Cara Malone's Blog, page 4

Sneak Peek: Good Vibes

An eccentric adult shop owner. An agoraphobic game collector. A romantic comedy about finding love and self-acceptance in the strangest places. Opposites attract when Theo offers to help Libby with her shop, but will they be brave enough to play the game of love?

Lesfic Book Club: Behind the Pine Curtain

For our August meeting of the Lesfic Book Club, we discussed Gerri Hill's novel, Behind the Pine Curtain. If you weren't able to make it, check out the transcript below. A couple of notes on the transcript: If you want to join us live, we discuss lesfic novels every month at http://lesficlove.com (sign up or [...]

Lesfic Book Club: Mergers & Acquisitions

For our July meeting of the Lesfic Book Club, we discussed AE Radley's novel, Mergers & Acquisitions. If you weren't able to make it, check out the transcript below. Want to add a caption to this image? Click the Settings icon. A couple of notes on the transcript: If you want to join us live, [...]

Sneak Peek: Love Trauma

Krys Stevens is the best trauma doctor at Lakeside Hospital. She runs the ER like a finely choreographed dance, she has coworkers she calls friends, and she’s a superstar at the free clinic where she volunteers. What more could an ambitious young doctor want? One day, a patient arrives in the ER intubated with a [...]

Lesfic Book Club: The Brutal Truth

For our July meeting of the Lesfic Book Club, we discussed Lee Winter's novel, The Brutal Truth. If you weren't able to make it, check out the transcript below. Want to add a caption to this image? Click the Settings icon. A couple of notes on the transcript: If you want to join us live, [...]

Sneak Peek: Mind Games

My latest novel, MIND GAMES, is available now on Amazon. It’s the first book in my new Fox County Forensics series blending romance with a CSI-style dive into forensic investigation. Read the first chapter below. “Today is the day,” Kelsey Granger told herself as she put her hand on the door of the Fox County [...]

Lessons from the Coroner’s Office

My latest novel, Mind Games, is available now on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited! This is the first book in my new Fox County Forensics series and if you enjoy shows like CSI and Rizzoli and Isles, I think you're gonna love it. Kelsey is an energetic rookie investigator determined to impress her boss despite struggling [...]

I wrote a novel with Anna Cove!

Keep your lover close and your enemy closer… especiallyif they’re the same person.

Madison Blackstone is a lone wolf thief on a mission to winback the only family she has left. When a rare book surfaces on the blackmarket, it’s just the thing to buy her brother’s love. The only thing is, shehas to quit the heist lifestyle to earn his trust. Madison has planned herfinal job meticulously, but even in her wildest dreams she could neveranticipate a rival like Cass.

CassHartley is fallen swindler royalty… fallen ever since her foolish heart got herlegendary parents caught and jailed. A rare book with a hefty reward to payback old debts should go a long way to clearing her conscience, and it shouldbe an easy job – if Cass was the only one going after it.

WhenCass and Madison meet, it’s inside a bank vault at midnight and they’re bothreaching for the same safe deposit locker. Things go sideways fast as crewrivalries, double-crosses and vicious guard poodles foil their plans.

Andthen there’s the undeniable attraction building between them in tight spaces,dark rooms and adrenaline-fueled adventures. It has Madison questioning herchoice to go clean, Cass wondering if she’s falling into the same old traps,and their crews wondering what the heck got into them.

Workingtogether is the only way to get the book, but can they trust each other withthe most precious treasure of all – their hearts?

Fromthe bestselling Cara Malone and Anna Cove comes a fun, flirty book heist withtwists, turns, and an unexpected romance.

Availableon Amazon and Kindle Unlimited on March 25th!

Sneak Peek: Fairest

My latest novel, FAIREST,is available now on Amazon. It’s the latest in my contemporary fairy taleseries, and while the setting will be familiar if you’ve read Seeing Red andCinders, it’s a Snow White story that can be read as a standalone novel.

Read the first chapter below.

I can’t believe he took my phone.

That was the detail Luma White was focused on as she sat inthe passenger seat of her Audi, hands bound in front of her and a blindfoldslipping down around her nose. Her phone – how much of an eighteen-year-oldgirl could she be? That was what she was most concerned about, but onthe other hand, it was easier to fixate on the phone than on everything else.

She’d been in the car for about three hours now. Theblindfold – made of some ridiculously silky fabric, definitely notkidnapping-grade – had begun sliding down her nose about an hour into the tripand she was grateful for that. Riding in a car with her eyes shut always madeher feel sick, and when her captor noticed that she could see again, sheconvinced him not to cover her eyes again.

