This is the story of a young mother who becomes a widow, who loses her identiy, and faces what she assumes is a life of raising her children alone, as the man she falls in love with will not allow a relationship to blossom due to his loyalty to his friend that he discovers loves Maggie as well.
Life isn't the bright future Maggie imagined when she married on the spur of the moment. Her story continues in the Southwest, as she is left with an infant and toddler to raise alone after she suddenly finds herself a widow, and ends up on as a housekeeper on a ranch in the Arizona desert. It is her hope that the Arizona red sky is an indication that it will be clear sailing for her and her daughters, despite the many mishaps and hardships she encounters along the way.
Excerpt
The sunlight streamed through the bedroom as Maggie stood at the window, looking out over the hills in the distance with the dust cloth hanging limply in her hand. The sky was no longer overcast. The clouds that had promised rain earlier in the morning hadn’t lasted long, and the hills now appeared purple and lavender in an Indian summer haze. The same haze obscured the red-rock cliffs that were jutting out here and there from the juniper-covered hills in the distance. She stood mesmerized by the tranquility of the seemingly surreal, living picture framed by the window. Even the hawk gliding gracefully overhead while leaving his darkened shadow on the desert floor seemed somehow to be a part of a collage in her imagination. She was so absorbed in the window’s serene images that she was unaware that she was not alone until she was snatched from her daydream by a muffled, shuffling sound from behind her.
Turning toward the intruder of her tranquility, she expected to see Todd Ashurst, even though he had said he would probably be late getting in that evening. With the realization that it wasn’t Todd’s tall frame filling the doorway, her breath caught sharply in her throat when she recognized Justin’s shorter thin features instead. Her estranged husband stood swaying unsteadily in the bedroom’s doorway, weaving to and fro with his clothing uncharacteristically in disarray. She realized he was inebriated when his uncoordinated hand groped the doorframe in an effort to steady himself as he pitched forward, leering at her.
“What cha doing there, honey?” he queried, flashing an insidious grin, with his words slurred and barely intelligible.
“What are you doing here?” Maggie demanded. She resented his unexpected intrusion into her life. She hadn’t seen him in months, not since his brutal attack. Needless to say, she was less than pleased to see him standing unsteadily in front of her now. As he swaggered and weaved toward her, she warily backed away, staying barely outside of his reach.
“You’re not an easy one to find, honey!” he declared, displaying a widening grin as he reached slowly toward her. Suddenly losing his balance, he fell against the dresser and scattered the contents of a jewel box perched on top across the hardwood floor. The sounds were deafening in the silence of the room.
“So, you found a rich boyfriend did you?” He swept his hand in front of him, indicating the wealth implied by the ranch’s modest furnishings. Maggie felt like a cornered rabbit, and she tried to edge past him, inching toward the doorway.
“You get any money for your services yet?” he asked with a sneer, holding out his palm and rubbing his thumb and fingers together as though feeling the fabric of currency. Glassy-eyed, he gave her another widening, toothy grin.
“I could sure use a couple of bucks to tide me over, honey!” From his disheveled appearance, he obviously hadn’t been sober for days, or possibly even months. Maggie remained silent.
“Hey! Are you smuggling your boyfriend’s watermelons there, eh?” With a chortle he gestured an unsteady finger at her obviously pregnant belly as she managed to edge past him.
Suddenly reaching out, he grabbed for her wrist, but missed.
“You’re still a cold lil’ fishy, eh honey?” he laughed sarcastically with a wink.
“But I guess maybe not, huh!” He was unsteady on his feet as he tapped his belly to indicate her expectant condition in crude mockery.
Maggie didn’t say a word. She made her way cautiously through the bedroom doorway, and was already at the top of the stairway when Justin suddenly moved up from behind, lunging toward her and knocking her off balance.
