My Dead Mama's Wind Chimes

By Dr. Patti Novotny Taylor

Zoey Houston, and her twin brother Zach, have the best of everything.  When the teenagers' mother dies, unexpectedly, the twins and their father, Sam, sink into grief.  The family leave their rich, and exclusive, neighborhood in Texas, their friends and their extended family.   Can they acclimate to a small, and very modest, rural mountain community in Arizona? 

With complex losses compounding, Zoey and Zach, spend the next year struggling to make sense of their lives and to move forward.  On top of everything else, Zoey is asked to ignore her father's apparent disloyalty to Zoey's mother and accept his new love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dr. Patti Novotny Taylor
• Release date: Feb 13, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386718116

Book preview

Other Publications by

Dr. Patti Novotny Taylor

Professional Nonfiction

Making Miracles: 1st I Cured My IN-Curable Blindness So Why the HELL Am I Still Fat?

The Effects of Diagnosing/Labeling Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in Students

Reaching the Jury: A Case for Multimodal Presentation

Numerous articles on sleep

Numerous articles on the science of learning

Fiction

Slip Away:  11 Escape Stories

My Dead Mama’s Wind Chimes: The Hollow Book One

Chocolate Kisses

(Chocolate Kisses is a Romance Co-Authored with Neal C. Taylor, J.D and published under the name Patti Anne Neal)

The Beautiful Glow-in-the-Dark Pink Frisbee: How Pebbles Taught Ashley Persistence

MY DEAD MAMA’S

WIND CHIMES

The Hollow: Book One

Dr. Patti Novotny Taylor

www.DocTaylorBooks. com

www. PattiAnneNeal.com

www.DrPattiTaylor.com

Educational Consultancy

MY DEAD MAMA’S WIND CHIMES

Copyright © 2019 by

Dr. Patti Novotny Taylor 

AKA: Doc Taylor

ISBN:9781386718116

All rights reserved. Under International Copyright Law, no part of this publication may be reproduced in any form – digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other form without the prior written permission of the author or publisher.

This is a work of fiction.  Names, Characters, places, and incidences are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover and art direction by

Candice Diaz

A Patti Anne Neal LLC Production

DEDICATION

As she did for all my books, our dear child, Jessica, served as Beta reader and proofreader for this manuscript.  Our darling Jessica died while this manuscript was in final editing.  As you said, Jessica, We are mother and daughter forever.

To all those whom I love.  You know who you are.  Thank you for letting me love you.

CHAPTER 1

Ice Storm Thursday

The storm caught us off-guard because it came too early in the season. Although the local weather station forecasted the storm for late Friday night, it struck mid-morning on Thursday. The storm gave me a feeling of holiday festivities mixed with a light sense of dread.

My Uncle, Dave McNairy, checked my cousin Brescia, my twin brother, Zack, and me out of Highland High School. Brescia, Zack, and I were freshmen.

We threw our backpacks into the cargo hold. Zack hunched into his lightweight jacket and crawled into the front seat. Brescia and I piled in the back of the SUV, shivering in inadequate hoodies. We were so cold that our freckles jumped out of our white faces. Ice melted off our red hair and ran in rivulets down our foreheads and cheeks.

Zoey, do you have some Chap Stick? my brother asked me.

I tossed him the tube, and tried to control my chattering teeth.

We swung by Highland Junior High to get my cousin, Destiny, who was in the eighth grade. Destiny climbed into the back seat next to me and stuck her freezing hands on top of my hands. She was wearing a thin, pink sweater and her hands were even colder than my hands.

Where are we going, Uncle Dave? asked Zack.

How about earning some money at the restaurant? At least until the weather shuts us down, said Uncle Dave. First, we’ll run by your house and pick up Sam and Janie.

The wind drove sleet-like snowflakes and howled. Wind-gusts rocked the vehicle. That was when I first felt ants of uneasiness crawling up my spine. I looked over at Zack. He was scowling and chewing on his thumbnail. He brushed aside wet, auburn hair to dry his drippy face on his jacket sleeve. He looked like he had a bad feeling, too.

When we got to our house, our parents were waiting. Mama and Dad had matching blue ski caps. Dad’s auburn hair disappeared and Mama’s long dark hair hung out the bottom. Zack and I ran inside long enough to grab heavy coats, gloves, and warm caps.

Dad had just gotten home from a business trip. I was glad he got home before the storm hit.