“I’m already lost,” she said. “Isn’t that why youblindfolded me? So I wouldn’t know where we’re going? Mission accomplished.”

The man driving Luma’s car was her stepmother’s bodyguard,Antonio. Slave would have been a more appropriate word for how that womantreated him, but he’d always been nice to Luma.

Well, until today.

At least she was going to get through this without beingsick. Silver linings and all that.

They were driving on a narrow, somewhat primitive road withtall, evergreen trees on either side. It was dark thanks to the forest’s densecoverage even though they started driving around noon. Antonio had appeared inthe doorway of Luma’s room and told her he needed help running an errand forher father – that was a little unusual, but nothing to raise her suspicions. Bythe time he was opening the passenger door of Luma’s car for her, telling herthey were going to pick up some files at her father’s office, Luma startedasking questions.

How did you get my car key? was the first one, butshe never got an answer to that.

Once she was in the car, Antonio locked the doors and toldher to put the blindfold on. Luma objected, and that’s when things got scary.He’d forced the blindfold over her eyes and she’d spent the first whole hour ofthe trip frantic.

The errand to her father’s office was a lie and Luma shouldhave seen it coming – Antonio worked for her stepmother, and her father was outof the country. Luma hadn’t even questioned it when Antonio said it was for herfather.

If Luma was thinking clearly, she should have beenmemorizing the turns of the car, paying attention for sounds outside that couldhelp her, and keeping better track of the time. But she’d known Antonio eversince she was a kid – since her stepmother, Tabitha, did her Vogue modelingspread and picked up a stalker in the process. She hired Antonio to keep hersafe, and Luma always felt safe around him, too.

Now, she was just scrambling to try and figure out what hadchanged.

Was he kidnapping her?

“Where are you taking me?” she’d asked before she realizedthe futility of demanding that sort of information from someone who’dblindfolded her. When she got her wits about her a little more, she asked, “Whydo I have to be blindfolded? Did Tabitha ask you to do this? What are you goingto do to me?”

Antonio didn’t respond to any of her questions. He wasdeadly silent from the driver’s seat, and when Luma’s blindfold began slippingdown her nose, she could see that his eyes never strayed from the road ahead. Pleasejust look at me, she thought. What are you doing?

Her last-ditch attempt to snap him out of whatever hadovercome him was a threat that sounded weak even to Luma’s own ears. “Waituntil my father hears about this.”

“Shut up,” Antonio said. “Please, just keep your mouth shut.”

It wasn’t a favorable response, but at least he’d saidsomething. His words sounded almost as pleading as Luma’s own questions, likehe was frantically trying to find a way to justify all of this. Tabitha had tobe behind it. Of course – Tabitha had always hated her.

So Luma shut up, and she waited.

She tried to be patient and wait for Antonio to come to hissenses. He’d do the right thing – she just had to give him time to come to hissenses. He’d abducted his boss’s stepdaughter while her husband was out of townon business. Antonio was probably just trying to figure out how to take Lumahome without letting her father know what he’d done.

Or rather, what Tabitha had ordered him to do.

It had to be the stupid modeling contract, Lumathought while Antonio drove them deeper and deeper into the woods. Damn it.I don’t even want to be a model.

Tabitha had blown up at her yesterday. She’d gone downtownin the morning to get her lips plumped and the aesthetician had used a new typeof filler. Tabitha’s lips had blown up like balloons and she came home lookinglike she had a pair of plump red hotdogs beneath her nose. They looked painfuland she was irritable, and then she’d seen the contract that Luma had left onthe desk in her father’s study.

Luma wanted him to review it when he came home from hisbusiness trip. She’d never imagined herself as a model, never wanted that kindof attention, but people kept saying she was beautiful and it was a natural fitfor her. She’d gone to the modeling agency mostly to humor the agent who kepttrying to recruit her, and because she was eighteen now and she still didn’tknow what she wanted to be when she grew up.

Why not a model? she thought when they offered herthe contract. So she brought it home and promised the agency an answer just assoon as she had a chance to discuss it with her father.

Then Tabitha saw the contract and lost it. Luma had neverseen her so angry, actual spittle flying from her over-puffed lips as sheslammed the contract down in front of Luma.

“You don’t even want to be a model,” she said,narrowing her eyes at Luma. “You don’t want your trust fund, either. You don’tappreciate anything you’ve got, and it’s all just been handed to you.Ungrateful girl!”

Tabitha hadn’t spoken to Luma since yesterday, but thelonger Antonio drove, the more certain she was that this was all Tabitha’sdoing. Am I ungrateful? she was wondering for the hundredth time whenthe car hit a pothole and she could no longer ignore the fullness of herbladder.

