like a flash flood waiting for a cloudburst. She was beginning to think they would always be there; that the rest of her life would be rolled out before her on waves of tears.

  She had to get out, go somewhere. She recalled her idea of a change of scenery. It was almost her last hope. There was certainly no reason to stay. She had taken a leave of absence from work; she wouldn’t have to return until August. Just the thought of preparing her fifth grade classroom for a new group of students made her stomach churn and her chest constrict. In fact, at this moment, she couldn’t envision herself ever returning to the classroom. It felt as if Mrs. Evans, the teacher, had been replaced by Bethany Brannock, the timid girl of her youth. How could I have reverted so quickly, so completely?

  She thought the awful nightmares had something to do with her inability to move on. They were every night. In fact, every time she fell asleep, day or night. And they were so real, so depressing, and so frightening.