Monday, October 29, 2018
Review: When the Lights Go Out
Author: Mary Kubica
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Publisher: Harlequin - Hanover Square Press
Format: Kindle ARC
No. of pages: 384
Published: September 4, 2018
My Rating: 3.5 Stars
DESCRIPTION :
A woman is forced to question her own identity in this riveting and emotionally charged thriller by the blockbuster bestselling author of The Good Girl, Mary Kubica
Jessie Sloane is on the path to rebuilding her life after years of caring for her ailing mother. She rents a new apartment and applies for college. But when the college informs her that her social security number has raised a red flag, Jessie discovers a shocking detail that causes her to doubt everything she’s ever known.
Finding herself suddenly at the center of a bizarre mystery, Jessie tumbles down a rabbit hole, which is only exacerbated by grief and a relentless lack of sleep. As days pass and the insomnia worsens, it plays with Jessie’s mind. Her judgment is blurred, her thoughts are hampered by fatigue. Jessie begins to see things until she can no longer tell the difference between what’s real and what she’s only imagined.
Meanwhile, twenty years earlier and two hundred and fifty miles away, another woman’s split-second decision may hold the key to Jessie’s secret past. Has Jessie’s whole life been a lie or have her delusions gotten the best of her?
MY THOUGHTS:
When we open the pages of this chilling tale, we read that Jessie Sloane is sitting with her dying mother. She is not sleeping and is suffering from sleep deprivation. This has become debilitating to her. She is now seeing and hearing things. In the process of trying to apply to college, she discovers several disconcerting things: she had no social security number, identification or even a birth certificate.
The story shifts to a woman named Eden set twenty years earlier. She is a happy young wife and she and her husband have moved into a new home. Although having only been married for a couple of years, Eden wants a child more than she ever could have imagined. This is a pivotal part of the story.
The story quickly shifts back and forth between Jessie’s and Eden’s first-person points of view. It is rather difficult to follow as the timelines seemed rather random. I nearly put the book down more than once, but about 100 pages in, things began to come together.
Because of this, it took me several days to read this book. I simply could not get into the story. I was relieved when I reached the “Aha” moment. I then became eager to know why Jessie had such an uncertain past and did wonder about whatever resolution would come her way. The story definitely was intriguing, as there was so much to learn about both of these women and how they tied together.
This is a book in which the term unreliable narrator really applies. Two in this case. This is because character development in When the Lights Go Out was done quite well. I felt for Jessie while she struggled with the dual battle of her identity and her extreme exhaustion and everything that went along with that. Conversely, the author did a fine job in making me truly dislike Eden. Although there were moments when I did feel very sorry for her, I also felt moments of complete disgust. This was a very nice contrast to experience while reading this book.
The ending, though... I had to read the last several chapters twice. All I can say at this point is that it was odd. It left me scratching my head. I did get the answers that I was seeking while reading this book, but it was delivered just as jumbled as the rest of the story. This is my first read by Mary Kubica. However, due to the intrigue which did manage to hold my attention for a good portion of the story, I would like to give this author another look in a future book.
Many thanks to Harlequin - Hanover Square Press and NetGalley for this ARC to review in exchange for my honest opinion.
PLEASE ENJOY THE FOLLOWING EXCERPT:
The city surrounds me. A panorama. With arms outstretched, I can’t help but spin, taking it all in. Enjoying the view, knowing fully well this may be the last thing my eyes ever see.
I stare at the four metal steps before me, aware of how frail and broken-down they look. They’re orange with rust, paint flaking, some of the slats loose so that when I press my foot to the first step, it buckles beneath me and I fall.
Still, I have no choice but to climb.
I pull myself back up, set my hands on the rails and scale the steps. The sweat bleeds from my palms so that the metal beneath them is slippery, slick. I can’t hold tight. I slip from the second step, try again. I call out, voice cracking, a voice that doesn’t sound like mine.
As I reach the roof’s ledge, my knees give. It takes everything I have not to topple over the edge of the building and onto the street below. Seventeen floors.
I’m so high I could touch the clouds, I think. The sense of vertigo is overpowering. The ground whooshes up and at me, the skyscrapers, the trees starting to sway until I no longer know what’s moving: them or me. Little yellow matchbooks soar up and down the city streets. Cabs.
If I was standing at street level, the ledge would feel plenty wide. But up here it’s not. Up here it’s a thread and on it, I’m trying to balance my two wobbly feet.
I’m scared. But I’ve come this far. I can’t go back.
There’s a moment of calm that comes and goes so quickly I almost don’t notice it. For one split second the world is still. I’m at peace. The sun moves higher and higher into the sky, yellow-orange glaring at me through the buildings, making me peaceful and warm. My hands rise beside me as a bird goes soaring by. As if my hands are wings, I think in that moment what it would be like to fly.
And then it comes rushing back to me.
I’m hopelessly alone. Everything hurts. I can no longer think straight, I can no longer see straight, I can no longer speak. I don’t know who I am anymore. If I am anyone.
And I know in that moment for certain: I am no one.
I think what it would feel like to fall. The weightlessness of the plunge, of gravity taking over, of relinquishing control. Giving up, surrendering to the universe.
There’s a flicker of movement beneath me. A flash of brown, and I know that if I wait any longer, it will be too late. The decision will no longer be mine. I cry out one more time.
And then I go.
JESSIE
I don’t have to see myself to know what I look like.
My eyes are fat and bloated, so bloodshot the sclera is bereft of white. The skin around them is red and raw from rubbing. They’ve been like this for days. Ever since Mom’s body began shutting down, her hands and feet cold, blood no longer circulating there. Since she began to drift in and out of consciousness, refusing to eat. Since she became delirious, speaking of things that aren’t real.