“Antonio?” she asked softly.

“Don’t talk,” he said.

“Antonio,” she insisted, trying not to anger him. “I reallyhave to pee. I can’t hold it much longer.”

She looked at him, and for once, he looked back at her. Shewas begging him, wordlessly. Please. On top of everything else, please don’tput me through the humiliation of wetting myself. He hadn’t listened toanything else she said so far, but the desperation in her eyes was what finallycracked him.

He sniffed, then looked at the clock on the dashboard –probably trying to figure out how far they’d come from the house. Far enough –Luma’s father loved to be in the middle of the action and he’d built hismansion in the center of the city. Luma had never even been this far into thewilderness and it might as well have been a whole other country.

“Fine,” Antonio said. “Hold on a minute.”

“Thank you,” Luma said. “Thank you, Tony.”

He scowled at her. Was that too much, calling him by hisnickname? He never minded it before, but he’d never abducted her before,either. Antonio found a dirt road that branched off the two-lane highway andturned onto it. Road was pretty generous, actually – it was barely more than acouple of grooves worn into the dirt. He drove the car just far enough so thatit wouldn’t be seen from the road, then turned off the engine.

The passenger door unlocked automatically and Luma reachedfor the handle, but Antonio locked it again with the push of a button on thedriver’s side door. “I’m coming around to get you.”

“Okay,” Luma squeaked. When he opened the door from theoutside, he extended his hand to help Luma out – probably more through instinctthan anything else. She took his hand, shaking her head so the blindfold fellall the way down to her neck, and she said hopefully, “You know, Tabitha getsin her moods all the time. I bet by the time we drive home, she’ll haveforgotten what she was mad about.”

“Do you have to pee or don’t you?” Antonio asked.

“Yeah, I do,” Luma said. “But-”

She wanted to know what he was thinking. There was a wild,cornered look in his eyes that she really didn’t like, and things suddenly felta whole lot more dire now that the two of them were standing alone in the greatsilence of the forest.

“Go, then,” he said. “There’s a bush right over there.”

“Okay,” Luma said meekly.

Her bladder really was aching – she’d just finished a prettybig smoothie when Antonio came into her room and she’d been squirming in herseat for quite a while. Trying not to think about how badly she had togo was the only thing that had been distracting her from the awfulness of thesituation, but she couldn’t ignore it anymore.

She went behind the bush, the heels of her shoes sinkinginto the soft earth and pine needles poking her bare legs as she lifted herskirt. Just as she was beginning to feel a bit better – about one thing, atleast – she heard the Audi’s engine roar to life.

Oh God, he’s leaving me out here!

Luma rushed to rearrange her skirt and darted out frombehind the bush just in time to see Antonio floor the gas pedal. The tires spunin place for a moment, kicking up dirt and moss from the forest floor, and thenthe car gained traction and Antonio drove it straight into a tree.

“What the hell?” Luma shouted as the hood crumpled slightlyand the engine died. A small tendril of steam was rising from the car and Lumaran around to the driver’s side. “Antonio, are you okay?”

She got there just in time for him to open the door – he hadto put his shoulder into it since the collision had bent the frame of the car.He got out, unscathed, and Luma looked at him wide-eyed and speechless.

Antonio put his hands on her shoulders, their eyes lockingas he said, “Your stepmother ordered me to bring you out here and kill you.I’ve been going over it in my head for the last three hours, trying to imaginea world in which I could do that, and I just can’t.”

Tabitha wants me dead?

A jolt of fear ripped through her, followed by a twinge ofrelief. Antonio said he couldn’t do it – so where did that leave them? Standingnext to the smoking remains of Luma’s car, that was where. No matter what elsehappened, they weren’t going to be driving out of there.

“Listen carefully,” Antonio said. “You met with the modelingagency yesterday. They sent you on a go-see and that’s where you were goingtoday – you were driving alone, a deer jumped in front of your car and youcrashed. You must have been disoriented – maybe you hit your head. You wanderedinto the woods and no one heard from you again.”

“But Antonio-”

“Tabitha has her eyes on your trust fund,” he continued.“You know that, right?”

“I know she hates getting an allowance from my father,” Lumasaid, swallowing hard. “But this is about the modeling contract, isn’t it?” Heshook his head and Luma had never seen him so serious. “She really wants medead?”

“I’ve been her right hand for ten years,” Antonio said. “Iknow her better than anybody and I know when she’s serious about something.Luma, you have to disappear or she will kill you.”

“What about my dad?” she asked. “Let’s call him, or-”

Or the police, she thought.

