Chapter One of My Novel

Alright gang.  Here is the first chapter of my novel.  I'm in need of your feedback and comments.  Let me know what you like and what you hate about this section and I'll use your feedback as I continue to edit the whole.  I'm still working on the ending, so anything you tell me now may help me form the resolution to the conflict.

If you have ever wondered if teachers look forward to summer vacation, the answer is that they do.  Most look forward to it more than the students do.  This was a particular truth for Em Greene this year.  She had spent the spring term putting off all of the cleaning, sorting, and restoring that making her family home her own was going to take.  After her mom died in February she did not have the energy to tackle the job and elected to keep teaching her classes at WWU.  She thought that having a reason to get out of bed every day would make things easier.  She discovered that easier is not a term that one can apply to a parent’s death.
    Everywhere Em set her eyes it seemed that she had another task to add to her ever growing list.  At first it had been things like, “Get out of bed” “feed the cat” or “eat something today”.  Now that the haze of her mother’s death was lifting her list read as an epic honey-do list: refinish the floors on the main level, strip the paint off of the built-in in the living room and halls, tame the garden, clean out the office, pack mom’s clothing for Goodwill.  There were some things that she kept putting off, and some things that she was ready to throw herself into.  Cleaning out her mother’s closet was one of the things she kept putting off.  When she was a child it was one of the places in the house that was formally off-limits.  There was no using mom’s closet for sardines with her friends, or playing dress-up with her fancy shoes and dresses.  Ever since then it has seemed wrong to open the doors of the closet unless invited.  Now that her mother was gone, taking the step to clean out the closet seemed like taking too big a liberty with the past.
    Sun speckled the path across campus that Em walked on her way to her office.  She had just finished posting her grades to the online system and had made one more pass of the classrooms to make sure she had collected all of the projects from the bulletin boards.  Em hated leaving things for the janitors to clean up, she thought the students were messy enough and that she did not need to add to the problem by leaving odds and ends around at the end of the term.
    Squinting up though the tree branches she could see the sun.  Her dark hair was absorbing some of the heat from the day, and it felt good to get some solar energy after such a long, dark spring.  That was one of the downsides to living on the coast.  It tended to rain and be overcast even when it wasn’t wet out.  Today was a day that made her eyes sparkle and reflect the rich green of the tree leaves.  Her eyes were a color that made people stop and look at her.  The irony of having eyes of this color and being “Professor Greene” had solicited a giggle or two from first term students.  When she was younger, Em, Emerald, had hated her parents for choosing such a ridiculously obvious name for her.  Now that she was an adult and could control something of how people viewed her, she never used her full name.  The only time people used her full name was when they read it from a paper or at an official conference.  At those times she was quick to offer herself as “Em” and move on with discussions.
    This spring had been especially dark and gloomy for Em, but in a way that had nothing to do with the weather.  Stopping by one of the rusted iron sculptures, Em sat and contemplated it for a moment.  This particular one was massive, angular, squared-off archways that some contemporary artist had created for the university’s public art garden.  Em liked the way the curved inner arch contrasted with the square outer arch.  The combination of the two reminded her of the hard and soft parts of life for some reason.
    One of the nice things about working at WWU was the public art garden.  It gave people pause as they hurried about life.  This last spring had been a whirlwind of running about, but that craziness was over for now and Em hoped to create some calm in her personal world that allowed for more reflection.
    Striding to her office she started to prepare for the mess that was going to greet her.  It was a good thing that students were gone and she could wear her beat-up jeans.  Her office had exploded at some point over the last term and it was going to be a bear to put in order.  Her body was feeling a bit strange to her.  After so little active use, walking around campus and moving made her realize that she needed to take better care of herself.  She had been thin to start with, but then the last few months had distracted her and her eating habits went out of the window.  Her jeans needed the belt she was wearing to stay up, and the legs were baggy in an unflattering way, she knew.  Hopefully this summer would be a time that she could devote to herself and she could gain back part of what she had lost this spring.
    It was the 10th of June, and Em was cleaning out some of the clutter that accumulated in her office over the last 10 weeks.  Teaching literature not only requires a lot of books, it also requires mountains of papers to be corrected in multiple drafts.  Many of those drafts seem to find their way to die in her office making it her task to throw it out in the end.  Sitting at her desk, she looked out of the window at the campus.  Everything was so green and lush.  It had been a particularly nice spring and all of the plants had a bit more sunshine than was usual in this part of the world.  Even in her own yard, without the help of paid gardeners like the  university had, her bulbs had exploded into color in April, and things had kept going since.  The rhode in the front yard needed to be trimmed back, and the grass was starting to become an issue. Pushing away from the mess that still covered her desk, Em sighed. 