Over the last few days, her breathing has changed too, becoming noisier and unstable, developing what the doctor called Cheyne-Stokes respiration where, for many seconds at a time, she didn’t breathe. Short, shallow breaths followed by no breaths at all. When she didn’t breathe, I didn’t breathe. Her nails are blue now, the skin of her arms and legs blotchy and gray. “It’s a sign of imminent death,” the doctor said only yesterday as he set a firm hand on my shoulder and asked if there was someone they could call, someone who could come sit with me until she passed.
“It won’t be long now,” he’d said.
I had shaken my head, refusing to cry. It wasn’t like me to cry. I’ve sat in the same armchair for nearly a week now, in the same rumpled clothes, leaving only to collect coffee from the hospital cafeteria. “There’s no one,” I said to the doctor.
“It’s only Mom and me.”
Only Mom and me as it’s always been. If I have a father somewhere out there in the world, I don’t know a thing about him. Mom didn’t want me to know anything about him.
And now this evening, Mom’s doctor stands before me again, taking in my bloated eyes, staring at me in concern. This time offering up a pill. He tells me to take it, to go lie down in the empty bed beside Mom’s and sleep.
“When’s the last time you’ve slept, Jessie?” he asks, standing there in his starch white smock, tacking on, “I mean, really slept,” before I can lie. Before I can claim that I slept last night. Because I did, for a whole thirty minutes at best.
He tells me the longest anyone has gone without sleep. He tells me that people can die without sleep. He says to me, “Sleep deprivation is a serious matter. You need to sleep,” though he’s not my doctor but Mom’s. I don’t know why he cares.
But for whatever reason, he goes on to list for me the consequences of not sleeping. Emotional instability. Crying and laughing for no sound reason at all. Behaving erratically. Losing concept of time. Seeing things. Hallucinating. Losing the ability to speak.
And then there are the physical effects of insomnia. Heart attack, hypothermia, stroke.
“Sleeping pills don’t work for me,” I tell him, but he shakes his head, tells me that it’s not a sleeping pill. Rather a tranquilizer of some sort, used for anxiety and seizures. “It has a sedative effect,” he says. “Calming. It will help you sleep without all the ugly side effects of a sleeping pill.”
But I don’t need to sleep. What I need instead is to stay awake, to be with Mom until she makes the decision to leave.
I push myself from my chair, strut past the doctor standing in the doorway. “Jessie,” he says, a hand falling gently to my arm to try and stop me before I can go. His smile is fake.
“I don’t need a pill,” I tell him briskly, plucking my arm away. My eyes catch sight of the nurse standing in the hallway beside the nurse’s station, her eyes conveying only one thing. Pity. “What I need is coffee,” I say, not meeting her eye as I slog down the hallway, feet heavy with fatigue.
Saturday, October 27, 2018
BLOG TOUR - Tell Me No Lies
Today is my stop on the Blog Tour for Tell Me No Lies by Alex Sinclair.
DESCRIPTION:
How well do you really know your husband?
Grace Dalton is trying to put her life back together after her husband John died suddenly in a hit and run. Her perfect world is collapsing around her, the home she hoped to fill with children is huge and empty, and she’s paralysed with grief.
But as Grace sorts through her husband’s belongings, she realises the man she loved was lying to her. There’s a mysterious list of names hidden among his things, a secret bank account, and a shocking revelation about his family that he kept from her since the day they met.
Who was John Dalton?
As Grace tries to identify the names on the list she realises something is wrong. She’s imagining things: seeing John in the faces of strangers and finding things in an entirely different place to where she’d swear she left them.
Is Grace losing her grasp on reality, or is someone trying to stop her finding out the truth about her husband?
A gripping psychological thriller that will have you questioning everything you think you know. If you enjoyed The Wife Between Us, The Girl on the Train or Behind Closed Doors, you’ll love this book!
Grace Dalton is trying to put her life back together after her husband John died suddenly in a hit and run. Her perfect world is collapsing around her, the home she hoped to fill with children is huge and empty, and she’s paralysed with grief.
But as Grace sorts through her husband’s belongings, she realises the man she loved was lying to her. There’s a mysterious list of names hidden among his things, a secret bank account, and a shocking revelation about his family that he kept from her since the day they met.
Who was John Dalton?
As Grace tries to identify the names on the list she realises something is wrong. She’s imagining things: seeing John in the faces of strangers and finding things in an entirely different place to where she’d swear she left them.
Is Grace losing her grasp on reality, or is someone trying to stop her finding out the truth about her husband?
A gripping psychological thriller that will have you questioning everything you think you know. If you enjoyed The Wife Between Us, The Girl on the Train or Behind Closed Doors, you’ll love this book!
Links to purchase the book:
Amazon: https://amzn.to/2ELzp7C
iBookstore: https://tinyurl.com/ydh6znc2
Googleplay: https://tinyurl.com/ycftcytp
MY REVIEW:
Title: Tell Me No Lies
Author: Alex Sinclair
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Publisher: Bookouture
Format: Kindle ARC
Date of Publication: October 25, 2018
No. of Pages: 310
My Rating: 4 Stars
It should have been the best night of their lives. Grace and John Dalton are out celebrating their fifth anniversary. After dinner, while walking back to their car, John receives a phone call and steps away from Grace. Surprisingly, he is hit by a speeding car and suddenly dies. Grace becomes overwhelmed with grief and depression. She struggles to accept the loss of her husband after just five years of marriage. When she finally decided to bury him and try to move on she starts to get very strange messages.
It should have been the best night of their lives. Grace and John Dalton are out celebrating their fifth anniversary. After dinner, while walking back to their car, John receives a phone call and steps away from Grace. Surprisingly, he is hit by a speeding car and suddenly dies. Grace becomes overwhelmed with grief and depression. She struggles to accept the loss of her husband after just five years of marriage. When she finally decided to bury him and try to move on she starts to get very strange messages.
