Tag: family

Jazz with Ella

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Excerpt

Jennifer suddenly realized she was the hostess. “Listen, let me order some drinks or coffee. Tell me about yourselves. Do you live here in Moscow?” She moved to the phone then realized that room service might be a foreign concept in the Soviet Union.
“No need,” said Misha, pulling two tall bottles of fizzy water from his satchel. “We cannot stay very long and we have brought some drinks. May I pour?”
“Yes, please.” She picked up the two cups that sat beside a metal teapot on a corner table, and Misha poured and passed the drinks to his wife and Jennifer. He took a swig from the bottle.
“We live in Tula,” Marta said. “It’s about 60 miles south of Moscow. You know about it?” Jennifer shook her head. “The traditional samovar town—we make the finest samovars for all of the Soviet Union there. It’s also close to Tolstoy’s estate, Yasnaya Polyana. You are a language student, correct? Surely you will be visiting the home of such a great author?”
Misha cut in, “You must come to visit us. Tula is 100 kilometers east of the village where my father and your mother were born.”
“Yes, I’d like that,” Jennifer replied. She had so many questions. “When my mother got to England and met my father it was the start of a whole new life. She wouldn’t have known that her brother was still alive. Did he go back to the village after the war?”
“Only to find everyone gone: father and mother dead, sisters missing,” Misha replied. He fell quiet for a few seconds. “He said it was the saddest moment of his life.”
Misha continued to describe their family background, Marta chipping in occasionally and smiling fondly at Jennifer. Even little Nadya left her magazine and put her arms around Jennifer’s neck, calling her “auntie.”
I could grow quite fond of these people, Jennifer thought.
“We have applied to leave the country,” Misha told her. “As you know, Jews are allowed to leave—some of them. We will go to Israel.” He looked about uncomfortably. “But perhaps it’s best not to speak of these things here.” He nodded at the wall indicating a grating with a tilt of his head. Of course, microphones. They had been told that the hidden spying devices were in all the hotels that catered to foreign tourists.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763246

Still Waters

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Excerpt

Jeff ’s head snapped up, and he looked full at Morley for the first
time that evening.
Unlike Millie, the young man did not wait to be asked for his opinion.
“I don’t agree with you either, sir,” he said quietly.
Tyne could not imagine whose face turned more crimson – her
own or her dad’s. She glanced helplessly at Millie, praying that her
wise aunt would quickly offer a word to diffuse the impending explosion.
But, to her horror, she saw Millie’s sparkling eyes riveted on
Morley’s face, her lips twitching upwards.
Tyne looked back at her dad. He sat with his mouth open, his fork
poised in mid-air. Beside him her mother tensed noticeably and stared
at her husband with wide, fearful eyes. Jeremy, prodded to life by Morley’s
statement, raised his head and looked from their dad to Morley
then back again, his features animated for the first time that evening.
“No sir,” Morley continued, although Jeff had not said a word, “I
believe we do need a hospital in Emblem.”
“Aye, do you now?” Tyne did not miss the sarcasm in her dad’s
voice. “And on what do you base this belief, if you don’t mind?” Jeff ’s
Northern England accent, usually barely detectable, became more
pronounced with the level of his irritation.
“I’m sure I don’t need to point out to you, Mr. Milligan, that our
community is growing.” Morley leaned slightly forward. “Some
towns, as you know, have been going backward since the end of the
war, but not this one. That’s probably because we’re becoming a bedroom
community of some of the larger centres.”
Jeff put his fork down. “Then let the larger centres build the hospitals
to take care of their own.”
“But that’s just it,” Morley said earnestly, “most of them already
have institutions. But they’re becoming so crowded that they’re
threatening to turn away patients from outside a radius of thirty
miles. And Emblem’s closest hospital, as you well know, is in Medicine
Hat, forty miles away.”
“The point is,” Jeff said, “why should the taxpayers of Emblem dig
into their pockets to finance an institution in order to accommodate
the people who’re moving out here?”
Morley looked at Jeff keenly. “Are you against progress, sir?”
“Certainly not! I have never even hinted at such a thing in any of
my editorials.”

