Want to hear more of Ginna and Lauren's story? It's in "Mountaintops and Valleys", Book 3 of "The Peaks at the Edge of the World" by M.F. Erler
Ginna sighed as she hung up the
phone. So Mom was having an affair—that
seemed pretty clear. Not that she hadn’t
suspected--after all, she wasn’t born yesterday.
‘I just
don’t want Mom to get hurt again,’ she thought.
She understood
how Mom still felt the pain of the divorce.
But why couldn’t she find someone closer to her own age—someone who
wasn’t already married?
Well, Deer
Path was a small town, she knew, and there weren’t a lot of eligible guys
around. She had a boyfriend now at
school, Ryan. He was fun to be with, but
she couldn’t see spending the rest of her life with him. It was just nice to have a date to Prom, and
someone to hang out with on weekends.
Danny was in junior high now, and
seemed to be getting established with a circle of friends. In fact, tonight he was studying at Devon ’s, and would stay the night. Sure, it was a school night, but their mother
was lenient about such things.
Thinking of
Ryan made her wonder what kinds of feelings her mother had for John
Cameron. ‘I guess I really don’t know
how it feels to be in love—yet.
She wondered how it had felt for
her mother when she had first fallen in love with Tim. They’d met in high school, too. But now Mom had been warning Ginna not to
marry too young—like she and Tim had.
Still, they had been happy
once—they must have.
‘I guess I
can understand Mom feeling like she needs to get even with Dad,’ she
thought. ‘But is this the way to do
it? I shouldn’t be in this position, having
to lecture my own mother on morality. It
should be the other way around. But
maybe it’s better to say what I think and get criticized for it. The other way—if I don’t say what I think—I
may wish later that I did.’
So, with a sigh, she decided to tell Mom how
she really felt about this, and got out her new cell phone to send her a text.
After she’d
sent the text, she found she could not get her mind off the divorce—that was
really frustrating! The big split hadn’t
come until Ginna was almost twelve. She
could still hear the angry words in her mind:
“I’ve found
someone else, Lauren. I’m sorry--”
“You
bastard! Why? Wasn’t I good enough for you? Wasn’t it enough that I gave up my career for
yours? That I gave you two beautiful
children! How can you do this to us?”
“You always
talk about what you gave up! Don’t you
see that makes me feel guilty?”
“Why should
you feel guilty? I love you, and I’d do
anything for you, Tim!”
“The only
thing you can do for me now is to let me go free!”
“Alright
then—go free! Get out of here, and never
come back! I don’t want to ever see your
lying face again!”
Of course,
Ginna knew they did have to see each
other again—in divorce court. Each had
to hire a lawyer, to help sort out who got what—Dad got the house, because by
that time Mom had found this job in Colorado . Mom had custody of her and Danny, and Dad had
some visitation rights. But for some
reason that Ginna didn’t understand, he’d never used them. She and Danny had not seen him for the five
years since the divorce.
Now Ginna
found tears sliding down her cheeks. She
should be over all this by now! Why did
she have to even think about it? Angry
with herself, she stomped onto the rickety back porch and looked westward
toward the Rocky Mountains , that loomed far
away on the horizon.
Once—nearly five years ago now—she
and Danny had stood looking at a sunset similar to this one. And the two strangers had come—Jon and Jael.
They were time-travelers from the future, a Parallel Universe, they
said. Their story had been one of
finding hope in spite of trials and problems, and it had seemed to help Danny
somehow. She was not sure whether
anything would help her with the swirling turmoil of emotions she kept locked
inside.
The second time they had come,
Martina—Jael’s sister-- had come, too.
Having another girl to talk to had helped some. For a while she had been
‘inside’ Martina, too—sharing all her emotions and thoughts—both the good and
the bad.
“I could sure use a visit now,” she
sighed aloud. “I really miss
Martina. But I know they don’t come when
I want them—only when I really need
them.”
Still, she
kept her gaze on the horizon, wishing she could see figures walking toward
her—as they did before. Soon, however,
the sun dipped behind the Front Range (as Colorado people called it) and the
shadows of evening stretched across the open field behind their house.
This little
old house on the edge of town was supposed to have been temporary—“until we can
find something better”—Mom had said. But
she didn’t even bother with saying that anymore. Every time Dad’s child support was late—or
didn’t come at all—she would just shrug and say, “Guess we’ll just keep on
renting for awhile.”
