"Sing Me No Sad Songs"
is the story of a woman whom fate deals a tragic loss and who finds the determination to win back the love of her life - her husband. Just when it looks as though she will win him back, she discovers a horrible truth that shatters her world and changes everything for her.
When Alanna Wayne is abandoned by the husband she had loved with all her heart, she begins to rebuild her life and her songwriting career with her only son, Mark. A tragic accident takes her son from her, shattering her life and threatening her career. Through the help of her dearest friend, Liz Markham, and a renowned singer, Jared Kincaid, Alanna not only rebuilds her career but is encouraged to become a recording artist as well.
Out of the blue, her husband, Stephen, reappears, seeking reconciliation. Torn between her love for him and the pain he had caused her, Alanna wavers. Just as she is about to believe in him again, she learns that his real reason for returning has nothing to do with his love for her.
Excerpt
Alanna Wayne stood on the top of the three steps that separated the immense living room from the oversize front entry of her sprawling ranch home on Palisade Drive north of the Santa Monica Mountains just outside Los Angeles. Alanna Wayne blinked back the overflow from her misty brown eyes. Her shoulder length silver-blonde hair hung in disarray as she looked beyond the tears at her husband, Stephen, who stood in front of the carved oak door that led outside. His right hand rested on the latch as though he felt a need to support himself.
Stephen had been the center of Alanna’s existence from the moment they met in college seven years ago. It was much more than Stephen’s natural unpolished charm and his rugged good looks that first impressed Alanna. She saw in him from the very beginning the kind of caring, even solicitous, manner that was evident in Stephen’s every action. Perhaps, too, it was because he was older than the average male college student then—Alanna seldom bothered to analyze why some things were as they were—but Alanna was drawn to him as butterflies are drawn to spring gardens.
But tonight Stephen had just brought Alanna’s world crashing around her with his announcement that he intended to walk away from his life with her.
Stephen eyed the top of the door, his rugged facial features stern and rigid. Finally he
turned his dazzling blue eyes toward Alanna for a brief moment, and then opened the door
with a quick jerk, slamming it behind himself as he left the house.
Alanna stood motionless except for the clenching of fists at her side. This couldn’t be happening to her, her silent rage screamed inside her head. Any minute now she would wake and find it had all been just a bad dream. After all, she reasoned, Stephen was everything to her — she loved him like no woman had ever loved a man from the beginning of time. He was the other half of her very soul, the other half of all that she was or ever hoped to be. Half of anything could never function by itself, so this was simply not happening to her. Stephen was not leaving her and the nightmare she was going through now would end. But why was it taking so long?
Yet, as Alanna waited for the end of this evil plot, countless eons seemed to pass and still she hadn’t awakened to find Stephen sleeping peacefully beside her as he had for the five years they had been married. Neither she nor Stephen was in their king size bed with the satin sheets hugging every muscle of Stephen’s body. Alanna was still rooted to the same spot on the top step, looking at the same oak door which Stephen had just slammed, and she heard a pitiful moan calling out, “Stephen ...” And then she realized that the heartbroken sob was her own.
She heard the ignition of Stephen’s Jeep Wagoneer cranking the engine to life. The unmistakable sound of the vehicle as it pulled away and sped down the driveway, scattering gravel in its wake, told her that this was all too real. Stephen was not sleeping beside her—and probably never would again—and this was not make-believe. This was as real as it gets, and Alanna couldn’t escape it.
Why, Stephen, why?” she asked herself. She could never fathom there being another woman in Stephen’s life, and she quickly dismissed this from her mind. Had Stephen harbored some kind of jealousy over her very successful songwriting career and allowed it to form a wedge between them? Certainly, she had the attention of renowned singers and musicians through her music, but she at least hoped that Stephen respected her more than to think... She didn’t even want to put that thought into words. Alanna’s mind spun and groped for answers, but none came. She didn’t want to believe that Stephen really couldn’t handle the existence of their child in his life, as he had often told her.
Alanna managed to tear her eyes from the door and to focus on the soundless
emptiness of the large entry with its massive hall table to the left, a coat closet to the right, and the long hallway leading to the three bedrooms in the other wing of the house. There was someone standing in the hallway just off the entry—a small figure—a boy.