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763068

Ken Kirkby, A Painter’s Quest for Canada

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Excerpt

“Like physical punishment?” Ken asked.
“Yes, but of a horrible kind.”
“Well, I decided to take them on and use myself as the whipping boy.”
“That’s one of the things that interests me about your story and about
you,” Patrick said. “Are you sure you aren’t an Indian? That’s the kind of
thing we do.”
“No, it was just a way of achieving a goal I wanted. It was a mixture
of vengeance and proving myself smarter. What were the other horrible
things that were done to you?”
Patrick looked away. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”
On his trips with Patrick, Ken discovered a new world, so far removed
from the one he had grown up in, it might have been on a different planet.
I began to have the sense that I had left the shadow of my own people
and of my own world. I was not in that world and I was not in this world
and that has been a familiar place my whole life. In fact when I look at the
paintings that I make, they are actually portraits of that. I’m incredibly interested
in the places in between. I remember painting an old barn when I
was going through the barn phase, as everyone does. I noticed at one point
that the barn itself was not it. The barn was there so that I could paint the
cracks in it. I began to get the idea that time is short and the journey is long
and there is only one way to go in the journey. Imagine a giant sitting on a
beach surrounded by huge boulders and he has picked up two of them and
he’s banging them together. Every time he bangs them together a grain of
sand is created. If he goes on for long enough, at some point, there will be
a beach. That concept pleased me no end – that there was no quick way of
creating a beach. Consequently, there could be no quick way of getting anything.
Whatever it is that I was doing was going to take a very long time and
that was okay. There was something very pleasing about the fact that it was
going to take a very long time. The times in my life when I have been in some
form of contentment are when I have been immersed in a project, the end of
which I cannot see. And my mind stops worrying or considering what I will
do next. I have paddled from one giant project to the next.
He absorbed Patrick’s stories and tried to fit them into a logical context.
There had to be a reason for the actions the Europeans had taken.
One day while they were motoring on the river he asked Patrick, “Why
do you think the newcomers tried to deal with the native population this
way? The residential schools seem to be a complexly bizarre notion. We
know that if you say to someone, ‘This is my castle and you can’t come in’,
they’re going to bash the door down to gain entrance.”
“Yes. It’s bizarre,” Patrick said.
“When you force people to do anything – well we know what the reaction
to that is going to be.”

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073573

Jazz with Ella

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Excerpt

Natasha’s face broke into a smile as she followed the unruly man’s path. Her eyes pierced Jennifer. “Welcome to Moscow. Here is one of our efficient Soviet comrades at your service.”
Irony or not? Jennifer wasn’t quite sure. This woman would be the group’s constant companion for the whole three weeks. Jennifer suddenly found herself a little shy. What should she say to her?
“Did you have a pleasant flight?” Natasha asked in faintly accented English, one eyebrow rising and falling in interrogation.
“No, actually the last stretch was rough! We flew through a storm.”
The eyebrow went up again and Natasha frowned. “Statistically, you were safe,” she said. “Only safe landings have been recorded at this airport for the past 15 years.”
Jennifer stifled the urge to ask about the unrecorded flights, and she and Natasha stood in silence until the others began to trickle through the gate.
★
The highway into Moscow was wide with very few cars, some antiquated buses that belched black soot and many putty-coloured military vehicles, each displaying a stencilled number. Massive concrete bus shelters lined the curb, their panels dwarfing the few pedestrians. There were no houses. On the outskirts of town a sea of apartment buildings loomed, blocks of boxy housing, surrounded by paving stones between which weeds sprouted. Above, clotheslines were strung across the many balconies. At street level, the store windows displayed no colourful signs, no advertising, and not many goods behind the glass panels. Over each storefront was written a single word describing the store’s contents: Footwear, Produce, Dairy. As their bus left the suburbs and entered the city, they saw their first statue on a street corner. Almost two storeys high, it could easily be identified as Vladimir Ilyich Lenin by the pointed beard and round, smooth head.
“King Fred,” giggled Len Whalen, one of the undergrads. Natasha’s gaze soon silenced him.
Several of the group brought out their cameras, but Natasha called out, “No photos yet, please. Save your film for Red Square, coming up on your right.” The famous square flashed past in a blur—the Kremlin walls, the mausoleum, the striped onion domes of St. Basil’s Cathedral.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763246