“I can’t do that,” Antonio said, glancing at the car. “Youdon’t know what she’s capable of.”

“I think I have some idea,” Luma said, crossing her armsover her chest. She had no phone, no money, and no idea where she was. If shescreamed at the top of her lungs right now, no one but the birds and otherforest animals would hear her – and Antonio, who’d already made up his mind.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “You really don’t. Trustme, Luma, for your own safety – and mine – you have to let Tabitha think you’redead. If you come home, she’ll kill you and then she’ll kill me for not doingthe job myself.”

Luma’s mouth dropped open as she attempted to process all ofthis, trying to formulate a response that never materialized.

“Just disappear, Luma,” he said. A tear ran down his cheekand he added, “I’m sorry.”

He turned and started walking back toward the road, and Lumacalled after him, “Antonio.”

When he turned around, she asked, “Are you planning to walkhome?”

“I’ll figure something out,” he said. “So will you.”

Shit. Antonio turned around and headed back up thedirt path to the highway, and Luma just stood in the forest for a minute,trying to wrap her mind around what just happened.

She tilted her head back, feeling a headache coming on. Theforest was actually kind of beautiful, shafts of sunlight breaking through theevergreens and highlighting the pine needle-carpeted forest floor.

A bird chirped, unseen, in a tree somewhere close and Lumathought it sounded like a cuckoo. Her high school biology teacher had beenobsessed with birdsong and Luma had a lot of them memorized even though she’drarely heard them in real life. Cuckoos weren’t city birds.

“What the hell am I supposed to do now?” she asked theforest, and because the trees didn’t talk and birds rarely sang their songs inEnglish, she received no answer.

She went over to the car and tried the key in the ignition,but the engine was shot and it wouldn’t turn over. She went through the glovecompartment and the trunk, looking for anything that could help her, but she’dnever been more than a phone call away from AAA.

The glove compartment held nothing helpful and Luma was allbut useless without her phone, anyway.

She was stranded and she had no choice but to start walking.Her heels kept sinking into the loamy forest floor as she picked her way backup the overgrown dirt path and she was actually relieved when she got to apaved road. Her kitten heels weren’t made for hiking, but at least she couldget her footing on the road.

At least I’m alive.

That was not a thought she expected to have that day. Shekept walking, trying not to focus on all of the questions stretching out on theroad in front of her. Where am I going? What will I do when I get there? DoI go to the cops? Will Tabitha retaliate against Antonio – or even my dad – ifI do?

They were all unanswerable, insurmountable problems.

And then Luma started to hear pine needles crunching in theforest beside the road. She turned her head and for a fleeting moment, shewondered if Antonio had a change of heart and was coming back for her.

Or coming back to finish the job. Tabitha always didhave an otherworldly ability to know when her demands were not being met. Shewas a woman of means and beauty – or at least she used to be – and it waspretty rare that anyone dared to disobey her. Did Antonio call her after hecrashed Luma’s car? Did he cave already and admit that he hadn’t done whatTabitha asked of him?

Then all of those worries dissipated and Luma’s heartarrested in her chest.

A fat black bear was lumbering toward her out of the forest,no more than thirty feet away. It turned its head sideways at her, wonderinghow it had gotten so lucky that its next meal had delivered itself to thewoods. Its mouth opened, a hint of long, sharp teeth poking out from under itslips, and then Luma was running.

The bear emerged onto the road, looking like it didn’t mindchasing down its dinner. Luma ran as fast as her feet would carry her, and whenone of her heels fell off, she barely gave it a thought. She limped a few stepsand then kicked off the other shoe, hardly losing speed.

She made it about fifteen yards away and then a second bearemerged from the woods, standing in front of her. If a bear could speak, thisone would have said, Gotcha.

Are you freaking kidding me? Luma thought.

When the bear in front of her growled, she ducked off theopen road and through a tangle of what turned out to be pricker bushes. Theycut into her bare arms and legs, but Luma fought her way through them. Herstepmother put a hit on her, her father was away on business, and Antonio hadjust smashed her car. She was not about to be eaten by bears on top ofeverything else.

Luma didn’t turn around to find out if the bears were givingchase. She didn’t acknowledge the pain of each pine needle stabbing into thetender soles of her feet, or the scratches and pinpricks of blood covering herarms and legs. She just ran until her lungs burned and her thighs ached, untilshe had to stop or else she’d fall down in exhaustion.

When she finally did stop, leaning against a tree andpanting to catch her breath, Luma looked back. There was no bear, and there wasno visible path back to the road. She couldn’t see the road at all anymore, andshe couldn’t even say with any certainty which direction she’d come from.

