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Here’s a taste:
(Chapter 1 of my novella Cherry Pie, which is available in Kindle Unlimited and paperback)
Cherry Pie Sneak Peek
CHAPTER 1
“I’m not ready for you to go,” I admit sheepishly, both proud of myself for saying the words yet equally feeling foreign being so vulnerable. I’m not one to spew feelings all over, especially directing them towards the person they’re actually meant for.
But Marianne is different.
She strokes a weathered hand down my hair, taking a moment to fish her fingers through the ends soothingly like she did when I was a child after picking me up from school.
“I know, mon cherie amér.”
Sinking into a high back barstool at the kitchen island, my chin sinks into my curled knuckles, elbows keeping me off the cool granite. I let out a deep, heavy sigh, one that contains the misery of more than this day, but I’m using this moment to relieve my heart and mind of a lot of different pain.
“You are grown now. You don’t need me like you once used to,” she says in her heavy French accent. Her smile trembles a bit, as if the truth of those words hurt her more than actually having to go.
“I do need you,” I argue, because she is the only one I have. As if she doesn’t know it, I remind her. “You’re all I have, Mari.” The words are soft and crumbly, like one of her fresh baked chocolate and cherry cookies. I’ll miss those cookies, but that isn’t even in the top ten things I’ll miss about Mari.
She tips her head to the side, her expression tenderly defiant. “That isn’t true.”
“It is,” I argue back. Though I’m feeling all the pain of her looming void, fighting is how I protect my feelings and distract myself from how I feel.
After one more sad and unsatisfied smile–Mari is the only one to cut through my bullshit without a single word–she turns to the sub-zero refrigerator behind her. The doors shine; they sparkle really.
I live in a home where surfaces sparkle and gleam, where disinfectant and home-cooked meals fill the air at all times. A place where sheets have the corners tucked under the mattress, like a hotel.
My home is large.
In fact, it’s more of an estate than a home–as it employs several people at all times. The floors gleam, everything has a place and rests in its place, there are no shoes strewn about, no empty package boxes on the floor, nothing left to sit idle and collect dust.
The entire place is a well-oiled and beautiful machine.
Yet I have the selfish audacity–I’ve been told–to hate my life. To hate this house.
And the people that live here. The same people Mari is referring to.
She pours the tea she retrieved from the sub-zero into a glass and pushes it my way. “Cold tea will help your spicy mood.”
I take a sip of the tea, but it only serves to make me more bitter. Mari makes the most delicious sun tea and this drink only reminds me that I won’t have it again after today. Not like this, at least. But I drink it because I love her, and as much of a brat as I can be, I won’t be hurtful on her last day.
I’ll still fight a little, of course, because I can’t have her leaving here thinking I’m suffering from some medical stroke or something. But like usual, I’ll keep the big rifts for them. Not her.
“Are your kids excited to see you?” I ask foolishly because of course her kids want to see her, grown or not. She nods. “Other people waiting to welcome you back?” I ask but I know the answer.
Of course she does. Because everyone has someone, right? Even though Mari has been living in this home raising me for the last fourteen years, I also know she’s in her late sixties and has a network of people she loves back in France.
“Everyone,” she says with a smile so broad that I feel jealous and guilty all at once.
“You should have left sooner,” I quip, sour and bitter, hating to dish her up this side of myself on her last day but honestly sometimes, I’m so angry at them that I can’t control whether or not I dish it out to others. My emotions have always been hard for me to understand and wrangle.
“Ah, ma fille amère, do not get testy with me today.” After returning the pitcher of tea to the refrigerator, Mari joins me, taking the seat next to mine. Her peppered hair looks a lot more white as the sun drops across it from the window. Her hands are worn from taking care of me for so many years. She pats my thigh. “You will be okay, but Cherry, you must let yourself be okay. Do you know what I’m saying?” she asks, her French accent making every single statement sound so smart and sharp.
I drink the tea and look forward, unwilling to tell her that I know just what she means. Be kinder to them, she means, and I know this because she’s said as much many times before.
How can I be kind to them? How can I open myself to them when one of them couldn't even be bothered to take a hand in raising me? Despite the fact that it was his legal obligation, he hired Mari to raise me under his roof. Now with her leaving, I’m left with complete strangers; I am living here with complete strangers.
