Read an Excerpt

CHOSEN

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By K.L. ROY

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2011 K.L. Roy
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4567-3569-2

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Chapter One

Five years later

"Well, Mrs. Oden, I am not quite sure how I will be able to help you. I can very honestly tell you that I have never had someone book an entire day out of my schedule." Dr. Wine carried her pad of paper and pen to her chair, tossing them down on the hand carved pine coffee table. She looked over the shy, nervous, well-dressed woman sitting quietly on the couch. "I don't know that I can help you at all."

"Please call me Ada," she softly replied. "I have my own reasons why I requested a whole day of your time."

"Are you going to tell me why?" Dr. Wine twisted her body in her chair in an effort to relax, get settled for the long day.

"I have my own reasons." Ada got up from the couch and walked to the window. The sun was shining in yet another beautiful summer day. The weather forecaster had predicted storms to come in the early afternoon, yet the sky looked as clear as the ocean in Hawaii's waters where the fish peacefully floated past the colorful coral.

"Do you feel more comfortable walking around?"

"I'm not sure." Ada turned to see the older woman staring back at her with comforting brown eyes. "I don't feel comfortable at all anymore, anytime."

"Since when?" The doctor went into her mode as caregiver of the mind, thoughts, and spiritual guidance. "Maybe you could tell me a little bit about yourself. You didn't fill out the questionnaire my patients usually fill out."

Ada ran her hands over her arms and shoulders, around her neck, trying to ease the tension. "I don't know what you want to know."

"How about you tell me about you childhood?"

"My childhood was normal. There was nothing special about my childhood. My parents are great people. I have one sister who is married with a son and daughter ..." Ada shrugged. Her fingers ran along the bookshelf taking in the family photos, gently stepping her way around the small room. The older woman, dyed black-hair, with her two grandchildren on a camping trip, her four children graduating from various different colleges topped in black caps with tangling tassels. Her husband, his arms wrapped around her as the happy couple smiled over the flaming candles on a cake that read Thirty years and counting in bright blue icing.

"Why don't you just tell me why it is you are here?" Dr. Wine leaned forward, still trying to locate that perfect spot that would allow her hind end comfort in her usual chair. She leaned back, crossing her arms over her small breasts, a little annoyed that her time was being taken up, used frugally by a strange woman who seemed to have the large amount money her secretary had quoted for a eight hours of her time.

"Do you believe in God?" Ada forced a small smile at the medical professional she'd paid to listen to her. Little did the doctor know, if she was right in fitting together the pieces of the puzzle that was her life, that tomorrow she would be dead. A casualty of the life she was living and another soul to be taken because of it. Or, if she chose to be, she would be living a life of extreme pleasure granted to her by a seven-year-old child.

"Yes." The doctor answered. "Do you?"

"Yes." Ada sat back down on the long, worn leather brown couch, feeling the soft cushions sink beneath her weight. "Do you ever have conversations with Him?"

Dr. Wine picked her pad of paper and pen back up and placed them on her lap. "I pray to Him. I ask for guidance, for help, and to be forgiven for my sins."

Ada pushed her cuticle back on her thumb nail. That wasn't an answer that was unexpected. It was a simple answer that could be used by anyone.

"Do you pray?"

"Do I pray?" Ada repeated the question back to her. "Every day I pray to Him."

"Do you feel like He's not hearing you?" She cocked her head to the side, closely watching the nervous young woman as she hung her head down, wiping the tears from her eyes.

"He hears me." A hoarse choked voice answered back. "At least, He says He does."

"God speaks back to you?" She scribbled on her note pad: delusional, hearing voices, God.

"Do you ever picture God in your mind? What he looks like? Sounds like?" Ada cleared her throat, trying to regain some of the emotions caught in the painful lump before it escaped.

"I think we all have our own ways of seeing and hearing God. My question for you is, does God speak back to you? Are you hearing voices in your head or mind?"

Ada laughed a hearty well-earned laugh. Did she hear God speaking to her? What a crock. She not only heard Him. They had two-way conversations in an open wide field full of wild flowers and overgrown weeds. She asked questions that He answered in a deep calming voice much like a grandfather. He was never judgmental or condescending. He laughed with her, cried with her, and always calmed the raging pain.

"Do you ever have visions of hurting yourself or others?" The doctor curled her fingers around her metal pen, unconsciously clicking the tip.

"No." Ada brushed her fingers across her lips. "No, I never want to hurt myself or others. I get a little short tempered with my daughter sometimes."

"So you have a child? Are you married?"

"No. I am not married. I'm a single mother." Ada watched her scribble something else on her note pad. "My daughter's name is Raine. She is seven now."

"Raine ... that means queen, doesn't it?" Single mother, Raine-daughter-seven, she quickly wrote down on her note pad under what was surely to be a long lists of notes.