After his funeral Grace sees a lawyer who tells her that John had a one million dollar policy out on them and had a secret bank account. Grace is shocked because this is not the John she knew. They did not keep secrets from one another. At least that is what she thought.
While Grace seeps deeper into depression, she reluctantly begins to rely on her good friend, Jennifer. Before her husband’s death, Jennifer and Grace were inseparable. Now their relationship is quite strained. However, Jennifer does her best try to help Grace.
During most of the story, Grace is seen as a broken, depressed woman. I began to wonder more than once whether or not the story would change directions. As the story progressed, there were things about John that Grace was learning and, sadly, she realized that he definitely was not the man that she thought he was.
Tell Me No Lies was written from Grace’s first-person point of view. The story fluctuates between Then and Now, adding to the intrigue. This is because clues about John were slowly being delivered.
It was at this point in the story where it picked up to the degree that the suspense increased on several levels. It ceased to be just the story of Grace grieving. It is really hard to say more at this point in the review without giving spoilers so that others will not be able to enjoy this story. This book had a slow-boiling plot and believable characters, especially when Grace is forced to explore her own sanity. At some point the story started to reveal itself. But don’t be fooled, be prepared for a shocking conclusion. This is definitely a compelling read.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
When he's not spending time with his wife and daughter, Alex can be found obsessing over his fiction. He loves to write fast-paced, gripping stories with killer twists. Alex is an avid reader of psychological thrillers and has a passion for good storytelling.
Alex’s novel, The Last Thing I Saw (available now), is the first of three gripping psychological thrillers he is publishing with Bookouture in 2018. His second psychological thriller, The Day I Lost Her, was released on the 13th of July, 2018. Tell Me No Lies is out now!
Author Social Media Links:
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/ASinclairAuthor/?ref=br_rs
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/ASinclairAuthor
WEBSITE: www.alexsinclairwrites.com
Monday, October 22, 2018
Review: Hidden
Author: Rebecca Zanetti
Series: Deep Ops #1
Genre: Mystery/Thriller, Romance
Publisher: Kensington Books
Format: Print ARC
No. of pages: 348
Published: September 25, 2018
My Rating: 4.5 Stars
DESCRIPTION:
Hide. That’s all Pippa can do to escape the terror chasing her. But now that she’s off the grid in a safe house, she finds plenty of interesting things to watch through the window. Like her new neighbor, with his startling green eyes, killer smile, and sexy bad-boy tattoo . . .
Run. Malcolm West is fleeing the hell he unleashed in his last assignment as an undercover cop. A backwoods bungalow sounds like the perfect place to start over. Until he discovers he’s been set up . . .
Fight. Someone’s gone to a lot of trouble to bring them together. No matter how much he resents that, and his own driving needs, Malcolm will have to dig deep and let loose the banished killer inside himself, or Pippa’s fears could come true faster than the flip of a bolt in a lock . . .
MY THOUGHTS:
Both Pippa Smith and Malcolm West are in flight. Pippa is hiding in a safe house after escaping a dangerous cult. She is still in grave danger. Malcolm is a cop and his flight is for a different reason. He experienced quite a difficult time during his last undercover assignment. He thinks that he will have time to regroup. He has no time to do that, however. He is quite incensed when he learns that he is being assigned to infiltrate a cult while getting close to a former cult member at the same time. As close as possible, that is. His assignment is none other than Pippa Smith.
Malcolm is part of a Special Ops team led by Wolfe. Malcolm learns that the cult is much more than brainwashing people in the name of exclusive worship to a charismatic leader. The cult may be planning a mass attack with bombs. Malcolm takes his assignment quite seriously. He quickly develops an intense intimate relationship with Pippa, and realizes his attraction to her goes beyond the physical. Pippa is torn. She is dealing with her time in the cult, the ever-present danger she is in even now and her growing feelings towards Malcolm.
Hidden is an incredibly thrilling book! Whether the cult is mentioned, the impending attack, or how things are evolving between Pippa and Malcolm, this story is a true time-stealer. This multi-layered story was quite riveting. It was truly impelling and I could not put it down. Add to all of this were the incredible characters. Most assuredly Malcolm and Pippa were outstanding, but then there was the Deep Ops team, including Wolfe, Angus, Raider and Brigid, to name a few. Of course, I have to at least mention Roscoe the dog and Kat the kitten. Loved them too.
The romance between Pippa and Malcolm happened in a flash, but the level of intrigue was definitely present throughout. This was an incredibly fast-paced story. As things began to draw to a close, the impelling danger was truly a page-turner.
This is the first book that I have read by Rebecca Zanetti as it was sent to me by the publisher. Hidden is book #1 in the Deep Ops series. It will be followed by Taken in 2019 and will have Raider Tanaka’s story.
Many thanks to Kensington Books for the print ARC for review.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Rebecca Zanetti is the author of over forty romantic suspense, dark paranormals, and contemporary romances, and her books have appeared multiple times on the New York Times, USA Today, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and iBooks bestseller lists. She lives in the wilds of the Pacific Northwest with her own Alpha hero, two kids, a couple of dogs, a crazy cat…and a huge extended family. She believes strongly in luck, karma, and working her butt off…and she thinks one of the best things about being an author, unlike the lawyer she used to be, is that she can let the crazy out. Upcoming series are: The Blood Brothers, The Realm Enforcers and The Scorpius Syndrome.
LONGER BIO:
Rebecca Zanetti wrote her first story when she was six – a romance between a princess and neighboring prince. The princess fell out of her castle and the prince rescued her. A happily ever after was had by all.
