Fearless Hope: A Novel (2 page)

He rose from his chair and paced the floor. He wanted a drink. After that review, he
needed
a drink. Unfortunately, it was only eight o’clock in the morning and his personal discipline involved having nothing stronger than coffee until noon. As long as he could wait until noon, he felt like he was still in control of his need for alcohol.

He sat back down, picked up the newspaper, and read the review again. It still stung. Deep down, he’d known his writing was tanking and this confirmed it. Somewhere along the way, he’d lost something critical to his writing and he did not know how to get it back.

There was a bit of magic involved in writing well, a sort of self-hypnosis that a good fiction writer fell into when the “movie” began to play in his head—that moment when his fingers could hardly keep up with the plot and dialogue. There was an addictive being-in-the-zone feeling that beckoned him to his home office every morning.

Or at least it used to. These past two books were dogs. He had hated the process of writing them. Which was lethal to a career.

He rose again and opened the door to his personal liquor cabinet. A small shot of whiskey might help take some of the edge off the gnawing feeling that at the ripe old age of thirty-four, he was a has-been.

Noon
, he told himself firmly and shut the cabinet door. In his mind, if he could just wait until noon to take his first drink, he would continue to prove to himself that he wasn’t a drunk. He locked the cabinet against himself, put the key in his pocket, and tried to forget that the key was there. In his earlier days as a writer, after his young wife, Ariela, died, he had not needed alcohol to deaden the pain. Instead, he quit his job as a journalist, and holed up in their small apartment, writing obsessively out of the darkness of his soul in order to hang on to his sanity. He was as shocked as anyone when his bleak, psychological thrillers began to sell . . . and sell well.

Now he was locked into a genre he was sick of, but he was making entirely too much money to quit. He continued to limp along, putting words on paper, hoping no one would notice that he had lost interest in something that had once been his passion.

It was then that he had fallen back upon the hack writer’s crutch. He was drinking heavily and his fiancée, Marla, kept riding him about it.

“What are you still doing back here, Logan?” Marla entered his office sanctuary and proceeded to open the wooden blinds, allowing sunlight to stream in. She was always doing that, and Logan hated it. He squinted, a little hungover from the night before, shielding his eyes from the bright light with his hand.

“You have that meeting this morning,” she said. “And I have to get to work.”

Brunch with his agent. He’d forgotten. What a jolly meeting
that
was going to be after this morning’s review! His agent tended to be a little on the morose side even when things were going well. He was also a teetotaler, which Logan had recently begun to find annoying.

“You’re going in on a Saturday?”

“Saturday is the only time this client can meet with me,” she said. “Don’t worry, I’ll be back early.”

The open blinds revealed a view of Central Park that would make even the most jaded Realtor salivate. He had worked hard for this view. It now occurred to him how little he enjoyed it.

“Did you take your meds this morning?” Marla stopped fussing with the blinds and studied him, her head tilted to one side.

The question bothered him. Marla was very big on medication. She had a doctor who, from what Logan could see, happily prescribed a pill for anything—real or imagined. She had recently talked him into taking an antidepressant because she said he had been acting more “down” lately than usual.

Well, she was right. He was down. Very down.

Perhaps that was why there were a
lot
of bad people in his novels. He had found the act of thinking up new ways to kill them quite therapeutic.

“Yes,” he grumped, “I took my meds.”

“Good,” Marla said, brightly. “So did I.”

That would be the weight loss pills that Dr. Have-Prescription-Pad-Will-Travel had given her recently. He really didn’t think weight loss pills were healthy for Marla. Sometimes he secretly compared her to one of those plants that thrive on air alone. Marla did not cook, nor did she eat more than a few bites of food a day.

On the other hand, she managed to hold up her end of the interior design firm where she was angling to become a partner. She believed that she needed to be thin to be taken seriously in her field.

She had recently set a wedding date for next October. He did not remember proposing to her, but for all he knew, he might have done so one drunken evening. He’d been losing his memory recently, which was a worry.

He was grateful for Marla. She was beautiful, competent, and cheerfully took care of the details of their life, freeing him
to concentrate on his books. She had also been his wife’s roommate and closest friend when they were all in college together. Ariela had majored in political science. He was set, at that time, on becoming an investigative journalist. Marla had been the artistic one of the three. She had redone her and Ariela’s dorm room to the point that other students began to rely on her style and creativity. The three of them had joked about how Ariela was going to change the world, he was going to write about it, and Marla was going to make everything pretty.

Marla had mourned with him during the darkest days of his grief. Becoming a couple and living as a couple had evolved slowly over a period of several years. It might not be a grand passion, but Marla was a comforting presence in his life and he appreciated her.

What he did not understand was why she bothered with him at all. Living with a writer was no fun, especially during deadlines. He felt lucky that someone as attractive and intelligent as Marla cared enough about him even to stick around, let alone be willing to marry him.

He wished they could spend more time together, but Marla was climbing the very slippery slope of becoming a well-known interior designer in New York City, and he was trying to hang on to his slot as a bestselling author.

Hanging on that slot was assuredly not easy. There were many hungry young writers snapping at his heels. It was frightening to wonder if he would have to retire before he was forty because he was already used up. What on earth would he do with himself if he could never write well again?

He sat, sunk in his own misery, while he watched Marla flit around his office, straightening up and moving decorative items a fraction of an inch here or there. Ever since she started taking those weight loss pills she seldom sat still. Of course, she also had a big hand in decorating his office, and she did not want the effect
spoiled by his tendency to scatter notecards, pens, and piles of research books about.

