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Back The Ursulina Save as PDF
Chapters (45)
  1. I know you'll never forgive me...
  2. Part One - Your Father
  3. Chapter One
  4. Chapter Two
  5. Chapter Three
  6. Chapter Four
  7. Chapter Five
  8. Chapter Six
  9. Chapter Seven
  10. Chapter Eight
  11. Chapter Nine
  12. Chapter Ten
  13. Chapter Eleven
  14. Chapter Twelve
  15. Chapter Thirteen
  16. Chapter Fourteen
  17. Chapter Fifteen
  18. Chapter Sixteen
  19. Chapter Seventeen
  20. Chapter Eighteen
  21. Chapter Nineteen
  22. Chapter Twenty
  23. Part Two - Your Mother
  24. Chapter Twenty-One
  25. Chapter Twenty-Two
  26. Chapter Twenty-Three
  27. Chapter Twenty-Four
  28. Chapter Twenty-Five
  29. Chapter Twenty-Six
  30. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  31. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  32. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  33. Chapter Thirty
  34. Chapter Thirty-One
  35. Chapter Thirty-Two
  36. Chapter Thirty-Three
  37. Chapter Thirty-Four
  38. Chapter Thirty-Five
  39. Chapter Thirty-Six
  40. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  41. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  42. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  43. Chapter Forty
  44. Chapter Forty-One
  45. About the Author

In the fifth month of my pregnancy, my father died. I told you I’d had a sixth sense about it coming soon, so I wasn’t completely surprised to get the call. He was on the road when it happened, in a cheap motel outside Wichita. The check-out time passed without him leaving his room, and the motel owner found him dead in the twin bed. He’d died in his sleep, which was probably a blessing. According to the coroner, he’d been in the advanced stages of stomach cancer, so he must have been hiding extraordinary pain for a long time. He’d shown me no hint of it while he was staying with me. The end could have been much worse, but apparently God and his heart had decided that he’d had enough.

We had his funeral in Random. Most of the town came. My brother was there, and he and I spent a couple of awkward days together before he headed back to his latest job. After New Mexico, he’d gone to Oregon to work in the lumber mills. He was never going to settle down. The itinerant, Bob Dylan lifestyle suited him, going from place to place, making friends, sleeping with women, leaving them all behind. He had no interest in living in Random again, and he seemed to have no idea what to say to his pregnant sister. I loved my brother, but really, I hardly knew him. We’d spent very little time together. That one camping trip when I was ten years old is still the only real memory I have of us as a family.

My brother and I inherited my father’s house, but neither one of us was sentimental about keeping it. I wanted to stay where I was. So we sold it, and the deal went through quickly, because homes didn’t come up for sale in our area very often. Norm, jack-of-all-trades lawyer that he is, handled the closing and title work for us. Dad had been whittling away the mortgage on the house, so my brother and I came out of the sale with a reasonable amount of equity—enough to put me on solid financial footing for the first time in my life. I paid off my own little house, and I had enough in the bank that I didn’t cringe at the thought of my small paycheck.