This theme of romance has been carried through Rebecca’s works until present time. While today’s heroine may have a medical degree, black belt in Karate and her own 401K, she’s still after that happy ending. And today’s prince may have fangs and wear a black hat, but hey, a modern princess likes a guy who bites.
Rebecca attended Pepperdine University, earning a bachelor’s degree in Journalism with a Political Science emphasis. While there she worked as the Editor-in-Chief of The Graphic newspaper, a member of the Pi Phi Sorority and an intern for President Reagan, who still gave 3-5 speeches a week, even though he was no longer president.
After college, Rebecca worked as an art curator and a Senate aide before heading to law school, where she received her Juris Doctorate from the University of Idaho. She married Tony Zanetti in the middle of her second year of law school and became pregnant with their first child during the third year. She graduated law school, gave birth three weeks later, and took the Bar Exam three weeks after that. All she remembers about the bar exam is that it was so quiet in the testing room, she thought about taking a quick nap. But she continued on, passed the bar and became a lawyer. She worked for a large firm, then a small firm, then the county while also teaching legal classes at her local community college. Now she writes romances about vampires, cowboys, and soldiers.
Growing up amid the glorious backdrops and winter wonderlands of the Pacific Northwest has given Rebecca fantastic scenery and adventures to weave into her stories. She resides there with her husband, children and extended family who inspire her every day. Rebecca has completed several manuscripts, winning award throughout the writing industry for her work. She is currently writes the Scorpius Syndrome series and the Realm Enforcer series (a Dark Protector spinoff) for Kensington Publishing, and the Sin Brothers series and the Lost Bastard Series for Grand Central Publishing.
The Coeur d’Alene Press recently published an article about Rebecca called “A Novel to Sink Your Teeth Into.”
Web / Facebook / Twitter / Street Team / Goodreads
Sunday, October 21, 2018
Review: Baby Teeth
Author: Zoje Stage
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Format: Audiobook
No. of pages: 304
Published: July 17, 2018
My Rating: 5 Stars
DESCRIPTION:
Sweetness can be deceptive.
A battle of wills between mother and daughter reveals the frailty and falsehood of familial bonds in award-winning playwright and filmmaker Zoje Stage’s tense novel of psychological suspense, Baby Teeth.
Afflicted with a chronic debilitating condition, Suzette Jensen knew having children would wreak havoc on her already fragile body. Nevertheless, she brought Hanna into the world, pleased and proud to start a family with her husband Alex. Estranged from her own mother, Suzette is determined to raise her beautiful daughter with the love, care, and support she was denied.
But Hanna proves to be a difficult child. Now seven-years-old, she has yet to utter a word, despite being able to read and write. Defiant and anti-social, she refuses to behave in kindergarten classes, forcing Suzette to homeschool her. Resentful of her mother’s rules and attentions, Hanna lashes out in anger, becoming more aggressive every day. The only time Hanna is truly happy is when she’s with her father. To Alex, she’s willful and precocious but otherwise the perfect little girl, doing what she’s told.
Suzette knows her clever and manipulative daughter doesn’t love her. She can see the hatred and jealousy in her eyes. And as Hanna’s subtle acts of cruelty threaten to tear her and Alex apart, Suzette fears her very life may be in grave danger…their baby girl after all.
I have heard Baby Teeth described as more of a horror than a thriller, comparing it to The Bad Seed. The Good Son, The Other, Gone Girl and The Omen. I have only seen the movie The Bad Seed and have Gone Girl on my bookshelf, yet to be read. These references definitely fit, because this is indeed an undeniably creepy book. Simply put, seven-year-old Hanna wants her Mommy dead. She wants her father all to herself.
This story is of the deeply disturbed story of Hanna and her parents Suzette and Alex Jensen. The story is delivered in two perspectives, Hanna’s and Suzette’s. Hanna is mute, but quite intelligent. She can read and write, and do math, having been home-schooled. She communicates by writing out answers to school-related questions. At first she does this only to the school questions, otherwise using grunts and crude gestures, but eventually she uses writing to answer other questions as she becomes more diabolical. Suzette is convinced that her bright daughter can indeed speak, but, for the life of her, cannot figure out why.
Hanna displays abominable behavior, but never in front of Alex. To him, she is daddy’s little girl. This situation is threatening to destroy Suzette’s and Alex’s relationship, which is exactly what Hanna wants. She wants her daddy all to herself.
Suzette has Crohn’s disease, and is quite disabled by it. Having gone through difficult surgeries for this, it was doubtful that she would have children. So she and Alex were thrilled to become parents. What they cope with, quite naturally, is entirely unexpected. This is especially for Alex, as he often stands on the side of Hanna. Suzette often wonders if she is imagining some of the horrific things that Hanna does. Alex cannot believe his darling little girl is capable of dangerous deeds, and often denies things that Suzette tells him.
The reader will not be caught by surprise at Suzette’s reactions to Hanna’s behavior, as her actions are clearly described by Hanna with the chapters delivered from her point of view. She is conniving enough to make Suzette truly doubt herself. Be prepared for some terrifying moments as we read of Hanna’s thoughts and actions when displayed as she is terrifyingly disturbed. Imagine such a mother/daughter relationship with the father taking the daughter’s side!
As individuals, and parents, Suzette and Alex are absolutely wonderful people. Suzette’s struggles with her physical condition, as well as her emotional issues, and this is quite touching. Alex is a fine man. He is a good father as he can be, and a very loving husband.
I read this book in one sitting. I did so in a state of shock. I was reminded of another little girl named Hannah, one of the characters in The Lies We Told by Camille Way. Both girls were incredibly similar. These books were written and released about the same time, so I am sure this is just a coincidence. But, to read of psychologically disturbed young girls was truly unnerving. Kudos to both Zoje Stage, and Camille Way, to write characters of such ilk.