Then, we stopped to get Brescia’s guitar from the McNairys’ house. She had a new, blue, Parker Nite Fly Electric guitar that she got for Christmas. Brescia and Destiny also picked up heavy coats. It was lucky we lived around the corner from the McNairys. The roads were getting slick. When we got out of the vehicle, ice needles pelted our faces.

We put everything in the SUV and, with a flick of his wrist, Uncle Dave turned the heater to high. His hair had dried and blond tufts stuck up.

Dad was in the front seat and Mama sat in the back with the four of us teens. Of course, Mama wanted to know how our day was and we knew she would not stop until we told her. So, we each filled her in on school. It wasn’t like there was really anything that ever happened. We told her nearly the exact same thing every day.

Up in the front, Dad and Uncle Dave laughed at something. Dad tuned the radio to the local weather station.

. . . are advised to stay off the streets. Stay tuned for weather updates as this storm progresses. This is Stormy Simon signing off with KT . . . Dad clicked the radio off.

JUST WALKING INTO THE warm smells of Mama Rosa’s Family-Style Mexican Restaurant made me hungry. The heat of the restaurant was overwhelming after the frigid outside air.

I stood in the kitchen eating a guacamole-loaded tortilla chip and inhaling the spicy smells. I always got a big sniff because after being in the restaurant for a while I couldn’t smell them anymore.

We four kids set up the stage for music and checked the sound system. Then, we checked the dining rooms to make sure they were clean, completely set up, and ready for hungry lunchtime customers.

The restaurant was an open floor plan with Spanish-like designs on stucco pillars separating dining areas. While Zack and the cousins checked the back and side rooms, I stood at the edge of the stage. From that point, I could see the dull-gleam of red Saltillo-tile floors flowing through the open space. I could see the dark, heavy, wooden furniture, the red velvet seats on the high-backed chairs and the table settings.

Usually, I zeroed in on what I needed do. That day, I squinted my eyes and imagined el Patron and his pampered, jeweled la Doña of a long-gone day. The couple waited at opposite ends of a massive lengthy table. Candelabras flickered softly and fresh flowers scented the room.

La Doña folded back her black, diamond-encrusted mantilla. With the tinkle of a silver bell, silent servants glided to refill glasses and place one course after another in front of the couple.

Realizing I was caught up in what Dad called my flights of fancy, I brought my attention back to the job. Every table was perfectly set. I jumped from the stage to walk around the tables. I looked for water spots on the glasses and silverware. I inspected seats to see if they needed to be cleaned or reupholstered. The red velvet seats on chairs, and the benches in the waiting area, frequently needed cleaning and occasionally reupholstering.

Later, I would think of that ice-storm evening as one of the happiest nights of my life. I would think about Uncle Dave waltzing Aunt Lisa around the restaurant’s tiny dance floor while nuzzling her neck. I would remember her giggling. I would dream of Dad with his arms around Mama while he sang When a Man Loves a Woman. Our parents were very mushy, even in public. The mushiness made it one of my treasured memories. Little did I know that the evening heralded the worst time of my life.

CHAPTER 2

A Perfect Riff

From the time Aunt Lisa opened the door, the restaurant was packed. The coat rack, that nobody ever used, was quickly covered and customers hung wet coats on the backs of their chairs. People laughed as they rubbed frozen hands and tracked wet all over the floors.

Mid-afternoon, Aunt Lisa said, Several waitpersons and the Mariachi band are stranded on the far side of an accident that closed a major intersection. She wiped her hands on a paper towel and continued talking, We considered closing early . . . She looked around at the crowded room. We didn’t expect so much business. With this steady stream of customers . . . Aunt Lisa shrugged and hurried back to cash out patrons.

It seemed funny to me that school closed because of the storm. Yet, customers didn’t seem to have trouble getting to Mama Rosa’s. Everyone seemed to be in high spirits. That day reminded me of the groups that celebrated New Year’s Eve at Mama Rosa’s, every year. Those groups were loud, too.

I felt a bubble of something lodge itself just under my breastbone. That bubble lurked to steal my breath when I wasn’t looking. I have been accused of being whimsical. I say that I am poetic. No matter what you call it—that day—the whole world seemed poised on the brink of . . . something bad. I could not seem to escape the power of my own feelings that day. Or, even to understand what the feelings were.

Just like weekends, the four of us kids provided music. We had a Baldwin acoustic piano and a Kawai digital piano on the stage. All of us played the pianos. Brescia had her new electric guitar. I’d brought my Ibanez acoustic guitar. Dad and Zack had saxophones and Destiny always brought her flute.