“I’m lost,” she said to the forest, tears springing to hereyes. “I am lost in the woods.”

She might not have spent much time in the forest before, butLuma knew from her schooling that it went on for hundreds of miles. People gotlost in the forest every year, some of them died, and Luma was no Girl Scout.

She sank to the ground, her skirt riding up her thighs asmore pine needles jabbed into her skin. She put her head back against the treeand her long black hair snagged against the rough bark. She looked up. The onlything she had going for her was the fact that it was spring, the days weregetting longer, and she still had a good five hours of daylight left – not thatshe had any idea what to do with it.

Then, above the tall trees, she noticed a thin tendril ofsmoke in the distance.

Luma watched it for a minute or two, expecting it todisappear, but it persisted – it was a sign of life and her best shot atsurvival. She got up, brushed the pine needles off her skin, where they werestuck to her by a thin sheen of sweat, and started walking.

Limping was more like it, and she winced with every step.Her shoes were lying on the side of the road, or perhaps had become the bear’snew chew toys. She had no choice but to pin all her hopes on that tendril ofsmoke.

If she was lucky, it was the smoke from someone friendly’sfireplace.

What she found, at least an hour and many, many painful pineneedles later, was a cottage in a clearing. It was all by itself in the woods,no sign of civilization nearby, and the smoke trail Luma had followed wascoming from a large brick structure outside the cottage. It was about six feetsquare – a fireplace of some sort, closed on all sides with a large steel plateon the front that looked like a door, plus a chimney on top.

“Hello?” Luma called. Her voice echoed softly against thetrees but no one answered.

She left the fireplace and walked around to the cottagedoor. Someone had swept the dirt around the perimeter of the building, awelcome reprieve from the pine needles that had rendered Luma’s feet numb.

She knocked on the door, waited and listened for a minute,then called, “Hello? Is anyone home?”

No one answered. Luma tried to peek in the windows, but theywere covered with a film of dirt and she couldn’t see inside. If it wasn’t forthe smoking fireplace, she would have thought the cottage was abandoned.

She knocked again, then tried the doorknob.

It turned easily and the door swung inward. Luma calledagain, “Hello? I’m sorry to intrude, but I could really use some help.”

There was still no answer, and she glanced back toward theforest, then down at her own scraped and dirty limbs. It was either stayoutside and risk another encounter with that bear, or go inside and hope thecottage had a telephone. At the very least, she could get cleaned up and digthe pine needles out of her feet.

Luma inched her way inside.

Read FAIREST on Amazon now

Bonus Scenes: Labor of Love

My novel, LABOR OF LOVE, is available now on Amazon. In thelatest novel in my bestselling Lakeside Hospital medical romance series,pediatrician Lily meets visiting obstetrician Mercedes. They know from thestart their relationship has an expiration date, so what’s the harm in a littlefling?

Read a bonus scene below.

The following is a deleted scene from my latest novel. Init, Mercedes is helping her mother clean out her house and struggling withguilt after discovering a secret – her mother has been without running waterfor some time.

Mercedes didn’t have the promise of a date with Lily todistract her that weekend, so she had no choice but to finally make her wayhome.

It still took her until Sunday morning to work up the nerve,but she got up, dressed in the plainest clothes she’d brought to Illinois – abulky hoodie and an old pair of jeans that were so worn that she didn’tconsider them appropriate for public use anymore, plus a pair of running shoesthat had outlived their purpose a few months ago but were still good for wadingthrough her mother’s hoarder house.

She arrived around eleven, full of caffeine and resentment,and walked up the unstable porch steps to ring the bell. The wood gave underher feet with every step, rotting no doubt after years of neglect, and Mercedesadded that to her list of gripes.

I know she wouldn’t let you in the house, Jewel, butcould you not have fixed up the porch, or sent Michael over to do it? Shethought while she waited for her mom to come to the door.

This wouldn’t be Mercedes’ first time seeing her since shecame back to Evanston. She’d been sufficiently shamed after her first dinnerwith Jewel to call their mother on her way home that evening, and she’d takenher mom out to eat a few times since then.

Twenty years had taken their toll on her. The woman Mercedesremembered had been imposing, with a big personality and a temper that couldturn on you when you least expected it – especially if you broke one of hercardinal rules and told someone the family secret. The woman that pulledMercedes into a hug outside the Arby’s in her neighborhood – refusing to eatanywhere nicer or travel into the city – was thin and the flesh around her neckhung more loosely than it used to.

She was getting older – nearing seventy – and it was hard tosee all those years piled on at once.