She pitched forward head first down the staircase with the stairs rushing up toward her. The room beyond the railing reeled and she grabbed for the banister in a frantic attempt to stop her descent to no avail. She let out a scream as the bottom of the stairs and the room below yawned up toward her in seemingly slow motion. Her plunge suddenly came to an abrupt halt with an explosion of pain and a brilliant flash of light before the veil of unconsciousness drew her into its blackened void, engulfing her, filling her with waves of piercing pain.
Justin stood dumbfound at the top of the stairs and watched as his wife tumbled to the bottom where she lay in a motionless heap. “I only meant to intimidate the li’l idiot!” he muttered as though justifying his actions. “I just needed a li’l money to tide me over for a few days.” He licked his lips and ran his fingers nervously through his unkempt hair, gazing down at Maggie lying at the bottom of the stairs.
“None of this would have happened if the li’l twit would have just given me a couple of bucks. The taverns won’t even foot me a few more drinks, even after I promised to catch up my bill right away. Mama will get the money for me from the bank on Monday like she promised, but that don’t help me today!”
Justin had the proverbial monkey on his back, and the monkey wasn’t pretty. Shaking his head, he ran his fingers through his hair again before rubbing his hands down the legs of his pants as though wiping off the dirt and ridding himself of guilt. He wasn’t eager to stick around to meet the owner of the house, so he made his way down the stairs, stepping past the crumpled heap of his wife. With an unsteady stagger, he found his way through the front door and down to the driveway where he’d left his father’s car. Jacqui’s jabbering baby talk was audible to him, coming from the playpen where she sat entertaining herself in the kitchen. There were no thoughts of whether Maggie was seriously injured in her fall. His singular concern was in leaving before anyone chanced seeing him there.
When Maggie disappeared from the restaurant in the previous weeks, Justin inquired had about her whereabouts from anyone he thought might know where she had gone. He knew she was living with one of the other waitresses after he followed her to Louise’s home from the restaurant one night. But when he approached Louise and asked her where Maggie was now living, Louise nearly threw him out of the restaurant. He followed Louise for days before she finally led him unknowingly to her brother’s ranch.
When Louise picked up Maggie’s mail from the General Delivery clerk at the post office for the last time, Justin had stayed out of sight but within earshot. He heard Louise asking for Maggie’s mail before giving the clerk instructions to have further mail for her forwarded from that point on to the Ashurst Ranch and giving the clerk Maggie’s written request to that effect. He followed Louise until she left the highway and turned onto the dirt road that led to the ranch.
Before leaving his parents’ house to seek Maggie out early that morning, Justin had managed to consume everything in his parent’s home that contained the minutest traces of alcohol, including the vanilla flavoring and his father’s shaving lotion. Following her fall down the stairs, he assured himself that he hadn’t intended to harm her. He only meant to rough her up a little.
“It wasn’t my fault she fell,” he surmised. “It wasn’t necessary for her to run from me in the first place,” he spoke aloud to no one as he twisted the key in the ignition of his father’s car and the engine roared to life. When he threw the car into gear it lurched forward and then careened down the dirt road in a billowing, red, plume of dust.
“I’ve gotta avoid the main highway,” he reminded himself out loud while staying on the dirt road that led out toward the highway. “I sure don’t need to be stopped for reckless driving!”
Within a quarter of a mile from the ranch house, he veered off the dirt road and onto a group of rutted tire tracks leading toward one of the dry cattle tanks. The desert floor stretched out flat in the distance like rough terra cotta, flecked here and there with lone clumps of yucca and sagebrush. As the car bounced through the ruts that were left by past rains, it felt like a sledgehammer pounding rock with each impact of the tires against the hard ground. He was wild eyed and his knuckles were white from gripping the steering wheel. His foot was unsteady on the accelerator, and as he was jostled about, it caused him to slam the gas pedal to the floor. He was a man possessed, like a madman fleeing a mob of demons across the desert.
The Wholly Book of Exodus is humorous adult literature that features adult language, situations and content. It is the companion book of Jay Dubya's The Wholly Book of Genesis that satires the entire first book of the Bible.
The Wholly Book
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