I loved watching Destiny play her flute. She threw her long red hair back, but it slipped forward to shield part of her face. She closed her brown eyes and the flute became part of her. I think the world melted away for Destiny when she played that flute.

The whole day of the ice storm, I could feel Zack’s worry under his take-care-of-the-customers smile. Although we did not know it then, the day of the freak ice storm would be the last time our entire family worked the restaurant together.

Most nights, Zack and I strolled among the tables with our guitars for a few numbers. We didn’t that night because Zack didn’t bring his guitar. He played his sax and the pianos. Sometimes we sang. My voice lessons were paying off and I enjoyed singing to Zack and the cousins’ accompaniment.

When needed, we kids helped on the floor with wait service. Each table got water, fresh-out-of-the-deep-fryer, tri-colored tortilla chips, and a variety of bean and salsa dips.

That day, we checked our playlists. We had a good mix of music that covered several decades. Dad had taught us to gauge the customers, so we could play the right kind of music from what he called an impressive eclectic repertoire.

Mama and Aunt Lisa said they needed dictionaries to know what we four kids were saying because we were born with old vocabularies. They said that if we hadn’t been so much like Dad, they would have thought the stork brought the wrong kids. I don’t know why I thought of that on the day of the storm.

We switched our cell phones to vibrate. Then, we started the first number on the playlist.

Mama helped Aunt Lisa with the front. They greeted and seated customers, answered the phone, cashed out patrons, and picked up the slack. It wasn’t unusual to see them dance their way through the tables.

With an MBA, Mama worked part time at a credit union. The credit union kept trying to get her to work full time. I think she refused because Dad was gone so much and she liked teaching aerobics at the YMCA a couple of times each week. She said teaching aerobics kept her in shape. She was the first fallback when the McNairys needed help in the restaurant. Mama said she loved working with our whole family—feeding other families.

Dad served as Mama Rosa’s second fallback. His job as an international banker kept him traveling more often than not. Dad loved his job. He said international banking was the job he was born to do. He called himself a financial firefighter. He liked negotiating with bankers in multiple languages. He thought the compensation was stupendously generous for someone having so much fun.

Because we were short of wait staff, the night of the ice storm, Dad waited tables with his best friend, and brother-in-law, Uncle Dave. They were so busy with customers that Dad did not get stage time. I caught snatches of their conversation from time-to-time. It gave me a warm, safe feeling to hear their laughter.

Aunt Lisa was Dad’s younger sister. The four grownups were best friends. We did everything together as one big family. Even vacations. It was like having four kids with two mamas and two dads.

That afternoon, the ice storm shrieked outside. The wind wailed and sleet hit the restaurant windows like corn popping in a kettle. Zack and I played songs for families with kids and teens. Zack directed what, and when, we would play. As the older twin—by three whole minutes—he thought he was the boss of me. I generally let him think that.

Let’s give this crowd some energetic stuff, Zoey, my brother said. He paged through a well-thumbed list of oldies.

Zack took a seat at the acoustic piano and struck the cords for Footloose. I joined in with my guitar. Zack quickly abandoned the piano for Brescia’s electric guitar. Nothing beats the guitar for Kenny Loggins’ Footloose. Zack and I played the guitars for everything we were worth. It was the best dueling-guitar duet we’d ever done. My whole body quivered with the music. When I opened my eyes, I could see that the auburn hair around Zack’s face was almost black with sweat. I used my shoulder to wipe long red hair out of my mouth.

The teens from the high school gymnastic team were on the dance floor. They were jumping, twisting, and sliding just like in the movie. I closed my eyes and played the perfect riff.

Just as I opened my eyes, one of the boys jumped, pushed off the edge of the stage, twirled, and landed in the splits. His thick blond hair flew and then settled. He looked right at me, with a teeth-gleaming smile, and winked! I may have gotten my first crush right then.

Most of the customers quit talking to watch the dancers and us. There were several wild calls from the audience. By the time we finished the number, the crowd was on its feet. I could hear Mama’s ear-piercing whistle over the clamor of applause. We bowed. I put my guitar down, pulled the elastic off my wrist, and tied up my long sweaty hair. I would never forget the rush I felt. I smiled at several customers who came to the edge of the stage to stuff money in our tip jar.

CHAPTER 3

Barometric Pressure

After Footloose, Zack and I drank big glasses of water. Then, we went through fast tunes that ranged from Beer Barrel Polka to Boot Scootin’ Boogie, then on to The Hustle. We finished the set with Oh, Pretty Woman and I added vocals. I still have that playlist, somewhere.

When Destiny and Brescia began to move tables, Zack and I stopped playing and hopped off the stage to help.

