Here's the link to my book out on amazon.com!
http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Wings-Aviva-Rand/dp/1451515014/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1270951099&sr=8-1#noop
The prologue and first chapter can be read right here.
I'd love to know what you all think!
Aviva
Prologue Tonight, for the first time, I realize I am not going to live forever.
Of course, I’ve always known it on some subconscious level, but people don’t think a lot about death. Well, that’s not true – old people think about death all the time. The young ones don’t. If they did, they would probably worship a little less money and a lot more God. But the young turn instead to the almighty dollar or the pursuit of youth. Not that I consider myself young, mind you, at forty-five, I’m well into my prime, but I still think I have a couple of good years left before I need to wish I’d spent less time with my career and more time with my children.
Anyway, my daughter has a date tonight. Her first.
She has, in no uncertain terms, ordered me out of any part of it. She does not need help with make up and she can dress herself, thank you. No matter that I carried her for nine long, difficult months, nursed her back to health during a bout with pneumonia, gave up two enticing career opportunities in favor of staying home. As she often points out, that was then and this is now. Not that I care. I love her to death. I love my stepson too, from my husband’s previous marriage, but it isn’t the same. I don’t say this callously; it’s just the truth.
“Mom, can you come down here please? Now? I need help!”
My daughter’s cry prompts me to dash downstairs. She can’t do the clasp on the pearls. She took care of everything else and is almost ready, but the pearls have a funny clasp and she can’t click it together at this angle.
I fiddle with the pearls, a nineteenth birthday present. “Did he mention on the phone where he’s taking you?” I dare to ask.
“He said the Marriott might be a fine place to talk.”
The Marriott. Oh God. A wealth of memories hits me in the face, and I literally stagger, as if their weight is more than I can bear. The Marriott, of all places. I shake my head. Time does, indeed, travel in circles.
I fit the clasp together. All done.
She turns to me slowly. “How do I look?”
The image of her, all grown-up, steals my breath away and I find it impossible to speak. She’s the prettier, skinnier version of me at that age.
“You look lovely,” I finally say. “Like a lady.”
“Oh Ma,” she says and rolls her eyes.
The doorbell rings.
“That’s him!” she yelps. “Get out Ma, get out!”
I get out and as I watch her race to the door, stopping only once for a quick mirror-check, it hits me. My time is over. It is her time now, she and her friends that are beginning to marry and to raise children, to build homes and start careers – it is they who will shape the future. And if I haven’t already, I will become a part of yesterday.
It is then that I realize, painfully and unequivocally, that I am not going to live forever.
Breaking my promise, I peek out the window and notice with a certain degree of relief that this young man holds the car door open for my little girl. Satisfied, I turn away and settle comfortably into the couch. Secure in the privacy of my thoughts, I let myself remember.
* * * *
