There was always the smell of linseed oil and terpentine and greyish, dirty-looking rags around. And there was a great big book on the coffee table of famous paintings. I hadn't seen my father for two years.
There were pictures of throngs of angels and chubby cupids with naked rumps and kneeling, Immaculate Virgins. My father seemed a teeny bit uneasy that I preferred to sit on the couch with the large book of pictures, rather than move around.
Unfathomably deep, the roar of a plane, passing over, consoled me. I was a tall girl but still uncentered and not yet transformed into a stable, feminine soul. The years without my father, whom, in my heart, I felt more comfortable with and liked best, were clearly leaving their mark on my eventual transition into womanhood.
Like the star prizefighter, I had been coached, two years earlier, by my mother, beforehand, on what to say to the Judge, when time came for awarding custody. It was my complete spiritual undoing that I hadn't been spontaneous and chosen my father Although, as my mother always reminded me, he never did the caring for me.
A patch of light, like a hand on a sundial, moved an increment along the hardwood floor.
Jennifer finally ends up in Apalachia after barely escaping an attack. She soon learns about her destiny and how her actions will 'put a friend in grave danger'. With everyone refusing to tell her more Jennifer must find answers for herself.
