Learning to Fly: New mom, Susan Schaffer, looks down at her newborn daughter, Lily, and wonders if she has what it takes to be a great mom. Each stage seems to bring a new challenge and Susan is filled with doubt. A chance meeting with former classmate, JoJo Nash, also a new mom, gives the two mothers a friendship to help each other, and their daughters, learn and grow. As the girls approach high school graduation their mothers are faced with the question: Are the girls ready to ‘fly’ on their own? Learning to Fly is a novel about living, loving and letting go.

Andrea Sisco of  Armchair Interviews.com writes: “All the self-help books or parenting classes in the world will not score a direct hit like Henke’s message...a must read for all mothers and mothers-to-be.”

Learning to Fly

by

Roxanne Henke

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Prologue:

Susan

            I woke up listening, again.

            Nothing.

            But was I sure? As if I was our dog, Buster, I cocked my head, turned my ear to the bedroom door. Listened. There was nothing to hear, as usual. Nothing except the accustomed sound of my husband, Seth, beside me on the bed, sleeping through the night.

Unlike me. I rolled over in bed, hoping sleep would return. It was too early to get up. I lifted my head from the pillow and squinted at the clock. Three a.m. Too early.

            I closed my gritty eyes and lay my head back down on the pillow. I really needed to get back to sleep. The day would start early enough without these extra hours of sleeplessness added in…or subtracted. I lifted my head and flipped the pillow to the cool side. Maybe that would help my restless thoughts. I put my head on feathers and cotton, trying to convince myself the combination was a magic elixir of sleep.

Too often lately I woke up early, before the morning sounds began. Before the sun. Before the birds. Before the thump of the morning paper being dropped on the step. Long before the dog needed to go out for his early morning check of the back yard. Maybe one of these days Buster would catch that old crow who seemed to love tormenting him by staying just a wing-dip or a hop away from his mouth. I was convinced it was a game they both enjoyed playing. If they ever met up face-to-face—make that beak-to-teeth—I had a feeling they’d both be a little disappointed. The dance is always enticing while the music is playing, while your dance partner is a mere step away. But when it stops?

It’s like parenthood.

Yeah, it’s like that. You dance and dance, around and around with your child, thinking, most days, Will the music never end? And then, in eighteen years that, in the end, pass like a blink, it does. And you’re left standing on the dance floor, arms raised to go on, but suddenly the music has stopped and your child is gone and you realize the dance is done. And you’re standing alone.

Now I was doing it again. Listening. What was it I was trying to hear in the dead of night? In the silence before the sun?

I knew. I was listening for the rustle of blankets through the wall. The turning of a toddler body as she thrashed through a playground of dreams. The soft murmur of Lily’s sleep-voice as she talked to her junior high friends while she slept. The muffled groan as she tumbled into bed after a early-morning shuffle to the bathroom, the result of too much Dr. Pepper as she studied for her SAT’s.

I was listening for the sounds of my daughter as if she still lived here, still slept inches away through the wall. Her night sounds were as familiar to me as my own. And now that she wasn’t here, it was as if a ghost roamed the night, haunting my sleep, softly whispering, “Listen.” And when I did, all I heard was…nothing.

It’s not as if Lily died.

Ah, the familiar reminder I used to placate the emptiness I carried around. No, Lily hadn’t died, but it felt as if a part of me had. She had two months of college under her skinny little belt. I had two months of missing everything the way it used to be.

Familiar tears stung my eyes. I hated crying in bed. If I lay on my back, tears ran into my ears. If I turned onto my stomach my sinuses felt as if they were stuffed with cotton balls. There was no position that was right. No angle that would make this empty ache go away. I turned onto my side, my rapid blinking turning the digital clock into a makeshift strobe light.

Listen. What I heard instead was the absence of sound. The timbre of silence.

Once again I rotated in bed, trying to find a place where the quiet wasn’t quite so loud. Silence can be golden. Yes, I remembered the chatter-box-days when that was true. But, these past two months I’d learned another truth. Silence could also be deafening.

            I closed my eyes, hoping the soft light filtering through the bedroom drapes was moonlight, not the first rays of morning creeping over the horizon. These days I had much in common with that old crow Buster liked to chase. We were both flitting around, squawking at most anything—husbands included—trying to fill the void left by our empty nests.

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“Learning to Fly” is published by Harvest House Publishers (2008) and is available at fine bookstores everywhere and on-line at www.amazon.com or www.christianbook.com. If you’d like a signed copy of any of Roxy’s books, you can find ordering information on her website: www.roxannehenke.com Click on the “Signed by Author” link to begin ordering.