    “Sarah,” She called to her secretary, “could you bring me a big trash bag?  I’m going to need some space to get rid of this mess.”
    “Sure thing, Professor Greene,” Sarah replied appearing in her doorway with one of the big black trash bags she kept on had this time of year. “Let me know when it’s full and I’ll call the maintenance crew for you.”
    Sarah was what you think of when you picture an English department secretary.  She was direct, helpful, and knew what you were going to need before you did.  She had been with the school when Em’s father was a teacher there, and Sarah couldn’t help looking after Em, especially now.  Today she was dressed in her uniform: beige knee length skirt, crème colored silk blouse, and black heels.  Her hair was always pulled back in a ponytail or in a bun, and it had streaks of grey running the length now.  It always reminded Em of how black coffee looked when cream was added.  In that moment before the two mixed, you could see one swirling around the other in the cup.  The fact that Sarah always had a coffee close at hand may have added something to this as well.
    “You need to think about taking a term off.  You know you don’t need to teach fall term if you don’t feel up to it.”
    There was something about the way that Sarah looked at Em that let her know she was not looking well.  Em had thought she was managing quite well with everything, but the truth was no one could fool Sarah for long.
    “I’ll see how the summer goes.  I am planning on getting most of the work on the house done this summer.  Getting all of mom’s things closed up and making the house mine should help some.”
    Em knew that it didn’t matter what she said to Sarah.  At times like these Sarah was going to think whatever she wanted and no one could convince her that not taking time off was going to be the right thing for Em.  Sarah has a husband, children, grandchildren now, and decades of friendships to lean on during the hard times.  Of course being at home with all of those loved ones would be helpful.  Em has none of that to go home to, just a house empty of people and filled with memories.
    Em had lost her father several years ago.  He had a heart condition and didn’t wake up one day for work.  That had been painful for her, but she had still been at university and she had her thesis to defend.  Life was not going to slow down for her then, so she kept up her studies telling herself that it was what her father would have wanted her to do.  He had been a literature professor as well and she was following in his footsteps.  He had specialized in American Literature, and she was focusing on Ancient English Lit at the time.  In part she had chosen ancient literature because of her mother.
    One of Em’s first memories was her mother reading stories to her.  Em’s mother refused to read what could be classified as children’s literature: she couldn't care less about Clifford, or any number of bears: Paddington, Teddy Ruxtby, or the Bareinstein Bears.  Instead, Em’s mother, Camilla, read her the stories of ancient heroes questing to save their civilizations.  Gilgamesh, Beowulf, Monkey, Odysseus, Achilles, and Rama filled the tales her mother chose to read to her.  The struggles of man with immortality, fidelity, and honor were captivating and inspired a lifetime’s love of reading in Em.  Some parents could not understand why Camilla would read stories with violence, hatred, and death to a young girl.  Looking back on it now, it did make Em wonder too, but she also appreciated her mother’s encouraging her to understand characters who were not simply one thing or another.  These epic heroes taught her about the complexity of the world around her.
    “I know you can’t help it Sarah, but try not to worry about me this summer.  I’ll be okay,” and saying this, Em began to believe it herself for the first time since her mom’s funeral.
    That had been a miserable time.  After three months, Camilla’s lung cancer finally won.  It had come on quick, was devastating, and ended before anyone really knew what was going on.  Em had the feeling that her mother had been sick for some time, but had refused to see a doctor.  She had been a stubborn woman about some things, and seeing a doctor was one of the things Camilla did not think was necessary.  She would get better or she would not get better; she saw little that a doctor could do about it one way or the other.
    Had Camilla gone to the doctor earlier, Em found out later, nothing could have been done differently.  Camilla was going to die from lung cancer, and because a doctor did not find it early, she was spared the agony of Chemo and radiation.  This, Em believed, was a small blessing.  At the end, Camilla really did not know what was going on around her.  She was in a bubble of pain treatment and eventually every breath became impossible and she let go of her hold here.