Still Waters

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Excerpt

Millie grew quiet, apparently deep in thought. Tyne glanced at her
and wondered if, after all, she should enlist her aunt’s help. It was
an accepted fact in the family that Millie was the only one to whom
Jeff Milligan paid any attention. But would he listen, even to Millie,
when it came to his daughter’s friendship with a man of another
faith? “You know, Aunt Millie,” she said suddenly, “Dad would love
to see me dating Larry Warner again.”
“Of course he would, good Catholic boy that Larry is.”
“But he was never too happy when Larry and I were dating.”
“Your father,” Millie said dryly, “would not be happy if you dated
Prince Charming. Even if the prince happened to be of the Roman faith.”
Tyne gave her aunt a curious look. “You’re of the Roman faith,
Aunt Millie. How come you’re not as strict about such things as my
parents are? Is it because Uncle Emory was a Protestant?”
“Your Uncle Emory was neither Protestant nor anything else. That
was the heartache of it for me.”
Tyne nodded. “And yet, you married him.”
“I know, dear, because I loved him. And, I might add, I married
him against your dad’s wishes.”
“But Dad’s younger than you. What right had he to tell you what
to do?”
“When our father died, Jeff as the eldest son, became the head of
the family.”
“Archaic practice,” Tyne muttered.
“Nevertheless, my dear, that’s the truth of it. And I’m not so sure
it was all wrong. It kept some order in families, and provided stability
for women who had no education, and no hope of supporting
themselves adequately.” Millie sighed and took a sip from her glass.
“Our mother, at least, welcomed Jeff ’s guidance and support. Poor
darling Mum was never strong, and knew nothing but housekeeping
and raising children.”
“But you would have been strong enough to take over the family,
Aunt Millie,” Tyne said quietly. “I can’t see you needing guidance
from anyone.”
Millie laughed. “Am I so obviously a Tartar then?”
Tyne blushed and began to protest, but Millie waved her hand.
“No no, I’m joking, child. I know what you say is true.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763068

Savages and Beasts

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Excerpt

Mary Goldberg, just twenty-five years old, who had graduated
from the McGill University of Toronto, daughter of a very
affluent Toronto family with Jewish roots, after a disappointing
erotic relationship with a young man of Jewish roots too, and
against the wishes of her parents, and against the wishes of her
best friend Rosalyn, had decided to travel across the country
and after she spent a few months on the road, and after she lived
temporarily in a few Canadian cities, she ended up in this Indian
Residential School, in Kamloops BC, where she was hired as an
administrator assistant; Mary, who stood almost six feet high
with long black hair that fell on her back almost to her waist,
was a clever eyed young woman with fair attitude; her characteristics
were complimented by her hazel eyes and full lips, an
aesthetically shaped nose and a very shapely body.
This body, hidden under the tight outfits, which Mary
liked to wear was easily discerned by the piercing eyes of Father
Jerome, who never missed noticing such things especially since
he was appointed the head of this facility in Kamloops BC,
here, where no one would ever come to check what was going on
and how the Indian Residential School was run. He knew
of course that he had some guidance from the church and the
Federal Canadian Minister on issues pertaining to education
and curricula, yet the rest of the details were up to him and him
alone, which placed him at the top of a heap he would never ever
step down from. And he made sure all members of the teaching
personnel as well as everybody else, from the British Columbia
Provincial Legislators to the Mayor of Kamloops, to the rest of
the citizens knew who he was and what his goals were; therefore
no one could ever interfere with his decisions regarding the daily
affairs in the running of the school, and the savage kids he was
meant to educate, come hell or high water.
“I wish you peaceful days and nights, Anton,” Mary said,
and her lips showed a faint tremble.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763602

