From Ashes Releases Tomorrow. Enjoy this preview!
Mar 28, 2022 5:40 pm
Tomorrow, on March 29th, From Ashes releases (it's up for pre-order now if you want to grab it). It's only $.99 for the month of April, so grab it while it's cheap.
In honor of its upcoming release, I wanted to give you the opening chapter for free.
From Ashes
Prologue
Seven Years Earlier
She showed up at half past three. That’s a.m. in case anyone was wondering. Rang the bell. A shocking sound at that time in the morning, no matter how long I’d been doing this job, no matter how accustomed I was to the middle-of-the night tones, the sirens long and shrill. Still that doorbell startled me. I jerked out of bed, threw on my pants and stumbled into the main room, fuzzy brained. It rang again.
People come to the fire station sometimes, bringing their emergencies to us, instead of calling 911 for us to go to them. A wreck just outside the station, a man with a bloody forehead from the bar a mile away. And every once in a while—though never in the middle of the night—a homeschool group asking for a tour, or a sweet old lady with a cheesecake or pie, thanking us for the things we do.
But not tonight. Tonight I released the lock, opened the door. Tonight a woman stumbled in, old car seat dangling from a scarred arm. Sweats and torn tank top. Ball cap covering her face. Not that I could have seen her anyway. She looked down the whole time. I couldn’t have told you what color her eyes were even if I’d tried. Her cheeks were pocked though. Scars from picking. Lips chapped. Both forearms lined with old needle scars, though I didn’t see anything new at first glance.
Baby set on the floor. Six words. “I can’t take care of her.”
And the woman was gone, though for a moment her scent lingered, old blood and body odor and something sour from the night.
I peered into the ancient car seat that sat on the floor. A little thing squirmed inside. We hadn’t had a surrender for a long time—almost ten months.
I lifted the baby out of the seat—she wasn’t even buckled in. I moved the blanket down a notch so I could see her face. The baby opened its mouth—her mouth; the woman had called the baby a girl—and squinched her eyes. I bounced her a second, but still the cry came. Solid. Committed. You had to respect a cry like that.
The engineer, Jessie, came in, suspenders dangling down around her waist, and set a cup of coffee down on the counter. “Been a while.” That’s all she said, peeking over the pink-gray blanket.
A bruise ran up the baby’s forehead in a purple line. Jessie and I looked at each other.
“Did you give the mother your spiel, ‘You’re doing a brave thing for your baby’ and yada yada all that?”
“Nah, I didn’t have time. She didn’t exactly stay for tea.”
“They never do,” Jessie said.
They never do.
“She probably didn’t deserve your comfort speech anyway,” Jessie said, taking a swig of her coffee. “Better get the baby to the ER so they can check her out before handing the kid over to Child Protective Services.”
“It really is a brave thing to do for the babies,” I say.
“It’s the best thing,” Jessie replied. “That’s for sure. Don’t know if I can get behind the word brave.”
She called dispatch to have them page out the EMS unit to pick up a surrender. I bundled the baby up tight.
“You’ve got a knack,” Jessie said, then looked away like she realized her mistake.
My wife and I had been trying. Over two years now. Calendars first, timers, then the drugs. Next step, in vitro, but neither of us was sure we were ready for that. In fact, we were pretty sure we weren’t.
My bouncing had turned to a soft rock, then a full on swing. The wailing stopped. Face relaxed, eyes open.
Green as the sea.
If you want to get the book, click HERE!
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