Now and Forever 4, The Renovated Heart Read Free

purse.
    “What about me?” Zoe accepted the tissue
from her mother.
    “A parent never divorces their child. He’s
still your father and will still come see you at Christmas, like we
planned.” Kit stopped to take a breath to steady her voice.
    “Oh, God. Divorce. Why? Why, Mommy? Why” Zoe
said, throwing herself into her mother’s arms, sobbing.
    Kit couldn’t hold back her own tears anymore
as she held her daughter tightly, stroking hair.
    “I don’t know, baby. I just don’t know. But
we’ll get through this.” She tried to remain calm for her
daughter.
    As suddenly as Zoe fell into her mother’s
arms, she pulled away.
    “What did you do to him? What did you say to
make him leave us?” Zoe asked, anger flashing in her eyes. Zoe
wiped her eyes one more time.
    “I didn’t do anything, sweetheart.”
    “You did. You must have.”
    “I don’t think I did. He didn’t say
anything.” Her brow furrowed.
    “What did he say?”
    “He said he wanted to be free…he didn’t want
to be married anymore,” she said, her lip trembling as she stopped
to take a breath. Zoe covered her face with her hands and ran off
toward the woods. She stopped at a big oak for support, leaning
against the sturdy tree, sobbing. Kit caught up to her.
    “So I’m going to be staying in the U.S,
Zoe.” She put her hand on her daughter’s shoulder.
    “Are you going back to New York?” the girl
asked, her voice shaking.
    “I’ve no place to live there.” Quickly she
regretted her admission.
    A look of fear swept over Zoe’s face.
    “You won’t leave me, will you?” Her eyes
teared up.
    “Of course not, sweetheart. I’ve been
thinking about spending some time here in Willow Falls. Being
closer to you’d be good. What do you think?” She forced her lips to
curl into a tight smile as she crossed her arms over her chest.
    “I think I hate you both. I don’t care where
you live,” Zoe spat at her mother, then ran off returning to the
school building. When Kit arrived, Zoe had locked herself in her
room. Her mother knocked repeatedly but got no answer. Pain at
leaving her daughter to lick her wounds alone, stabbed Kit’s heart.
Zoe’s silence left her mother no choice but to go back to the
motel.

Chapter Two
     
     
    The next morning at 29 James Street.
     
    Sarah Morgan sat at her computer waiting for
inspiration, but nothing came to her. She forced herself to sit
there every morning after her children went to day camp. Her novel
with fifty-six pages already written had stalled.
    Frustrated and overwhelmed the
thirty-five-year-old woman refused to give up. She had made up her
mind to become a writer. Sarah paced, got another cup of coffee and
called her friend.
    “How did it go with Zoe?”
    “Not well.”
    “What are you going to do?”
    “I don’t know. What are you doing
today?”
    “Trying to write. Nothing’s coming.”
    “Don’t give up, Sarah.”
    “Easy to say…”
    “I mean it.”
    “Yeah…thanks.”
    Sarah hung up and sank down into her chair,
placing her hands on the keyboard. Still nothing. She tapped her
red pencil on the desk, chewed a fingernail, then overcome by
frustration, dissolved in tears.
     
    * * * *
     
    Jim Caterson, head of the English department
at Kensington State, saw his next door neighbor Sarah Morgan,
through his bedroom window. She looked a lot like her beautiful
sister, Callie Caldwell, but instead of chestnut hair, Sarah had
dark brown hair, almost black. Her large, turquoise eyes were like
Callie’s. Jim, a widower, had noticed her generous curves when
Callie introduced them. At the time, her beauty struck him but he
found her air of sadness puzzling.
    Jim had recovered from the death of his
beloved wife, Nancy, only to be devastated by the desertion of a
fiancée who left him for a Russian ballet dancer. After the turmoil
died down, he settled into a quiet life, running the English
department, reading, writing, and socializing with friends. He
spent many a happy