"I'm not sure what it means." Ada picked up her coffee cup, wishing she'd brought a thermos. "Do you have any coffee?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact I do." Dr. Wine got up from her chair and opened a wide cabinet to a hidden wet bar. A small porcelain sink, microwave, a dorm-sized refrigerator, and a hot grill lined the marble shelves. "I don't drink. But it comes in handy for coffee and snacks."

"That's a nice amenity." Ada stood next to her, watching as she ground the fresh coffee beans, the distinct scent of the blackened brew filling the room, giving comfort, a sense of home lost in time. "If I would have known that, I could have made lunch for us."

"I brought my lunch today." Dr. Wine nodded to the small refrigerator. "I have enough for two."

"I took the liberty and ordered lunch to be delivered for the two of us." Ada smiled at the older woman.

She was different from what she had assumed. More comfortable, less formal in her quiet mannerisms and casual smiles. It was nice how the conversation turned so easily and smoothly from one subject to another. "I ordered Genio's for us."

"That's one of my favorite places. They have the best chicken salad." She could already taste the shredded chicken and tiny bits of bacon in her watering mouth.

Yes, Ada knew this. Dr. Elizabeth Wine visited the small outdoor café on almost every sunny afternoon. She and Raine had run into her several times during their own outing to the outdoor style diner, although the good doctor never once eyed them from across the large room, always too interested in her own meal and conversation.

The round seventy-eight-year-old woman resembled a picturesque grandmother in almost every sense of the word, except for dyed pitch-black short hair showing off her need to try to stay young. It didn't change the wrinkles around her painted eyes, the extra skin that hung from her chin engulfing her neck, or the black age spots on the back of her thin-skinned hands.

"So tell me about your daughter," Dr. Wine told her as she pushed the button on the pot, watching the little red light glow. "It'll take about ten minutes to brew."

Ada smiled. "My daughter is great. She's almost your typical sevenyear-old."

"You don't say that so convincingly." She took back her chair, looking over the young woman.

Her light brown hair and blue-grey eyes weren't anything other than ordinary. She wasn't slim, nor was she overweight. She was average, unremarkable, unnoticeable, but not plain. There was something different about her. Something unique, refreshed, and hidden deep inside her soul, like a haunting or a manifestation of an undiagnosed mental disease she was hiding.

"She's not like every other child." Ada looked past her to the photos on her desk. Each contained a much younger version of the doctor happily holding a newborn in a hospital bed. "Do you remember when your children were born?"

Dr. Wine twisted her chair to see what had caught her eye. "Yes. I remember each and every birth of my four children."

"Did they cry?"

"Did they cry?" The sudden strange question caught her off guard, causing her to show her own emotions of surprise. "Yes. They cried. The doctors like to hear them cry to make sure their lungs are strong and healthy. Does your daughter have some kind of health problem?"

"No." Ada shook her head. "She doesn't have any health problems."

"So what makes her different?"

"Is that coffee done? It smells really good." Ada changed the conversation.

Was she doing the right thing? The question still plagued her. She wasn't sure how deep she wanted to go yet. Explaining her life, the death that followed the life of her daughter since birth, and the first words her daughter spoke.

Chapter Two

"I remember that day started off as one of those freaky spring Ohio days. In the morning, the sky fluttered with big, white, fluffy snowflakes. I woke up early. I watched it snow from the window of my apartment. The snow tumbled down out of the sky underneath the street lamp, piling up on the hood of my car." Ada felt the warmth of the coffee seeping into her fingertips from the ceramic cup and taking away the memory of the cold morning. "There is something peaceful when you think for a moment you're the only one in the world."

"So the morning you had your daughter, you felt at peace." Dr. Wine jotted peaceful before daughter on her notes.

Ada watched her scribble. She was curious as to what she was thinking. But it wouldn't matter in the end. Nothing would.

"By ten that morning, the snow was melting. The sun was coming out. It reached seventy-eight degrees by noon. The meteorologist called it a fluke. They had reasons and explanations for the sudden change." Ada smiled, and then almost laughed. "Meteorologists are the only people in the world who can be wrong ninety percent of the time and still keep their job."

"I agree." Dr. Wine laughed with her. "Yesterday they said it was going to rain and it turned out to be one of the warmest, clearest days of the summer so far."

Ada sipped her coffee and almost spewed with the funny look on the woman's face. Yesterday morning, she'd watched the doctor arrive at the office from the confines of her car parked along the side street. She was wearing her raincoat, carrying her rain boots. A big wide brimmed hat covered her black hair as she strolled along the sidewalk thumping her umbrella heading toward her office building. She looked ridiculous.

Ada cleared her throat, regaining her composure.