In the case of this Hanna, I am unfortunately aware that fact is not always stranger than fiction. I feel for real families who cope with such incredible circumstances. Of course, actual cases in real life are different, no doubt, but I applaud Ms. Stage for writing such a terrifying, yet incredibly suspenseful story.
This was truly the most disturbing story that I have ever read. From Hanna’s behavior, to Suzette’s desperate attempts to fix things to the shocking conclusion make Ms. Stage’s debut novel an absolutely thrilling read.
Please enjoy the following excerpts:
Hanna
Sometimes she wasn’t sure if she remembered it exactly right. When people asked her how old she was she was still only holding up two fingers, but the leaves were starting to change so she was probably almost three. So the memory was more or less right, and she knew what Mommy meant even then, when she was two, not-yet-three, because she saw Mommy crumbling. And heard in the silences all of Mommy’s regret.
Lunch.
Must have been a weekend, because Daddy was around somewhere. But only she and Mommy were at the table. Mommy used her favorite plate, the one with three little sections with a fox, a squirrel, and a rabbit. Little bits of colorful food were in each section. Strawberry slices and grapes cut in half; yellow and orange cubes of cheese; teeny tiny carrots and crunchy sugar snap peas. Stuff she still liked to nibble on.
The only thing she couldn’t remember is why she didn’t feel like eating.
Mommy sat with her, nibbling a sandwich. She remembered Mommy kept gazing at her, but her eyes looked off, blank like the ones in the dead fish she’d seen at the deli. Hanna wasn’t sure if Mommy was really in there, so she threw a carrot at her.
She blinked. “Hey. No throwing. Eat your lunch.”
Mommy hunched back down, blowing out her cheeks. She went still. As Hanna watched, sometimes Mommy forgot to keep chewing and the sandwich looked like it was about to fall out of her hand. Hanna didn’t like it. Was Mommy dying, like a toy that needed to be wound up? Was there a little slot in her somewhere, like on a phone, where she could be plugged in? She was too big to drag around if all her parts stopped working. Hanna wanted her to come back to life; she threw a grape at her.
“Hey. Why are you throwing everything?” She tapped at Hanna’s plate, like that would make her hungry.
Hanna wanted to say Why? She wanted to say Stay here don’t go away don’t look so weird. She squeaked out a noise instead.
“Eat a little, something from each—you like these.”
Hanna put a piece of cheese in her mouth, sucked it a little, then took it out and dropped it on the floor. She and Mommy did one of their games, where they watched each other and neither of them spoke. And the whole time Hanna dropped pieces of her lunch on the ground, one tidbit at a time.
“Don’t you ever get tired? Just completely tired?”
Hanna blinked hard in surprise, and maybe that meant she’d lost the game, but she didn’t care. Mommy didn’t usually talk to her like she did to Daddy, but it was interesting, so she stuck a carrot in her mouth and waited to see what she would say next.
“Do you ever wish… Maybe you don’t even know who you are yet, so you probably don’t ever wish you were someone else. Not that I know who I’d want to be. Not someone I know, just someone… else. Maybe someone without…”
Hanna didn’t like what Mommy was saying, so she threw the carrot right at her eye.
“Hey!” She bent over and picked up the other bits that were littering the floor. “Don’t waste food. Do you want me to take it away?”
When Mommy started to pull it away, Hanna pulled it right back. Would Mommy really take her food away? Just because she wanted Mommy to stop being weird? She put a grape in her mouth and started chewing.
“I was just trying to make conversation. I always do all the talking and it’s like I just talk to myself all day. I didn’t think it would be so lonely. I didn’t think you’d be so hard to spend so much time with. You make me miss Alex, Daddy, who he was before.”
Hanna missed Daddy too. She spit the chewed grape into Mommy’s face.
“Hey, Hanna! That’s not how we eat our food, you know better. Chew and swallow, don’t put everything on the floor. If you don’t want to eat then just…” She flicked the grape onto her own plate.
Mommy deflated again, with a look on her face that Hanna thought meant there wasn’t a point. Hanna wasn’t worth the little energy she had left. Hanna glared at her. She stuffed a grape in her mouth, a strawberry, a cheese cube, another cheese cube, another grape. And made a show of chewing, chewing.
“Thank you. See, that wasn’t so hard.”
When it was a nice mushy consistency, Hanna got up on her knees and spit the whole glob in Mommy’s face. It struck her cheek, then started to dribble down. Hanna giggled.
Mommy scooped the mash from her face. For a second Hanna thought she might cry. But Mommy got up and came around and forced the glop back into Hanna’s mouth. She held her hand there, making it so Hanna couldn’t open her lips. She couldn’t spit anything back out, but she could also barely breathe.
“Chew.”
Mommy’s eyes looked scarier than the dead fish and she pressed hard against Hanna’s mouth. Hanna whimpered and tried to chew, but it was too tight and her teeth only gnawed on her cheeks as the gloop started slipping down her throat.
She started to gag but thankfully her tears made her throat too tight so nothing else went down that way and that’s when Mommy burst back to normal—”Oh my god I’m so sorry!”—and lifted the plate to her mouth so she could spit it all out.
Mommy patted her back and wiped her chin and Hanna coughed and coughed.
“I’m so sorry, I don’t know why I did that. Oh, baby.” Mommy scooped her onto her hip, bouncing her, kissing her. “I’m so sorry. You’re okay, I didn’t mean to do that. I don’t know why I did that. I love you, baby, I love you.” She kissed her cheek so many times.
But Mommy wasn’t full of love. She was full of fear.
Daddy came in then. Had he been upstairs? Outside? Both she and Mommy were crying. Daddy ran over like a superhero.
“What’s wrong?”
“She was choking.”
“Is she okay? You okay?”
Hanna reached her arms out to Daddy and he took her,
bouncing her just like Mommy did. “Just scared?”