The Circle

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Excerpt

Emily Roberts is still in bed this Monday morning, although it’s late for her. Usually,
she’s up at dawn but not today. Her mind is busily trying to organize Matthew’s
birthday party for Saturday. She has invited about thirty people: friends,
some of his co-workers, even the boss, Bevan Longhorn. She has taken a chance
and invited him, but isn’t sure whether he’ll show up.
They have lived in a beautiful house in the northern part of Los Angeles for
about eight years, and she finds it very difficult to think of living anywhere else.
She wonders what is going to happen when Matthew retires, because he has
mentioned before that he doesn’t want to stay in the same house afterward
especially once Jennifer is gone.
Emily feels lonely this morning. She doesn’t want to get up. She misses
Matthew. Her mind takes her back to their early days as teenagers and to all the
beautiful things they used to do together. Her thoughts mesmerize her and cause
her to feel excited; she tosses and turns in bed.
Emily is a gorgeous forty-seven-year-old blonde who knows she looks as
baeutiful as most girls in the fashion magazines. She feels proud when looking at
herself in the mirror. There have been times when she wished she had the
courage to go out and be with someone, anyone, just for the sexual satisfaction
she misses so much.
Matthew has been away from her almost all the time because of devotion
to his career. Sometimes, she misses even the weekend quickies, although
those sessions only serve his satisfaction. Emily hardly ever comes to the
point of climax with his two- or three-minute efforts. But this morning is
different; she needs to be satisfied. She resorts to her small bottle of oil; she
leans over to the nightstand and takes the lubricant from the drawer. Two,
maybe three, drops are usually enough. She applies the oil and feels the
smoothness that always excites her. After a slow, methodical rubbing, her
body relaxes. Two or three more minutes, and her orgasm is dynamic as
always.
The nextminute she jumps out of bed and runs to the shower,where thewarm
water flows over her and relaxes her as her mind turns to all that she has to do
today. She needs to do so many things—to arrange for the food with the caterers
and to order the flowers. She needs to find a gift for Matt and she needs to organize
the house cleaners. The list of things to do seems endless. She completes her
shower and is rushing out when she hears the phone ring.
“Hi, Mom, what’s up?”
“Nothing, honey, how is your day going so far?”
“Okay, Mom. Listen, do you want to go out for lunch with me? It will give us
a chance to go over your list of things for Saturday.”
She would have preferred to be on her own today to meet with her good
friend Cathy, however, she agrees to meet Jennifer at Mario’s at one o’clock.
She puts the phone down and her mind flies free like a bird in the morning,
and her sexual hunger re-emerges from the depth of her being, as if something
special will happen today, but what? She tries to put the feeling out of her mind.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0978186524

Still Waters

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Excerpt

Tyne fought back a wave of anger. “Thank you,” she said stiffly.
Her mother’s voice followed her up the stairs. “He said he’d call back
after supper.’’
In her bedroom, Tyne threw off her damp clothes, grabbed a light
dressing gown and headed for the bathroom. That boy, she muttered
under her breath. That Cresswell boy. Her mother was beginning to
sound just like her dad. At twenty-four Morley was hardly a boy.
That boy, indeed.
She bent to turn on the bathtub faucet, and jumped when her
mother suddenly appeared in the doorway. A small woman, Emily
had mousy blonde hair pulled back severely into a bun at the nape of
her neck. Tyne often thought that her mother must have been pretty
as a young woman, but the years had taken their toll. Deep frown lines
creased her forehead, but no soft laugh lines appeared around her
mouth and eyes as there should have been in a fifty-year-old woman.
“If you persist in seeing this boy, Tyne,” Emily said, “you know
what it will lead to, don’t you?”
Tyne straightened her back. “Yes, Mom, it already has. Morley and
I are planning to marry.”
As soon as she said the words she wished she could take them
back. She had not meant to drop such a bombshell in this way, especially
to her timid, anxious mother.
Emily’s hand flew to her mouth, too late to hide the trembling of
her lips.
When she spoke Tyne could barely hear her over the running bath water.
“Oh, Tyne, how could you bring disgrace to our family like this?”
“Disgrace? Disgrace? Is that your word, or Dad’s?”
Emily’s face tightened. “Be careful, Tyne.”
“I only mean … Mom, I can’t believe you would think that by marrying
a good Christian man like Morley I’ll bring disgrace on the
family.”
“He’s not our kind of Christian, Tyne. You haven’t been raised that way.”
“What way? Are we so special? Why should this be an issue between
us? Morley is a good man and a fine Christian. There is no
issue.”
Emily’s voice rose. “I won’t stand here and listen to this. You’re not
my daughter anymore. You’ve changed. That boy has changed you
already.”