"I'm sorry." Dr. Wine sat up straight. "You were telling me about the day your daughter was born." Ada's smile faded a little before she forced a wide smile looking into the black eyes sitting across from her. "Like I said, the afternoon was warm, beautiful. That's when my contractions started. I called the doctor. He said to wait until they were five minutes apart. I called my parents and a few friends who came over to sit with me. Then," she lazily sighed, "I waited."

"What about the baby's father? Did you call him?"

Ada frowned a little. "I don't know who the father is. I hadn't had sex in over a year when I found out I was pregnant."

"Were you raped?" The question came out, interrupting her client suddenly, unexpectedly. "Maybe date raped, drugged?"

"I don't think so." Ada clasped her hands in front of her, leaning forward on her elbows. It was important the doctor understood. She wasn't there to go over how she became pregnant or who her daughter's father was. She had anticipated this, expected it. The question would end here. "If I was raped, I don't remember it. It doesn't matter anymore anyway. I love my daughter more than anything. She's the best thing that could have happened to me. I woke up one day, pregnant. There is nothing else to say on that topic."

Dr. Wine took note of the tension flowing from her. The way her voice became deeper, harder in her need to make a point. She wrote on her pad, raped, date-raped, unable to remember, touchy subject, anxious, angry, with an explanation point to remind her to return to the topic later.

"My parents came over to my apartment. My mom made me walk and walk." Ada leaned back again and paused to let the doctor catch up to the sudden change in her conversation.

"You and your mom are close?"

"As close as mothers and daughters can get," Ada answered. Her heart weaved a little. "I miss her."

"Did she pass away?"

"No." Ada shook her head, shaking away the vision of the last time she'd seen her mother. She was standing at the car window. Her small hand pressed against the warm glass to Raine's smaller palm. Big tears streamed down her face as she told her how much she loved her. How much she would miss her. "I haven't seen her in almost three years now. Someday soon maybe, I might be able to."

"We had to leave for a while." Ada regained her composer yet again. She'd become good at that. Pushing things to the forefront or back of her mind and heart, she couldn't feel the pain in her chest as long as she kept them at a distance.

Mother-daughter strain, rift, left home, she wrote before moving on. "Was the day still warm?"

"The day turned to storms by early in the evening. Big rolling, black clouds pushed by the picked up winds. Tornado warnings scattered the area around us. Just before we left for the hospital, about seven that evening, the weather cleared. On the evening news, the forecaster described the evening as 'fall like'." Ada went to refill her coffee cup. She glanced at the numbers on the clock, noting time had seemed to slow. It was only going on nine.

"What time did you give birth?"

"It was twelve seventeen on April 12th." Ada took back her seat on the couch and yawned.

"Was your labor distressful or complicated?"

"I wouldn't know. I've never had a baby before. My mom tells me I'm lucky. Once the contractions took a turn into hard labor, it went pretty fast. I remember there was pain, but it is hard to remember how the pain felt."

"That's common for most women," Dr. Wine said as she resettled her body in her chair. "It's the loss of memory that allows us to go through birth all over again."

"I doubt I will ever have another child." Ada chewed on her thumb nail. She was trying not to relive the memories embedded in her mind, knowing she was going to have to.

"Was there anyone in the delivery room with you?"

"My mom," Ada pushed her wet palms on her jeans, wiping away the light layer of sweat. It was the beginning. "The doctor and two nurses were also there. The rest of my family and friends stayed in the waiting room."

"Your daughter didn't cry?"

Ada stared back into the black eyes of the woman. Her mind began to deliver bits and fragments of the past. "When she was born, she never cried, grunted, or murmured. Her eyes were wide open. I swear. She smiled at me."

Dr. Wine didn't say anything. She didn't move to write anything down or get up to refill her empty coffee cup. She was watching Ada drift away in her own past world.

"When the nurse took her from me, she almost dropped her. The doctor was still between my legs making sure all my parts were still in working order. My mom was crying, anchored over me in a huge hug. I heard this funny mumbling sound coming from the other side of the room. When I turned my head, the nurse was praying on her knees at the foot of the incubator." Ada took a deep breath. "She was praying to my baby, begging for forgiveness."

"Was there a problem?" Dr. Wine cocked her head to the side and wrinkled her nose, not understanding the story.

"No. She was just on her knees praying. It was weird. My mother got the doctor's attention. He yelled at the nurse to get up and out of the room. Then he went to check my baby. When he looked down at her, he started to cry. Big, huge sobs came from his body as he held on to the sides of the small plastic square where she lay. That got the other nurse's attention. She went over to where the doctor was standing, grabbed his arm, and pulled him away. She looked back to the baby and started making the cross over her chest. She spoke in Spanish, so I couldn't understand what she was saying. But everything in my soul told me to get the hell out of there. It wasn't normal."

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from CHOSEN by K.L. ROY Copyright © 2011 by K.L. Roy. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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