“It really scared us, I don’t know what happened.”
“Everything’s okay now,” Daddy said. And it was. With him, Hanna felt safe.
Mommy gave her a sip of water to drink and smoothed out her hair. “You’re okay now. We’re okay.”
Hanna gazed at her, in a new way. A kind of game that wasn’t fun, but deadly serious. Like a war. Additional excerpt
HANNA
MAYBE THE MACHINE could see the words she never spoke. Maybe they blazed in her bones. Maybe if the people in the white coats blew up the pictures they’d see her thoughts, mapped like mountains and railroad tracks, across her ghostly skull. Hanna knew nothing was wrong with her. But Mommy wanted them to look. Again.
The room in the hospital’s dungeon carried the threat of needles and smelled like lemon candies tinged with poison. When she was little, the machine scared her. But now, seven, she pretended she was an astronaut. The rocket ship spun and beeped and she scanned the coordinates, double-checking her course. Through the round window, tiny Earth dropped from view, then she was in the darkness with the glimmering stars, zooming away. No one would ever catch her. She smiled.
“Stay still, please. Almost finished—you’re doing great.”
The flight director watched her from his monitor. She hated all the ground control people, with their white coats and lilting voices, their play-dough smiles that flopped into frowns. They were all the same. Liars.
Hanna kept her words to herself because they gave her power. Inside her, they retained their purity. She scrutinized Mommy and other adults, studied them. Their words fell like dead bugs from their mouths. A rare person, like Daddy, spoke in butterflies, whispering colors that made her gasp. Inside, she was a kaleidoscope of racing, popping, bursting exclamations, full of wonder and question marks. Patterns swirled, and within every secret pocket she’d stashed a treasure, some stolen, some found. She had tried, as a little girl, to express what was within her. But it came out like marbles. Nonsense. Babbling. Disappointing even to her own ears. She’d practiced, alone in her room, but the bugs fell from her mouth, frighteningly alive, scampering over her skin and bedclothes. She flicked them away. Watched them escape under her closed door.
Words, ever unreliable, were no one’s friend.
But, if she was being honest, there was another reason—a benefit. Her silence was making Mommy crazy. Poor Mommy made it all too clear, over many desperate years, how badly she wanted her to talk. She used to beg.
“Please, baby? Ma-ma? Ma-ma?”
Daddy, on the other hand, never begged or acted put out. His eyes lit up when he held her, like he was witnessing a supernova. He alone really saw her, and so she smiled for him and was rewarded with kisses and tickles.
“Okay, all finished,” said the flight director.
The ground control people pushed a button and her head slid out of the giant mechanical tube. The rocket ship crashed back to Earth, where she found herself in a crater of ugliness. The blobby people emerged—one with her hand outstretched offering to take her back to Mommy, like that was some sort of reward.
“You did such a good job!”
What a lie. She hadn’t done anything but come back to Earth too soon. It wasn’t hard to be still, and not speaking was her natural state. She let the woman take her hand, even though she didn’t want to go back to moody Mommy and another suffocating room. She’d rather explore the hospital’s endless corridors. She pretended she was walking around in the intestines of a giant dragon. When it exhaled its angry flames, they’d catapult her forward into another world. The one where she belonged, where she could race through a gloomy forest with her trusted sword, screaming the call that would summon the others. Her minions would charge behind her as she led the attack. Slash, crash, grunt, and stab. Her sword would get its taste of blood.
SUZETTE
SHE SMOOTHED DOWN the back of Hanna’s hair where it had gotten rumpled during her test.
“See, not so bad. Now we’ll see what the doctor says.” Her tight smile forced her eye to twitch. She dabbed at the corner of it with her index finger. A terror clawed beneath her skin, making small rips in her equilibrium. Doctors’ offices, medical buildings: institutions of torture. They pressed on her like a heavy slab. Hanna sat with her elbow on the chair’s armrest, head on her hand, absorbed and expressionless like she became in front of the TV. Suzette glanced at the framed print that held her daughter’s interest. Squares of watery color. She tried to guess, by the movement of Hanna’s eyes, if she was counting the total number of squares, or collecting them in groups of similar shades. Hanna pretended to be unaware of Suzette beside her, and she read the usual rebuke in Hanna’s refusal to look at her. After so many years, she’d lost track of the moments for which she was being punished.
Perhaps Hanna was still angry at her for running out of bananas. She’d slammed her fists on the table, glaring at her naked bowl of cereal. Or maybe Hanna couldn’t forgive some perceived slight from the previous night, or week, or month. Hanna didn’t know that Suzette had resisted bringing her in for another CT scan—500 times the radiation of a single X-ray—but relented to Alex’s wishes. Her husband’s concerns remain rooted in the pragmatic insistence that something might yet be physically impeding her verbal progress. He didn’t see what she did, and she could never tell him what was really wrong—that it had all been a mistake: She didn’t know how to be a mother; why had that ever seemed like a good idea? So she played along. Of course she’d have Hanna tested again. Of course they needed to know if anything was physiologically awry.
She considered her daughter. They looked so much alike. Her dark, dark hair. The big brown eyes. If only she’d inherited some of Alex’s fairness. She had Hanna put on a nice dress, brand-new knee socks, and Mary Janes. Suzette wore a silk shirtdress, loosely belted to show off her figure, and shoes that cost a fortune. It was silly, she knew, for both of them to dress up for a medical appointment, but she feared situations in which her mothering might be judged, and at least no one could say her child looked neglected or ill. And Suzette had so little opportunity otherwise to wear her finer clothes when all she did was stay home with Hanna. She used to dress up for Alex’s office parties and loved the way his lustful eyes followed her around as she sipped wine and chatted, enjoying the rare company of other adults. But no babysitter would ever come back, and they finally gave up. Alex, considerately, made the gatherings rarer and shorter, but still. She missed the casual normalcy she once had with Fiona and Sasha and Ngozi. She never asked if Alex talked about her at work, or if they all acted as if she no longer existed.