She still had that personality though, and that temper. WhenMercedes told her the reason she was back in Evanston, and that she intended tohelp her clean up her house, her mother had pounded one fist on the cheappressboard table they were eating at and said, “You’re not getting rid of mystuff.”

“Mom, you don’t have running water,” Mercedes said, catchingherself midway through the sentence and lowering her voice so no one in the restaurantaround them would hear. “It’s not sanitary.”

“No, it’s not,” she’d insisted. “What do you think they dida few hundred years ago? They got by.”

“They got cholera,” Mercedes said. “This is non-negotiable.I came all the way out here from Seattle and I had to stop my research to takecare of this for you.”

“You’re turning this into a bigger deal than it is,” hermother had said. “I’ve gotten by just fine for the last two years-”

“Two years?” Mercedes said, and this time she wasn’table to keep her voice down.

She wanted to stand up right then and there and throw herhands up. How could anyone survive two years without running water. Athousand questions ran through her mind, and most of them were hygiene related.Do I really want to know? She thought, but she was here now. She was init.

“Jewel didn’t say it had been that long,” Mercedes said,forcing calmness into her voice. She’d gone to the hospital’s library andpicked up some literature on hoarding after her conversation with Jewel, and spentthe last month pouring over everything she could get her hands on. The more sheread, the grimmer she felt about the whole trip, but getting hysterical wasn’tgoing to help anyone.

“She doesn’t know,” her mother said. “And I’d appreciate itif you didn’t tell her.”

Great, another secret.

“How can she not know?” Mercedes asked.

“I may have fibbed,” her mother said. “When she found outabout the toilet not working, I told her it had just been a week or so. She wasgetting so upset, and she’s got so much on her plate already – I didn’t want toadd another thing.”

But let’s just pile it all on me, Mercedes thought. BecauseI’ve got nothing better to do than clean up your messes – literally.

She took a deep breath and said, “I’m here for one reason –to help you get your water turned back on so that Jewel doesn’t go into adownward spiral. She’s really upset about all of this, and I want to make sureyour living environment is safe. That’s all the skin I have in this game – Idon’t care how much stuff you have as long as we can make a path to whatever aplumber needs to access to fix the water. Can we make a deal? I won’t throw outanything more than I need to, and you’ll let me do what I have to do.”

That was a lot more generous than Mercedes was actuallyfeeling – she wanted to evict her mother for a week, back a dumpster right upto the house and start flinging stuff out the windows. This was the bestcompromise she had in her.

“Okay,” her mother had said. Then she picked up a curly fry,popped it into her mouth, and asked Mercedes about her research as if the700-pound elephant in the room had up and disappeared.

And that was what brought Mercedes to her childhood home ona bright Sunday morning, waiting for her mother to open the door so she could assessthe magnitude of the task.

Opening the door turned out to be more of a process thanMercedes expected. First, she heard her mother moving around inside the house,then the door opened an inch or so and stuck.

“Hold your horses,” her mom said through the crack, givinganother yank on the door.

Mercedes felt panic rising in her throat. Was it really thatbad? “Do you have stuff piled in front of the door, Mom? That’s a fire hazard.”

“No,” she said. “It’s just that there was some water damageand the door swelled. When it’s cold, it’s hard to open.”

Relief washed over her. That was another problem that she’dneed to fix before she went back to Seattle, but at least it was a normal one.“Do you want me to push?”

“No,” her mother said. “You’ll knock me over. I’m almostthere.”

She gave another good yank and the door popped open,squeaking against the doorframe. Mercedes’ mother had to look behind her totake a step backward and then around the door, pushing the screen door open forher.

Mercedes looked inside the house for the first time in twodecades and all the air rushed out of her lungs. For a moment, even though shewas standing in the fresh air and objectively, she could feel a cool breeze onher cheeks, there wasn’t enough oxygen in the world. She looked past her motherand saw that the living room had disappeared, swallowed under twenty years of stuff.

The pathways that Mercedes remembered, plenty wide enough toget from room to room, had shrunk to thin little spaces no wider than fiveinches in some places, and there was just heaps and heaps of stuff stackedeverywhere, some of it approaching the ceiling. The couch had disappeared along time ago, from the looks of it, and the TV was buried as well.

“Don’t judge,” her mother said as she stepped back and maderoom for Mercedes.

Mercedes just gave her a withering look as she came inside.She knew she’d get farther with her mother if she put on a fake smile andpretended that what she saw didn’t absolutely horrify her, but that intrusivethought had come back, vivid as ever. My mother is mentally ill.