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763068

Water in the Wilderness

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Excerpt

As the others tried to hide their smiles, Morley bit his lip to hold back the laughter. “No, we have to wait for Auntie Tyne.”
“Hymmph,” Bobby mumbled as he stopped chewing, his little cheeks puffed out like a squirrel.
This time no one could disguise their amusement.
The weekend passed too quickly, the late summer days perfect for long walks around the farm and picnicking at Emblem Lake. On Sunday morning Tyne went alone to the Catholic Church while Morley took their guests and the children to his church on the outskirts of Emblem. The night before, as she helped the young ones prepare for bed, Tyne had asked Rachael if her family attended Sunday morning service.
“Nope,” Rachael said briefly as she pulled her pajamas on.
“Then would you like to go to church with Uncle Morley and the Halls tomorrow?”
Rachael shrugged as if it didn’t make any difference to her one way or another. But Bobby jumped up and down and demanded to know where they were going and if they could get ice cream like they had at the lake that afternoon.
Tyne recruited Morley to explain it to the children, and left him sitting on Bobby’s little cot in the room the boy shared with his sister, in serious conversation with the two of them. As she returned to the porch to rejoin their guests, she felt sad that these revelations had to come from a virtual stranger rather than from the children’s own parents. But, at the same time, she felt thankful that she and Morley had the privilege of sharing these things with them even for this short time.
On Sunday afternoon the children were playing outside, and the men had gone to have a last walk around the farm before Moe and Ken had to leave for home. Tyne sat with her friend on the porch, looking out at the cosmos and snapdragons growing in profusion in the shade of a large maple in the front yard.
“It’s been wonderful, Tyne,” Moe said, “I hate to leave. And it’s been good for Ken to get away from the city. He takes work far too seriously and the bosses take advantage of him.”

https://www.amazon.com/dp/192676319X

The Circle

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Excerpt

“How about a cup at the spot?”
“I’m having one right now. Want to shoot some pool?”
“Sure. Meet you there in about half an hour?”
“Yeah.”
He finishes his coffee quickly, eats his sandwich, and steps into the shower.
Today is Saturday, and the rest of his day is free. He puts on his jeans, a t-shirt,
and a light jacket. The days of September are getting cooler; a sign of fall
approaching.
In the elevator he meets the lady from 406, a middle-aged blonde who likes
him and always exchanges a few words with him. Today is no exception.
“Out again?” she asks, with a smile.
“Yeah, for a while.”
“Girls, girls, as always!”
She says nothing more as they reach the lobby and they go their separate
ways.
He walks to the parking lot, gets into his car, and drives to the pool hall. Talal
is already there and has ordered his coffee. Hakim buys a bottle of water and they
start their game.
“Anything on the job-front?” Hakim asks.
“Nothing yet, man.”
“Well, something will come together sooner or later.” He tries to encourage
his friend.
“I hope so, man; I’m getting frustrated.”
Hakim’s phone rings. It’s Jennifer.
“Hi, how are you?” he says.
“Hi, I’m okay. You remember, I promised to call you.”
“Yeah, I know, but—”
“What? You don’t want to go out with me? Is that it?” she interrupts him.
“No, that’s not what I mean. I’m having a game of pool with Talal.”
She hesitates on the other end of the phone, so he tells her, “I’ll see you later,
okay?”
“You promise?”
“Yeah, I promise. I’ll call you and meet you later.”
He puts his phone away; it’s his turn to play.
“She really wants to know where you are all the time, eh?” asks Talal.
“No, that’s not it. She called earlier, and I told her to call me back.”
“Women, you know, they are all the same. That’s why my style is no
commitment, you know? Casual sex as often as possible, but none of this
nonsense!”

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B006PY87YQ