Nervous about what the doctor would say—how he might criticize her—she patted a jumpy rhythm on Hanna’s arm. Hanna pulled it away, lowering her chin as the colorful, blocky print continued to mesmerize her. Suzette held each part of her body too tightly—her crossed legs, her tense shoulders, her hands curled into fists. It made the tender part in her abdomen twist and squeal in protest and she fanned her fingers, trying to make herself relax. It was her first big outing since The Surgery, eight weeks before. They did it laparoscopically this time so the superficial part of the recovery was faster, though she’d asked the doctor to fix her horrible scar while they were there.
The misshapen canyon of a scar had always bothered her, falling in a deep, wonky six-inch diagonal on the right side of her navel. Alex insisted it was part of her beauty, her strength. A marking of survival, of the suffering she’d endured as a teenager. She didn’t need any reminders of those lonely and disgusting years, of the enemy within or her own mother’s deadly indifference. As it was, that first surgery at seventeen put such a fear in her that she’d put off Dr. Stefanski’s recommendation for another resection until her intestines were in danger of perforating. In the beginning, the stricture only caused a bit of pain and she reduced the fiber in her diet. She’d expected her heavy-duty medication—an injectable biological drug—to eliminate the worst of her Crohn’s symptoms. And it did. But as the inflammation receded, scar tissue built up around a narrowing in her intestine.
“Don’t take too much!” she’d pleaded with the surgeon, as if he was about to rob her, not restore her to health.
Alex had kissed her white-knuckled hand. “It’ll be fine, älskling, you’ll feel so much better, and be able to eat so much more food.”
Yes, reasonable assessments. If it wasn’t for her inconsolable fear of losing so much small intestine that she’d lose the inalienable right to shit on a toilet like a normal person. People did it every day—lived with ileostomies and bags attached to their abdomens. But she couldn’t. Couldn’t. The very thought of it made her start shaking her head until Hanna twitched, glancing at her with a soured frown as if she was already stinking up the room.
Suzette got herself back under control, at least so far as her daughter would notice. But her dark mind played on, resistant to more-comforting distractions in the weeks since her surgery.
What if she got another fistula?
That was the thing that haunted her every day since she agreed to schedule the procedure. The last time, it developed about six weeks after her emergency resection. She’d woken up one morning feeling as if she was sleeping on a brick, but the mass had been in her own belly, a pool of waste that needed to be drained. It had been eight weeks since The Surgery, so maybe the danger had lessened. Alex said his usual “one day at a time” platitudes. Dr. Stefanski said no no, just keep doing your injections, your inflammation markers are low. But in her head the oozing puss and shit waited in the wings, and what if Alex had to play the role her mother played, nursemaid, replacing the soiled packing in a wound that wouldn’t heal—
A quick knuckle rap on the exam room door dispelled her thoughts. Sometimes the presence of a doctor only made her trauma worse, but this one was here for Hanna, not her. And she was here as a good mother, a concerned mother, unlike her own. She pressed her palm against her tingling abdomen and made herself smile as the new doctor gusted in, grayer than the last one. His eyebrows needed a trim and Suzette struggled to maintain eye contact with him with his nose hairs on such display.
“Mrs. Jensen.” He shook her hand.
He pronounced her name as everyone did, incorrectly. It didn’t bother her as much as it did Swedish-born Alex, who, after nineteen years in the United States, still couldn’t accept that Americans would never make a J sound like a Y. The doctor sat on the rolling stool and brought Hanna’s records up on the computer.
“No changes from the scan she had … When was it? Two and a half years ago? No abnormalities of the skull, jaw, throat, mouth … upon examination or on the scan. So that’s good, right? Hanna’s a healthy girl.” He smiled at Hanna’s turned-away head.
“So … There’s no…?” She tried not to sound as disappointed as she felt. “She should be finishing first grade and we can’t even send her to school, not if she doesn’t speak. We don’t feel like she needs a special class—she’s smart, I homeschool her and she’s very smart. She can read, do math—”
“Mrs. Jensen—”
“But it won’t be good for her—it’s not good for her, to be so isolated. She doesn’t have friends, won’t interact with her peers. We’ve tried to be supportive, encouraging. There has to be something we can do, something to help her…”
“I know an excellent speech language pathologist, if Hanna is having trouble—”
“We’ve tried speech pathologists.”
“—she can be tested for any number of things. Verbal apraxia, semantic pragmatic language disorder…” He scrolled through her online chart, looking for something. “Maybe auditory processing disorder, though she presents atypically for that. Has she had any of these tests?”
“We’ve tested her for everything. Her hearing’s fine, no muscle weakness, no cognitive problems. I’ve lost track of all the tests, but she takes them, seems to think they’re fun—but she won’t say a word.”
“Won’t?” The doctor turned to face Suzette.
“Won’t. Can’t. I don’t know. That’s … We’re trying to find out.”
Suzette squirmed as the doctor flicked his overeducated attention between the two of them. She knew what he was seeing: the daughter, lost in her own head; the mother, a carefully groomed, but wound-up mess.
“You say she can read and write? Can you communicate with her that way?”
“She’ll write out answers in her workbooks, she doesn’t seem to mind that. We know she understands. But when we’ve asked her to write what she’s thinking or wants—any type of actual communication … No, she won’t speak to us that way.” Her interlocked fingers started hurting and she glanced down at them, a little surprised by how forcefully she’d been twisting them. She took hold of her purse strap and started strangling it instead. “She can make noises—so we know, maybe, she could make other sounds. She can grunt. And squeal. Hum little songs.”