Jewel tried to warn her about how the house had changed.Even if Mercedes had listened, no words could have prepared her for this. Shewasn’t sure whether to cry or laugh or be sick.

“Where do you sit?” she asked, gesturing to where the couchused to be. It was probably best to stick to mundane topics right now –anything else would be too much.

“Oh, I don’t use this room much anymore,” her mother said.Her tone was so casual, as if what she was looking at didn’t match whatMercedes saw at all. She just shrugged and said, “I mostly hang out in mybedroom.”

Mercedes tried to take another deep breath, but the airwasn’t good inside the house. There were so many years and layers of dust, andstuff was stacked against every wall, blocking the air vents. It’s okay. Youcan breathe – not well, but you can breathe, she told herself tokeep from panicking. In the back of her mind, she noted the vents as anotherproblem.

“Let’s just deal with the water for right now, okay?” shesaid. “Which toilet is the broken one? Upstairs?” “Well,” her mother said,looking bashfully at a stack of magazines near her feet. “It’s not so much thetoilet – I know that’s what I told Jewel, but I just didn’t want to alarm her.”

“She should be alarmed,” Mercedes said, feeling theurge to grab her mother by the shoulders and shake her as she added, youshould be alarmed, too! But she was doing a pretty good job maintaining hercomposure so far and it would be a shame to ruin that streak now. “Sorry.What’s the actual problem with the water?”

“It’s the main,” her mother said. “Two winters ago, we had acold snap and as best I can figure it, the pipe going from the street into thebasement froze. It was old anyway, and ever since then if I turn on the water,it leaks like a sieve, so I just had to turn it off.”

Mercedes closed her eyes. “How much water damage was there?Is there mold, too?”

“No, no,” her mother said. “Nothing like that. I cleaned itall up. I’m not one of those filthy people that can’t clean up after themselves– you know that, baby. I just have a lot of stuff.”

Mercedes nodded. It was the understatement of the century,but in some small way she was right – the house could have been a lot worse.“Can we get to the basement from inside?”

“Yeah, I keep the stairs clear,” her mother said. “Come on.”

She led her through the living room, both of them having toturn sideways and squeeze past a mountain of storage tubs at one point. It waslike exploring a landscape that Mercedes was once familiar with, only to findthat everything was not quite the same as she left it. The house she’d known asa kid was still here, just magnified by a factor of at least ten.

They went through the kitchen, having to take a circuitousroute around the dining table that Mercedes and Jewel used to eat their PopTarts at every morning before the school bus came. Now, the table was no longervisible, and its perimeter had grown by several feet where her mother hadstacked boxes upon boxes of every type of kitchen gadget and small applianceimaginable, as well as at least twenty gallons of bottled water.

Well, that’s what she’s doing for water, Mercedes thought.She noted that the refrigerator was inaccessible and didn’t sound like it wasplugged in, and she saw a single foot of counter space that was cleared, withpaper plates and bags of plastic flatware stacked near it.

“Is that where you eat?” she asked.

“It’s where I prepare my meals,” her mother answered. “I eatin my room.”

I don’t want to see it, she thought, spontaneouslyadopting it as her mantra to get them both through this ordeal with a minimalamount of trauma. I don’t need to know. Then they walked past the stove,which Mercedes nearly missed because there looked to be a year’s worth ofnewspapers stacked on top of it.

“Mom! That is so dangerous,” she said, reaching for thenewspapers to move them… somewhere.

“It’s fine,” her mother said, waving her hand dismissively.“That range hasn’t worked in years.”

“How do you cook?” Mercedes asked before she could helpherself.

“I eat fresh fruit and veggies, mostly. I follow a rawdiet,” her mother said, puffing out her chest like she was proud of herself.

Except for the curly fries and roast beef sandwiches, Mercedessaid, but she let it slide. “Let’s just get downstairs, okay?”

The basement was unfinished, just one big room the same sizeas the 1,000-square foot house above. It was a damn good thing the house wasn’tany bigger or else the problem would just be more insurmountable. The basementhad been a wreck even back when Mercedes lived at home. It was the first placeto become a disorganized storage unit for her mother’s unchecked collecting andMercedes remembered taking Jewel down there when they were in elementaryschool, excavating their way through the maze of junk as if they were treasurehunters.

It had been fun back then because sometimes they really didfind a treasure in all the stuff – a toy they’d forgotten about, or aChristmas present their mother had lost track of and forgot to give them. Thosewere the good old days when Mercedes had no idea that wasn’t normal.

She followed her mother slowly down the stairs – there was anarrow path there just like everywhere else – and saw that the junk level inthe basement had risen by about two feet, coming up to her waist when her feetfinally found firm concrete. Her mother headed toward the water shut-off andMercedes stood at the base of the stairs, frozen for a moment.