    She had been there by her mother’s side when it happened.  The hospice nurse had gone for the day and Em was reading the section of Beowulf where Beowulf fights the dragon.  Just as she got to the part where Wiglaf slays the dragon for his liege lord, Camilla drew her last breath.  Em had heard the oxygen machine’s rhythm stop, but she continued reading the funeral scene for her mother imagining her spirit traveling on its own last rights to some version of heaven.  Em had wanted a funeral pyre for her mother, but she settled on cremation knowing her mother would rather a quick fiery ending that echoed the tales she had read so many years ago.
    The sun had shifted in the window as Em finished excavating the layers of term papers from her desk.  She looked around and decided that it was clean enough for the summer.  All of the books were on the shelves, her desk was cleaned to the blotter, and all of the stacks of files had actually been placed in the file cabinets.  Anything more than that would look like she was not planning on returning in the fall and she did not what Sarah to get that idea locked into place any more than she already had.  Walking out of her office, and turning the key in the lock, she walked out of the building ready to start creating some direction for her life rather than reacting to outside forces and feeling out of control.  If her mother had taught her anything it was that sitting around feeling sorry for yourself never helped anyone slay a dragon.



    The family home was an old craftsman monster that sat on the top of one of the many hills near the university in Bellingham.  Em’s parents had bought the house in the Sixties when they were first married and her father had walked to campus nearly every day of his tenure at Western Washington University.
    Arriving at home, Em followed the ghost of her father up the front path and into the living room.  Sitting on the Ethan Allen couch with a relieved sigh, she kicked off her shoes and tucked her feet up under the throw pillows.  Looking around the room she settled on the black and white family pictures occupying one wall of the room.  There were photos of her father in uniform, photos of her mother as a waitress before he father returned from the war, photos of the two together with her mother’s belly big and round, and finally pictures of the three of them together.  Together on her first steps, together on her first day of school, together after her first solo trip to Europe, and together after she graduated with her bachelor's degree.  The family was always together. 
    How was she going to manage all of this house by herself, she wondered.  Gazing past the family memories she noticed that the wall was cracked.  Wonderful.  She had planned on spending the summer refinishing the woodwork in the house, but if the foundation was cracked as well, was it worth the investment or should she get the foundation looked after first?  Em missed her mother.  Camilla would have known the people to call to have the wall looked at, and Em would never have spent a minute wondering about things like house foundations or refinishing woodwork.  Camilla would have encouraged Em to look into a new author or follow up on some research for her next paper.  The running of the house was never high on Em’s priority list while her mother was there to look after things. 
    Perhaps that was the biggest void that Em was struggling to fill.  Her mother had kept things running so smoothly for so long that Em really had taken things for granted.  After her father had died, Camilla had focused her energy on making life comfortable for Em.  She had been just getting her feet wet as a professor and having her mother at home supporting her seemed natural.  Em had moved back to Bellingham to be near her mother and to take care of her.  It turned out that Em was the one who ended up getting taken care of.  Camilla  had so many connections to the university because of who her husband was.  He had taught there for nearly thirty years, and had taught many of the people who were now professors in the English Department. 
    Camilla had a way of bringing all of the right people together.  One night soon after Em had moved back, Camilla hosted a dinner party for members of the department and their spouses.  By the end of the night, Em had impressed the acting chair, and she had offered her an interview for the following term.  Em was teaching a course on the epic hero several weeks later.  That one course had grown into a full teaching load in five years.  Now that she had tenure, she wasn’t sure she could see herself spending the next thirty years in the same town that her mother and father had spent their lives. 
    Em really needed to get that foundation looked at before she started serious work on the floors.
    Hoisting herself up from the sofa, Em padded back into the kitchen and rummaged around for the phone book.  Inside the front cover of the ancient phone book, Camilla’s handwriting noted “Bobby Cooper— contractor” and gave a number.  Em dialed the number and made an appointment with Bobby’s grandson to have the foundation looked at the following day. 
    Having accomplished one productive thing since arriving home from work, Em opened the fridge and grabbed a beer.  Cracking open the bottle, throwing the opener back into the drawer, and leaning her hip against the counter, Em began to plan her attack on the house.  Tomorrow she would see what was going on with the crack in the wall.  Barring any major repair needs, she would need to start the heavy task of cleaning out her mother’s things and creating a "keep" and a "go" pile.  Hopefully, the "go" pile would be significant and she could call Goodwill to make a pick-up later in the week. 