Author, Roxanne Henke, lives in rural North Dakota with her husband, Lorren, and their annoyingly-friendly dog named, Gunner. They have two, young-adult children who are also friendly…but not annoying! You can find other books by Roxanne Henke at www.roxannehenke.com.

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“He came to pay a debt he didn’t owe

Because I owed a debt I couldn’t pay.”

Forty to Life

Dave Jackson

Chapter 3

            Ray paced around the small, locked room in the 24^th District police station while Detective Barker went to get him a cigarette. Had he said anything that could get him in trouble? He didn’t think so, but then he’d never been through this before. Cops on the street hassled you, yelled at you, pushed you around, and threatened to lock you away until you were old and gray. Ray knew how to deal with cops on the street, but he’d never been brought to a station and interrogated before.

            There was no good-cop-bad-cop thing going on here, but Barker was more than a curious detective trying to solve a stolen bike complaint, he could tell that. He seemed as benign as Colombo but was probably just as dangerous. Barker couldn’t have a solid case yet, or he would have arrested Ray by now. Still, he knew too much. Ray’s only hope was to keep his mouth shut no matter what the cops said or did.

            Ray kept walking around in the small room, nervously trying the door from time to time even though he knew it would still be locked. What was taking Baker so long? Where were his smokes? When was he going to get out of here? Finally, Ray sat down with his elbows on the table and rested his chin on his hands.

            It seemed like forever before the door opened, but was probably only forty-five minutes when Barker returned, extending a single cigarette toward Ray like he was passing him a blunt. He even glanced back over his shoulder. “You know, supplying cigarettes to minors is a criminal offense under Illinois State law. So don’t tell anyone who gave that to you.” He turned back to close the door.

            “Wait a minute!” Ray jumped up. “Don’t close it. Wait, I want to—”

            The door clicked shut. “Sorry. What’s the problem?”

            “Well, I didn’t steal those bikes, and I don’t know nothin’ about no shooting. So can I go?”

            “Oh, you’re free to go any time, but sit down.” He reached out with a lighter and flicked the flame in front of Ray’s face until Ray sat and lit his cigarette. “Help me out just a little bit more here, will ya? Do you know a Rico Quiñones?”

            Though Ray had tried to maintain eye contact with Barker—to show he had nothing to fear—he couldn’t hold it and looked away. He took a long drag from his cigarette and blew a big cloud of smoke up into the air. Rico Quiñones … the cops had one more piece to the puzzle. They were closing in on him. He took a deep breath and forced himself to look back at Barker. “Yeah, I know him, but I don’t have nothin’ to do with him, ’cause he ain’t nothin’ but a gangbanger.”

            “You know, that’s exactly what those Hernandez kids said, too. And we’re thinking he might have had something to do with this shooting I mentioned to you. In fact, while I was out getting you a cigarette, I got a call. They got Quiñones down there at Area 3 Violent Crimes Headquarters right now and asked if I could come down and give them a hand. But I need some help. I need you to come with me.”

            “Violent Crimes Headquarters”? Ray didn’t want to get anywhere near that place. He could feel sweat forming on his forehead. Would Barker notice if he wiped it off? The detective was already standing to leave by the time Ray answered. “Uh, I got some stuff I gotta do for my mom at home. I don’t think I can come with you.” Ray stayed seated.

            For the first time, Barker’s voice had an edge. “Oh, no. You’re coming with me because I don’t have time to clear you on this bike theft thing. If I left you here, I’d have to have one of the blue shirts book you, and you wouldn’t want that. So you’re better off coming with me down to Area 3.”

            Ray remained seated as Barker started to walk out. “Don’t I need a lawyer before you question me anymore?”

            “A lawyer? What for? You’re just helping me out here with extra work those guys at Area 3 keep throwing at me. But hey, I’ll make you a promise. You help me, and I’ll help you. I’ll make sure this bicycle thing disappears. What do you say?”

            When Ray hesitated, Barker started again to leave. “’Course if you want a lawyer, that’s your right, and I won’t stand in the way, not even for a moment. But I think you’re smart enough to see that if you call for one now, it just makes you look like you’re guilty of something.” Barker turned back as if alarmed. “You’re not guilty, are you? … Do you really want a lawyer?”

            Ray’s shoulders sagged, and he shook his head like it was too heavy to hold up. Then he stood and followed Barker out the door.

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Dave Jackson, Forty to Life (Bloomington, MN: Bethany House Publishers, 2007).

ISBN: 978-0-7642-0323-7

www.daveneta.com