She looked at the joists above her head, trying to decide ifthey were sagging. How many more years of stuff could this house hold beforethe first floor became the basement, taking her mother with it as it fell?

And she was just wading through the mess, oblivious to theweight of it all – above her, around her, because of her.

Mercedes was leaning significantly closer to the sob endof the spectrum and away from be sick, although she hadn’t discountedthat possibility. She spotted the furnace in the opposite corner from where hermother was and asked, “Does your heat still work?”

“Yes,” her mother said.

“Really?” she asked. It was like interacting with a child,and she wasn’t sure she’d be convinced until her mother actually turned on thefurnace to demonstrate it.

“Yes,” her mother said, testy this time.

Mercedes started to pick her way across the basement in thedirection of the furnace. She had to see it for herself. The stuff was piledmuch more chaotically down here, and she found herself climbing over things formost of the journey – good thing she was wearing her oldest jeans and worn-outsneakers.

“You don’t have to look at it,” her mother snapped fromacross the room. “What are you, an HVAC technician?”

“No,” Mercedes grumbled under her breath while her back wasto her mother. “But I do have a vested interest in you not setting yourself onfire.” It took her a couple minutes to get to the furnace and then she turnedaround, snapping at her mother, “There are cardboard boxes stacked all aroundthis thing!”

“Those are the Christmas decorations,” her mother explained,making her way to Mercedes’ corner of the basement. “They go up right after Thanksgivingso they wouldn’t be there when the furnace kicks on.”

“If you don’t mind, I’m not going to take any chances,”Mercedes said, grabbing the nearest box.

“Put that down,” her mother said, climbing more franticallytoward her. “You said you weren’t going to move anything today.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Mercedes said. “But this is aridiculous fire hazard. Your whole damn house is a fire hazard and ifyou’ve got yourself barricaded in your bedroom like I’m imagining, you’d neverget out in time. I’m moving these boxes.”

“Stop,” her mother demanded. “I didn’t give you permissionto come in here just to let you ransack my house.”

“I can’t possibly make it any messier than it already is,”Mercedes snapped at her, setting the box down hard on the first flat surfaceshe could find – the washing machine. Nobody’s going to be using that anytimesoon, she thought as she grabbed another box.

“I know where all the stuff is,” her mother said. “If youmove it, I won’t be able to find it.”

She tried to wrestle the next box out of Mercedes’ hands andMercedes snatched it away and stacked it on top of the washer, too. She couldhear the panic in her mother’s voice, and she knew from all the literatureshe’d read that this wasn’t the way to handle someone like her. She was makingit all worse, but it was either cry, vomit, or focus all of her energy ongetting those damn cardboard boxes away from the fucking furnace.

When her mother tried to bar Mercedes from picking up thenext box, she shoved her away. Her mother stumbled back a few steps, her heelcaught on some piece of junk or another – probably a toy that should have beenpitched or donated decades ago – and she sat down hard on the pile.

Mercedes and her mother just looked at each other for a longminute, sizing each other up, and then Mercedes turned back to her task and hermother crossed her arms in front of her chest like a pouting toddler, watchingher work and making sure she didn’t move a single thing that wasn’t necessary.

It took Mercedes almost half an hour to clear a two-footspace around the furnace. Half of that time was just trying to find places tostack the boxes that wouldn’t cause a cave-in, but she got there eventually,and then she turned back to her mother.

“There,” she said with finality. “Nothing got thrown away –just moved. The furnace is safe now, and I’m not even going to look at thewater main today. We’re going to have to clear a path to it before a repairmancan come and do something about it, and I don’t have the energy to think aboutthat right now. Do you need anything else from me today?”

“No,” her mother said. Her arms were still crossed in frontof her chest and she still sounded like a petulant child.

Mercedes gritted her teeth and brushed past her. “I’ll callyou in a couple days and we’ll come up with a game plan.”

She left her mother pouting in the basement and got out ofthe house as fast as she could. By the time she was finally on the front porchagain, she was breathing heavily, leaning more toward the being sick endof things. She had to stop and put her hands on her knees, taking a few long,deep breaths. Fresh air never felt so good filling her lungs and she couldn’tseem to get enough of it.

My mother is mentally ill, and I haven’t been here.

When she could breathe again, she got in her rental car anddrove away as fast as she could. Seattle had never felt farther away.

Did you enjoy this book? Please take a moment to leave a review– they mean a lot to me and to fellow lesfic readers who are looking for theirnext read.