Excerpt from the
novel Who Saw the Deep
by Christine
Klocek-Lim
(Context:
When Noah moves back home after grad school, he doesn’t expect a simple
handyman job to turn deadly. Amelia seems like a sweet old lady with a run-down
house, but appearances can be deceptive. When an alien ship lands in her woods,
Noah discovers that everything he believed about Earth and human civilization
is wrong.
Amelia already gave her heart to one man—does she really want to let
another one inside? Even though Noah is everything she ever wanted, can she
really trust him? He seems like a good person, but her family’s genetic legacy
is more important than romance.
When all their secrets are laid bare, Noah and Amelia discover that the
survival of their species may be more dependent on love than either could have
imagined. Civilization endures because of anonymous acts executed by ordinary
individuals. And love, especially in the face of betrayal, is worth everything.)
Noah leaned
further over her shoulder and blinked. The album had fallen open to a photo of
a very young Amelia, holding the reins of a horse. She wore tight pants and
knee-high boots with a thick jean jacket buttoned up to her neck. Her hair was
long, dark, and loose. She was gorgeous. Noah wished the photo was in color,
but the sepia was still crisp enough to show all the detail.
“Is that
you?” he asked, reaching a finger down to smooth over the curling edges of the
photo.
“Oh yeah,
that’s me,” she replied, then flipped the page. “Here’s Hugh.”
Noah looked
at the man in the photo. He was ordinary, but had a very kind smile. He was
young too, standing on the front porch of the house, holding a soft hat in his
hands. Noah couldn’t tell for sure from the black and white photo, but he
thought the door was red back then, too. “Your husband?”
“Yes. That
photo was taken right after we were married.” She smiled sadly, trailing her fingers
down the page. “I forgot these were here.”
“How long?”
Noah asked.
Amelia
twisted around. “How long what?”
“How long
were you married?” Noah hated himself. The look on his dad’s face when he’d
described what happened to his brother haunted him. How old was Amelia, really?
He hoped she didn’t catch on to what he really wanted to know.
“Oh, a long
time.” She avoided his question, turning the page and Noah didn’t bring it up
again. They sat together for a few minutes, both of them quiet. When the wind picked
up outside, the back of Noah’s neck prickled. He glanced out the small window
at the far end of the attic. He pursed his lips. Nothing but blue sky
out there. He turned back to Amelia. She was looking down at the book, a
small frown creasing her forehead.
“Do you miss
him?” Noah asked quietly. He watched her turn the pages. Most of the pictures
were still intact, little triangular photo corners holding them securely
against the black paper. Here and there one was missing, or askew. She ran her
fingers over the blank spots and carefully fit the loose photos back into
place. He watched her, not pressing for an answer as she picked up yet another
stray picture, wiggling it back into its spot. In it she was still young,
sitting on the stairs in the living room, her chin in her hands, grinning into
the camera. Noah wondered who’d taken that picture.
Finally she
sighed. “Yes, sometimes I miss him. We were happy together and when he died I
was alone. Leah had already moved to California and she had the girls to keep
her occupied. They were so little it just wasn’t practical for them to visit
too often. Even when my son-in-law, Tom, died four years ago, Leah didn’t come back.
I missed my granddaughters more when Hugh died, probably because I didn’t
really get to see them much and Hugh wasn’t around to keep me company anymore.
They’re fourteen now.”
“I’m sorry,”
Noah offered.
Amelia closed
the album and shook herself. “No sense dwelling on the past. Hugh wouldn’t want
me to pine for him. We had a good life and he made me very happy but that
doesn’t mean I can’t be happy now.” She looked at Noah. “Happiness comes from
within, not from someone else. It doesn’t matter how much Hugh loved me. If I
hadn’t allowed myself to be happy, we would’ve been miserable together.”
Noah frowned.
“You’re saying that no one else can make you happy?” He reached down and lifted
the album off her lap, thinking of his dad. His mom had been lost after Uncle
Tony died, after his dad shut himself down in the basement. He wondered if
that’s why she’d left. Except if what Amelia said was true, his dad wasn’t
responsible for his mother’s unhappiness. “Seems to me that other people can
make you pretty miserable.”
She smiled
and shrugged. “Oh sure, if you live with someone and they treat you like crap,
that can affect how you feel. But if want to be happy, it’s up to you to stay
and accept what can’t be changed, or leave and make another life for yourself.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Sounds selfish, I know, but it’s true. And if you’re
happy because of what you’ve done for yourself, you have more to give to those
you love.”
Noah looked
at her. She was serious. “I don’t know how to do that,” he said, voice low. He
worried he’d end up like his father: alone and bitter.
She looked
down into the box. “You have to figure it out for yourself. That’s how life
works.”
“Shit
happens, though. War, famine, depression. You can’t control that,” Noah pointed
out as she pulled a small leather box from the larger cardboard one and put it
on her lap.
“That’s true.
But even though sometimes you can’t fix what’s happening around you, you can
still make choices in your life. I should go visit Leah instead of complaining
that she never comes here.” She rubbed her nose, leaving a streak of dust along
her cheek. Noah wanted to wipe it away, but Amelia kept talking. “You can
choose to meet whatever happens head on, or run and hide, or ignore it all.”
“Running
sounds cowardly.”
Amelia
sneezed. Noah pulled a tissue from his pocket and handed it to her. Her eyes
were watering, making her blue irises even more vivid in the dim light. “No,
not necessarily. It’s not that simple.” She wiped at her eyes, smearing the
dust more. Noah took the tissue from her and gently wiped it away.
She smiled,
letting him turn her face so he could get to a spot under her ear. “Sometimes
running is the courageous option. You may want to fight some evil, but what if
you have children? Isn’t your first responsibility to them?”
Noah hadn’t
thought of that. “Protect the offspring.” He stuffed the tissue back in his
pocket.
“Yes,
exactly. And sometimes you have to fight anyway because your children would die
later if you didn’t. You can’t make broad statements about what’s right and
wrong. Context is everything.”
* * * * *
Who Saw the Deep was an Amazon
Breakthrough Novel Award (ABNA) 2012 Semi-Finalist Winner and is classified as Romance,
Suspense, Paranormal, Sci-Fi, Mystery
Christine Klocek-Lim won the 2009 Ellen
La Forge Memorial Prize in poetry. When she's not reading poetry for Autumn Sky
Poetry DAILY, she writes novels (Disintegrate, Who Saw the Deep) and is an
acquiring editor for Evernight Teen and Evernight Publishing
Website: http://christinekloceklim.com
Twitter: @chrissiemkl
No comments:
Post a Comment