It wasn’t so much that she actually saw her son, Mark, quietly standing there in the semi-darkness, as it was his presence she felt. As with Stephen, Mark was equally a most essential part of Alanna’s life, the bond between them having been made even stronger as Alanna desperately sought to bridge an estrangement which had settled between Stephen and Mark over the five years of Mark’s life. Heaven only knew how fiercely she had managed, time and time again, to be both mother and father to Mark, hoping all the while that she could protect him. How could she expect a boy to understand why his father somehow couldn’t manage to find a place in his heart for his own son?
Alanna took a long, deep breath and forced a gallant smile to draw up the corners of her mouth. Only then did she turn her attention to her four-year-old son.
“Hey there, Mark.” She hoped that her voice conveyed more lightheartedness than she felt.
The camaraderie and affection that existed between
Mark and his mother were as tangible as a breath of fresh air. It was more than the fact that he bore a striking
resemblance to Alanna with the same wavy light blonde hair and the open brown eyes. Perhaps he had somehow sensed
that Stephen never displayed the kind of affection that a father is supposed to feel for a son and a willingness to
share himself with Mark which was lacking in Stephen. Alanna spared no effort in her quest to compensate for
Stephen’s shortcomings where Mark was concerned.
“I heard you crying,” Mark began in a low, hesitant
voice. His eyes glistened with his own tears, barely held in check by his uncertainty.
“Not me, sweetheart.” Alanna’s heart was in her throat and she wondered how she managed to get the words out. She hated to lie to Mark, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell Mark that Stephen had left them. Her own pain was just too overwhelming right now.
“Maybe the TV was a little too loud.” She wasn’t even certain that the set was turned on.
She hurried to Mark and, on her knees, she hugged him so tightly he gasped for air. Alanna relaxed her embrace, quickly kissed him on his furrowed forehead, and walked down the hallway to his bedroom across the hallway from the large master bedroom she and Stephen had shared.
“So, are you ready to get back to sleep now that you can see I’m okay?”
“I wanted to tell Dad ‘good night’”.
Alanna avoided direct eye contact with Mark, knowing that his trusting face would surely dissolve her carefully fabricated carefree manner. “Your Dad. . . had to go out. He thought you were asleep already.” Lying was something entirely new to Alanna, unless she counted the times she had covered up for Stephen’s inattentions. And now, in a matter of minutes, she had done it twice, knowing in her heart that she would have to answer for that sin. It nearly broke her heart, had it not already been broken minutes before by Stephen.
In her all consuming love for Stephen, Alanna had made allowances for the absent fatherly instincts. She understood and accepted Stephen’s explanation of the events in his childhood which led to those feelings—losing his mother, to whom he was so strongly attached, as she gave life to Stephen’s younger brother. She also understood when Stephen told her the event had been more than traumatic for him—losing his mother had devastated him. And so Alanna made allowances. She hoped that one day Stephen would manage to feel differently toward his own son. But on the other hand, deep in her heart, she could never quite fathom any man having as little regard for his son as Stephen exhibited toward Mark. But Alanna loved Stephen, and she continued to act as a buffer for Mark. She loved Stephen, but Mark fulfilled her as only a child could.
Alanna tucked Mark into his limed oak bookcase bed, kissed him and hugged him ferociously, then sadly withdrew from Mark’s cluttered room of toys and games. She glanced back over her shoulder at him and managed one last smile as she surveyed the toe-head nestled on the pillow and the special horse toys and statues resting on the shelves above his head. She left the door slightly ajar and the hall light on. She wasn’t sure whether the light was needed for Mark’s reassurance or for hers.
A homonymless man writes shows what it's like to look up the laid he skirts when you’re lying prone(d) to the sidewalk, beer / joint / needle dangling from your hand /lips / arm.
Deputy Dave Jenkins investigates the murder of local high school principal, Jerry Egge, but this is a multi-faceted novel that deals with spiritualism, romance, friendship, and children who fall through the cracks.
"Murder isn't usually this