At our cousins’ raised eyebrows, Zack said, We thought a few minutes without music wouldn’t matter.

Yeah, I said. It’s so noisy in here; I don’t know how anyone can hear us anyway. Aunt Janie says we’ve got a party of fifteen waiting, Destiny said.

Brescia nodded and heaved a huge sigh. Big parties are always hard to handle, she said. Too noisy to hear what they order . . . always wanting things they forgot to order the first time . . . and then the mess they leave!

Yeah. But they usually tip big, Destiny said, with smiling eyes and raised eyebrows.

There is that, said Brescia, letting her shoulders drop and grinning.

We bused a big table and moved it next to another big table. Brescia got the tablecloths and stuff. Because it was still afternoon, and not evening, we used paper napkins instead of linen. For the same reason, we put small, purple and yellow pansy, silk-flower arrangements in white vases on each table. The flowers would be traded-out for candles and fancier flowers, this evening.

It didn’t take long for the four of us to set the tables up. We’d just finished when Mama brought the big group and seated them. There were several small kids and we scrambled to place highchairs and boosters where directed. Brescia scurried to pile clean paper napkins around the table. Little kids meant that clean up would not be fun.

Whew, said thirteen-year-old Destiny, as she brushed past Brescia. Where did all these people come from?

I guess they didn’t hear the radio telling everyone to stay off the streets, replied almost fifteen-year-old Brescia.

You girls take a turn on the stage. Zoey and I had a good break while you two slaved down here on the floor, Zack said.

The big party pushed their plates away. A toddler pushed his palms into the refried beans and rice on the highchair tray and finger-painted his face. He pushed his hands through the mess again and smeared it in his fuzzy blond hair. The adults were busy talking and didn’t seem to notice.

Zack and I looked at each other and went to check supplies in the bathrooms. It was going to take tons of wet-wipes, soap, and paper towels to clean those kids up.

Zack and I were scrubbing up bean-and-rice-cement left behind by the big party. Rice and refried beans decorated several surfaces. I tackled the chairs while Zack mopped the floor. With the wet being tracked in from outside, the mops worked overtime, that day.

After the cousins had been on stage a while, I saw Brescia and Destiny look around at the customers. The teenagers were mostly gone, as were the families with young kids. The current crowd was an older and quieter group.

Okay, Folks, said Brescia into the mike. That howling wind out there is making my little sister feel cold. So, we’re going to break away from our evening’s playlist for a little something to warm us all up.

Brescia looked around and then said, Our cousins may want in on this one.

Brescia took a seat at the acoustic piano and Destiny poised with her flute. They repeated the opening to Summertime until Zack and I had mikes, and gave the go-ahead nod. I closed my eyes and crooned to the rough-timbered rafters, Summertime . . .

Zack sang the next part . . . when the livin’ is easy. My head snapped around when he dropped to the basement for the last note. He dipped at the knees with his eyes closed and the mike cradled in his palms. I wondered when his voice had gotten so deep and sultry.

Some of the customers looked like they were humming or singing as they swayed in their seats. Brescia was right. That song warmed the heart and the body.

Zack and I went back to work. Zack cleaned up crushed tortilla chips and I cleaned beans off the cream-colored stucco wall. The simple flowers and strokes of color, painted on the cream walls, camouflaged some of the food smeared by the baby who’d sat next to it earlier.

The girls played I Saw Her Standing There. They gradually worked their way to soft and romantic tunes. Mama turned the lights down until the candles glowed on the tables. When the girls played Moon River, a grey-headed man sang sweetly. Soon, others joined in. Killing Me Softly had most of the customers singing or humming. Endless Love soothed an almost silent crowd. Couples gazed into eyes and swayed on the dance floor.

I wondered what it felt like to love somebody so much that you wanted to sway on a dance floor and gaze into each other’s eyes. I asked Mama one time and she got all mushy and dreamy looking. I could not figure out exactly what she was saying. Brescia was a few months older than I was, so I figured that when Brescia was old enough to date, I’d ask her.

The restaurant was slowly emptying out. Waves of icy air swept the room when bundled-up customers opened the outside door. The energy in the room lessened.

When all the customers had their orders, Dad picked up his saxophone. He played the opening bars to When a Man Loves a Woman. Brescia and Destiny, on pianos, picked up the melody. No one seemed to notice when Destiny missed a few notes. But, she turned down the volume on the digital piano. Zack and I sang as we refilled coffee cups. Brescia and Destiny added their voices. Mama and Aunt Lisa came into