    Noticing that she had been tracing the same lines on the paper, Em stopped her hand.  Tapping on the notepad she looked at the heavy lines she had created over the word “Goodwill”.  How much goodwill was she showing by giving away all of the items that were heavy with her mother’s memory?  She was not sure if she was showing good will, or if she was taking advantage of someone else’s by dumping boxes full of old things on them.  When people give things away, who are they really helping?  Em had the suspicion that many people gave things away to clear space in their conscious and remove regret from their life.  At least, this is what she had come to realize she was feeling about clearing out all of her mother’s things. 
    Her beer in her hand, Em realized there was no time like the present to start the cathartic process of cleaning the house.  Where this motivation came from was beyond her, but she was going to ride this wave of energy for as long as it lasted. 
    The easiest place to start was with clothing.  Camilla was a good foot shorter than her daughter and weighed a good fifty pounds more, so Em had never been interested in her mother’s clothing.  The closet was a place filled with sweater sets and wool pants from a different era.  Taking out a jacket or two, Em laughed, and then quickly stopped, as she spotted shoulder pads that took her back to 1987.  Not that she could remember her mother actually wearing these hideous jackets, but she could see that her mother would have been swimming in these too large jackets.  Her mother had never been one for fashion, and when she did try, it often came out looking like she was trying. 
    The three boxes Em had on hand were quickly filled with jackets, pants, and sweater sets that Em would never be able to wear.  She finished taping the boxes shut, and marking the outside with a Sharpie, when the phone rang.  As she walked over to the phone, she brushed her hand off on her jeans. 
    It was Robert calling.  He was making dinner and wanted her to join him at his house.  One did not hesitate to take Robert up on an offer of dinner when he was cooking.  The man was an amazing cook, but rarely made the effort to have guests preferring the company of his golden retriever to most people.  Robert had been best friends with Em since she had come back home after her father died.  He was one of the department members Em had first hit it off with and she had come to like him more in the interim.  The man was one of those Jay Gatsby types with blond hair and a winning smile that constantly disappointed the female undergrads when they discovered he was gay.  The man had more starry-eyed fans than most young professors, and he also broke the most hearts without making much of an effort. 
    Knowing where she was going, and knowing that Robert never served dinner on anything less than the family china, Em changed her clothes, grabbed a bottle of wine, and walked the three blocks to his house. 
    The evening was cool for a June evening, but the coast was like that.  Sitting this near the ocean brought the salty smell of fishing trawlers and the sounds of fog horn blasts at this time of the evening.  The days are long in June, and the sun lingers above the horizon until seven with the last fingers of light extending until nearly eight.  The kids were out for the summer, and not just the big kids from the university.  There was a notable amount of bikes littering the front lawns of houses, the unmistakable “thunk, thunk, thunk” of a basket ball being dribbled on a concrete slab in someone’s backyard echoed off the houses and down the street, and a tempting hop-scotch drawn in purple chalk covered one stretch of the sidewalk. 
    It was good to see this much life.  The plants she had noticed at work were one thing, but to see how people continued around her was another.  Somewhere in her memory, an evening much like this floated to the surface.  It was a time before so many fences had separated the houses in the area, and the neighbor kids were able to run from house to house taking short cuts through the boundless expanse of lawn.  She had been playing sardines with about ten kids when all of the mothers started to yell for them to come home.  Back porch lights seemed to come on all at once and names were being hollered out of back doors.  “Em, you get home right now.  The street light is on” her mother would yell. 
    She smiled to herself as she turned up Robert’s front path.  Glad she had bothered to make herself presentable, Em knocked on the screen door and was greeted by a wet nose and a new face.  The wet nose belonged to Tiger, the dog, and the new face introduced himself as Chris.  Robert was making it an intimate night, there were only six people for dinner.  The other three guests were mutual friends from campus who were staying in town for the summer term to teach.  The bottle of pinot Em had brought was quickly opened, and she accepted a glass.  Robert never did anything half way.  He had the most perfect balloon glasses for red wine.  She swirled the dark ruby liquid in the glass, enjoying the way it clung to the sides and created legs.  The best part of the swirling was the red, glowing center that appears when the wine catches the light.  The illumination seems to come from within the wine itself and it captures the heat of her hand making the wine come alive.  It wasn’t that Em was an aficionado of wine, she just loved the promise filled moment before taking the fist sip,when everything could still be wonderful and anticipation ruled. 
    In her opinion, after the first few sips wine was no longer that exciting.  It was something that was best kept in the background.  It could complement a dinner, but it was never the main course.