Part of the beginning of “Goshawk:”
“David leaned over to gently caress the line of her chin but couldn’t bring himself to disturb her slumber.
Then David quietly eased himself out of their bed and tiptoed across a narrow patch of polished birch tiles toward the stairs and down into the den below, slipping into his navy robe along the way. Once downstairs, he curled up in his favorite overstuffed chair in front of the raging fire. He was much too excited to sleep.
A baby! He never imagined he’d want another child after the unpleasant divorce. All that mess. Doesn’t seem to have affected Peter and Will very much, but how to tell? he thought to himself. This one will be different! I’ll avoid the old mistakes.
The brightly burning fire atop a pair of rugged andirons in the fireplace reminded him of his mother and those times after school when he was growing up in eastern Maine. David ran home from school every day, down the muddy hill and through the Johnsons’ raspberry patch, to tell his mother about everything that had happened in his second grade homeroom. She would be sitting at the kitchen table, deeply inhaling her Virginia Slims ever so elegantly, a slender glass of domestic white wine on the table next to an overflowing ashtray. From what now seemed like a very great distance, he watched as his mother leafed methodically through a thick stack of glossy fashion magazines. David remembered looking up at his mother, asking her questions, and trying to get her to listen to him. Although she moved her mouth and words came out, she really wasn’t hearing him, much less responding. It had taken David all these years to figure that out! Now, he felt connected to Marja, like no one before. She made him feel so very warm and comfortable. At last, David slipped deeper and deeper into his memories.
A wave of shattering glass roused David from his fitful slumber.
Smaller glass breaking followed several bulky thumps. Marja’s shrieks made the hair on the back of his neck stand up!
“David! Daaavid, where are you? Help me! Daaaavid!”
A single automatic weapon chuttered three times. He heard more glass breaking, wood smashing. Light running footsteps crossed the bedroom floor and plunged toward him through the carpeted stairwell. David was momentarily paralyzed by his fear then immediately jump-started by a fiery dose of adrenalin.”
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