He ran a hand over his unshaven face. Being around Marla always made him feel a little grungy. An early Saturday morning and she was already in full makeup and heels. Her hair was done in an elaborately disheveled bun. Her skirt was so tight it looked uncomfortable, but he knew she didn’t think twice about comfort if it meant looking good. For lunch, she would purchase a bagel with cream cheese from a street vendor, take two bites, and drop the rest in the nearest trash can. He’d seen her do it dozens of times. It worked well for her. Marla was a head-turner. Every man he knew envied him.

Speaking of food, he needed coffee.

He wandered into the kitchen and grabbed a jar of instant Nescafé. The shiny, new latte machine was too complicated for him to manage this early in the morning. He tended to need a cup of coffee before he was alert enough to
make
coffee.

“By the way . . .” Marla’s high heels clicked smartly on the tile floor as she walked into the kitchen, where she plucked the instant coffee out of his hand and put it back in the cupboard. “I have to go to Ohio this week.”

“Ohio?” This got his attention. The Midwest wasn’t exactly Marla’s cup of tea . . . or his. “Why on earth would you want to go there?”

With relief, he saw that she had switched on the coffee machine monster and was preparing to make him a cup of high-test. He sat down at the table and waited expectantly.

“A client is insisting on Amish-made goods only. Apparently she’s addicted to those Amish romance novels everyone is reading these days. My boss decided one of us should go to the source. Apparently there are Amish furniture factories in Ohio. She thinks it might save us several thousand to deal directly with them.”

“And you drew the short straw?”

“Yes, I did. Do you want to come with me?”

“To Ohio?” He grimaced. “Not particularly.”

“By the way, I was up early this morning and I read the review.” She sprayed something on a cloth and started polishing the counter. “I know why you are in such a foul mood. It might do you good to get away for a few days.”

He took a sip of black ambrosia. Ohio was the last place on earth he wanted to go.

“No.”

“But I don’t want to go alone,” Marla said. “My birthday is coming up next week. You could consider it an early present. You won’t have to get me another thing.”

“Promise?” he asked.

“I promise. Just come with me. That will be present enough.”

He considered the offer. Driving her to Ohio seemed like a small price to pay to avoid having to shop for a gift. He hated wandering around department stores trying to find something she’d like. “Sure,” he said, staring into his coffee cup. “Why not? When do you want to leave?”

L
ike most wives, Hope Schrock had wondered what it would feel like if she ever had to bury her husband. Would she be stoic and strong, or would she fall apart?

Being Amish, she knew she would be expected to bow to God’s will, but deep down, she could not imagine continuing to breathe without the man she loved. She expected to feel a blinding grief from which she would never fully recover.

Now that which she had feared had come to pass. Titus was gone. She was a widow, her children fatherless, but her mind was not reacting like it should.

The blinding grief had not hit. So far, all she felt was a wild and raging anger . . . at Titus. Oh, how she would love to give that man a good talking-to!

This made no earthly sense, but the fact remained—she could not will away the fury that smoldered in her breast. Oh, how badly she wanted to tell Titus that she was not a child or stupid. She had known what she was talking about when she begged him to sell that bull. If he had only listened!

Bishop Schrock, her father-in-law, walked through the door. She kept her eyes down, fearful that he would look into her heart and see the anger she felt toward his son. Her father-in-law
had his own great grief to carry. He did not need to deal with her anger on top of his own sadness.

Titus had been such a happy-go-lucky person, especially for one with roots deep in the Amish faith. He always looked on the bright side of things. It was as though he thought nothing bad could ever happen to him or his family. It was probably that very optimism that killed him. Or his pride.

Yet again, she remembered how he had sent her back into the house when she begged him to send the bull back, and her anger welled up yet again.

This was not good with Bishop Schrock approaching her. He and his wife had always been kind to her, and the last thing she wanted was to hurt either of them.

“You know you are welcome to move in with us,” he said. “Thelma and I have plenty of room. We would welcome having young ones beneath our roof again.”

“Thank you.” She twisted a handkerchief around and around a finger. “But I would like to stay in the house that Titus and I shared together. I am grateful for your offer, though.”

It was the truth. She
was
grateful, but as kind as the Schrocks had always been to her, she did not want to live with them.

Little Adam tugged at her apron, wanting to go to the bathroom. At four, he was much too young to grasp the fact that they had just put his father in the ground.

Tears started in Hope’s eyes when she thought about Titus, only four days earlier, sitting in the front yard, enjoying the sight of Adam playing with a toy tractor.

Her mother, Rose, caught the little boy up in her arms and took him out. Adam had been difficult to potty-train. Her mother knew it was critical to get him out of there before he had an accident.

A wave of morning sickness hit just as her twelve-year-old
sister asked if she could bring her something to eat. Hope shook her head and forced the bile down that was threatening to crawl up her throat.

What a mess you’ve left me in, Titus. I should be home right now with my feet propped up and you bringing me tea and crackers!
Her mind skittered around as she wondered what to do about the future. A young
Englisch
widow would probably hire a babysitter and go searching for a job that would support her family. The fact that Hope was Amish severely narrowed her choices, even though she sometimes dreamed of what she would do if she were free to choose any career she wanted.

She had been smarter than Titus in school, quietly besting the whole class in every subject. Her math skills were excellent, as were her reading and writing. Her father, Henry, was an especially skilled farmer, and because of him, there was little she did not know about running a farm or caring for livestock. Deep down, she knew there was really only one career she had ever wanted—in her heart she took after her father, a farmer who loved growing things. Unfortunately, knowing how to run a productive farm was not going to be of any help to her. Except for the two acres they were renting, she had no land of her own, and there wasn’t exactly a Help Wanted section in the local newspaper for Amish women wanting to work as fieldhands or farm managers.

Myron, one of the older teenage boys from their church, walked up and stood solemnly in front of her.

“Titus was a
gut
man.” He held his black hat loosely in his big farm-boy hands. “Everyone liked him.”