Shelterwood by Lisa Wingate EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Authors: Lisa Wingate
- Language: English
- Genre: Historical Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 6.3 MB
- Price: Free
Valerie Boren-Odell, Talihina, Oklahoma, 1990
When our ancestors first came to southeastern Oklahoma one of the first
things they set their eyes on were the beautiful, forested Winding Stair
Mountains. They are our Plymouth Rock, our Mississippi River, our Rocky
Mountains, our Pacific Ocean.
—Ron Glenn, Winding Stair Mountain Wilderness bill, S. 2571,
congressional hearing, 1988.
Dear Val,
Why mince words? Dreams are wonderful things, but a single mother
needs to be practical. Please tell me it isn’t too late for you to return
to your job at the Arch in St. Louis?
Have you lost your mind? Talihina, Oklahoma? I can’t even find it
on the map without putting on my glasses. No wonder you didn’t tell
us ahead of time. Kenneth has been around asking about you, by the
way. You know he thought you two were becoming more than just
friends. I understand grief, my dear, but you can’t cling to it forever,
and let’s face it, if you remarried, you wouldn’t have all these
financial struggles. If you don’t call Kenneth to iron things out, I’m
telling him where I sent this postcard to.
Put Charlie in the car and drive home. I know you have always
been a free spirit, but it’s time to grow up.
—Gram
I read the postcard for the third time since grabbing it from the mail on
my way to work, then survey the breathtaking valley below Emerald Vista
turnout and try to decide how much trouble I’m in. My grandmother taught
high school English for more than a half century. She does not end
sentences with prepositions.
…where I sent this postcard to.
She is in a mood. This note is meant to tear me up a bit, and it does. To
unsettle me slightly, and it does that, too.
I am in the backwoods of southeastern Oklahoma, where after a rain, the
morning shadows linger long and deep, and the mountains exhale mist so
thick it seems to have weight. The countryside exudes the eerie, forgotten
feel of a place where a woman and a seven-year-old boy could simply
vanish and no one would ever know.
A puff of wind slides by, unsettling the folder I pulled from my day pack
to extract the postcard. A mockup brochure and a half dozen high-end paper
samples tumble to the pavement and slide away like fallen leaves. I should
chase them down, but instead, I stand frozen. My mind drifts all the way to
Talihina, where a cheery yellow house offers the only acceptable daycare
willing to watch over a boy whose mom’s new job will sometimes entail
rotating days off and working odd hours.
Just go get him, I tell myself. Pick him up and pack everything back into
the car and go. This is crazy. All of this is crazy.
Instead, I pull a slow breath. The morning air is thicker, greener, and
warmer than I’m accustomed to in May. It smells of summer.
For More Read Download This Book
EPUB