“If it’s a matter of her refusing … Won’t requires a different type of doctor than can’t.”
Suzette felt her face reddening, as if her hands had moved to her throat, squeezing the life from her. “I—we—don’t know what to do. We can’t go on like this.” She gasped for air.
The doctor wove his fingers together and gave her a sympathetic, if lopsided, smile. “Behavioral difficulties can be just as difficult to manage as physical ones, maybe more so.”
She nodded. “I always wonder … Am I doing something wrong?”
“It causes strain in a family, I understand. Perhaps the next thing to try … I could recommend a pediatric psychologist. I wouldn’t recommend a psychiatrist, not until she has a diagnosis. In this age, they’re so quick to write prescriptions, and maybe this is something you can work through.”
“Yes, I’d prefer that, thank you.”
“I’ll send a referral through your insurance company…” He turned back to the computer.
Suzette worked the kinks out of her purse strap, feeling slightly dizzy with relief. She tucked a piece of Hanna’s hair behind her ear.
“I try to avoid toxic things,” she said to the doctor’s slouched back. “Not that all medication is toxic, but like you said, society’s so quick to find a pill for something, never mind the side effects. But if it’s not a disability … An organic solution, that sounds good.” She turned to Hanna. “We’re going to work this out. Find someone you might talk to.”
Hanna took a swat at Suzette’s fussing hand and curled her lip in a snarl. Suzette shot her a warning glare, then peeked at the doctor to make sure he hadn’t seen.
Hanna bolted to her feet, crossed her arms, and stood by the door.
“In a minute, we’re almost finished.” Suzette made her voice sound endlessly patient.
Spinning back around on his stool, the doctor chuckled. “I don’t blame you one bit, young lady, cooped up at the doctor’s on a sunny day.” Suzette stood as he did. “The referral will probably take a few days, then you can schedule something directly with Dr. Yamamoto. She’s a developmental child psychologist and has a great way with kids, very established. And hopefully Hanna will connect with her. They’ll print out all the information when you check out.”
“Thank you so much.”
“She might even be able to recommend some schools for you.”
“Perfect.” She looked over at her daughter, not surprised to see the angry scowl on her face. Through bad behavior, Hanna had made herself unwelcome at three preschools and two kindergartens. Suzette had come to believe that their mother-daughter relationship would improve only when they had some distance—when Hanna went off to school. And Suzette wanted their relationship to improve. She was tired of yelling “Hanna, stop!” and maybe she shouldn’t yell, but there were endless reasons—small and large—why she’d needed to. Plucking all the leaves off the houseplants. Pulling on every loose thread, no matter what it unraveled. Mixing a cocktail of orange juice and nail polish remover. Throwing balls against the glass wall of their house. Staring at her and refusing to blink or budge. Hurling sharpened pencils like darts across the room. Hanna had creative ways to amuse herself, and most of them were intolerable.
Since the doctor confirmed there was nothing physically wrong, then, for the sake of her own health and sanity, it was time to convince Alex that they needed to find a school for Hanna. Maybe someone else would succeed where she hadn’t in disciplining the girl. She couldn’t phrase it to him as a desperate need for her own time and space; she couldn’t make it all about herself. Hanna behaved quite lovingly in his presence, and often he saw silliness where she saw mischief, and her more-provocative antics he ascribed to intelligence. He remained blind to his own hypocrisy, all the things he explained away as normal while exulting her precocity. So that would be her argument: Gifted Hanna was bored; she needed more stimulation than what she was getting at home.
One way or another, she wouldn’t let Hanna continue to derail her life.
Hand in hand, they engaged in a silent contest of who could squeeze the tightest, as Suzette smiled at the nurses on their way out.
Copyright © 2018 Zoje Stage.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
*****
Before turning to novels, Zoje Stage had a deep and eclectic background in film and theatre. Highlights include being a 2012 Emerging Storytellers Fellow from the Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP.org), and a 2008 Fellow in Screenwriting from the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA.org). In 2009 she won the Screenplay Live! Screenwriting Competition, which afforded her the opportunity to direct a staged reading of her winning script, THE MACHINE WHO LOVED, for the High Falls Film Festival (Rochester, NY).
Zoje has written-directed-produced numerous zero-budget films, including the documentary short BEST OF LUCK ("an amusing take on the travails of aspiring writers" - The New York Times). Her films have screened at venues such as Anthology Film Archives and Two Boots Pioneer Theater (both in NYC), Film Kitchen (Pittsburgh, PA), and Emerging Filmmakers (Rochester, NY). As a playwright, Zoje is most proud of her play MONSTER, which was produced in Pittsburgh by the Upstairs Theatre ("Ms. Stage now makes her own contribution to holocaust literature with a demanding and intensely felt play... a must-see for those wanting another view of why and how the holocaust happened." - The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). After living in Rochester, NY for many years, she is back in her hometown of Pittsburgh, PA.
Zoje has written-directed-produced numerous zero-budget films, including the documentary short BEST OF LUCK ("an amusing take on the travails of aspiring writers" - The New York Times). Her films have screened at venues such as Anthology Film Archives and Two Boots Pioneer Theater (both in NYC), Film Kitchen (Pittsburgh, PA), and Emerging Filmmakers (Rochester, NY). As a playwright, Zoje is most proud of her play MONSTER, which was produced in Pittsburgh by the Upstairs Theatre ("Ms. Stage now makes her own contribution to holocaust literature with a demanding and intensely felt play... a must-see for those wanting another view of why and how the holocaust happened." - The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). After living in Rochester, NY for many years, she is back in her hometown of Pittsburgh, PA.
Contact her:
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BlogAmazon, https://www.amazon.com/Zoje-Stage/e/B07DLC8M6W
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