2019 Anthology of the Inland Empire California Writers Club

By Inland Empire California Writers Club, Libby Grandy, Brenda Hill and 20 more

Find within these pages adventure, whimsy, romance, inspiration, memoirs, travelogues, and moving poetry. This is a diverse collection that defies classification. You will travel from the Scottish Highlands to New Zealand and points in between. These three dozen offerings from twenty-five authors can’t fail to entertain. The IECWC members are published authors and novices with varied backgrounds and interests that are reflected herein. The contributing authors are: Ben Alirez, Sue Andrews, Elisabeth Anghel, J. William Butcher, Constance Cassinelli, J.K. Conibear, Robert L. Covington, June Kino Cullen, Cynthia DeMone, Miriam Fogg, Libby Grandy, Brenda Hill, Millie Hinkle, Laura Hoopes, L.D. Lauritzen, Denise Nichols, Samuel Thomas Nichols, Vicki Peyton, Jodo Rizzotto, Scott Skipper, Shirley Petro-Timura, Assunta Maria Vickers, Herb Williams, Sharon J. White.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Inland Empire California Writers Club
• Release date: Oct 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463204788

Book preview

FOREWARD

As the president of the Inland Empire California Writers Club (IECWC), I'm delighted to present our very first anthology. Our writers have worked diligently on their stories and poems. They have been writing, editing, and rewriting to showcase examples of their best work. The IECWC consists of writers of all ages and genres. Therefore, you will find a broad array of stories and poems that cover many walks and stages of life.

I'd like to thank the following people: Judy Kohnen, Scott Skipper, K. Andrew Turner, Sam Nichols, Assunta Maria Vickers, and Millie Hinkle. Without their hard work on this project the anthology before you would have never been completed.

This book is a celebration of our writer's work as well as a celebration of the twentieth anniversary of our club. Some of our writers are veterans, many of whom have won the Jack London Award and various other prizes and acknowledgements for their great writing throughout the years, and some are new to writing. Our veterans, as well as our monthly guest speakers, mentor our newcomers. We have selected the very best works of our members.

We hope you enjoy what lies within. You can read more about us on our website under www.iecwc.com

Sue Andrews, President

California Writers Club, Inland Empire

The Snow

Vicki Peyton

Like the twilight zone,

It swirled and spiraled about as if driven by a dust devil

There was no direction,

No north, south, east, or west

It encased the car as the headlights reflected back

into a useless aperture of light

Mesmerizing flakes like downy feathers.

Riding Among the Ancients

Jodi Rizzotto

Creative nonfiction

Wrinkled trunks, witnesses of centuries, watch us ride through their sacred domain. Perched on rocky battlements, sentinels whisper, Safe passage, to the line of Harleys slithering up the narrow mountain road. Our riding companions, members of HOG (Harley Owners Group), pull into the museum parking lot in Sequoia National Park and stop under the shelter of giants.

My legs and back are tight after the slow procession through hairpins and switchbacks all the way up General Sherman Highway. My husband, Frank, shakes out his clutch hand and gives me a hug. Instead of sitting out by the pool at home, we have joined our friends on a three-day motorcycle journey. We knew it would be beautiful, but we weren’t prepared for majesty.

After stashing helmets, our group gravitates toward the immense tree trunks surrounding us. Taking pictures next to a sequoia places us in appropriate scale to the universe when we fail to capture the top branches. Even a group picture appears tiny next to the massive, ridged columns. These sequoias have stood silently for thousands of years watching bears, rabbits, Native Americans, European explorers, early settlers, and awestruck tourists.

In the forest, shadows mask the passage of time. I notice that our conversations have hushed to whispers. We have ventured into a cathedral with vaulted ceilings of whispering green, a monument to a mighty Creator. As we pass between reddish-brown pillars, I tilt back my head to glimpse tiny sparkles of sunlight filtering through the branches and discover that peace is a heady pine fragrance.

Our path arrives at a split log building with a carved sign that says Museum. Inside, I learn about sequoias from a slice of trunk that is larger than my dining room table. Their rings reveal thousands of years of growth. I wonder what California looked like before man’s intrusion. Dark rings record forest fires. After a fire, sequoias heal themselves, taking years to cover over burned bark. Their perseverance teaches us a valuable lesson. Disasters may pass, but the forest is slowly renewed.

In the gift shop, I buy a patch for my HOG vest. Since Frank and I have only been members a short time, we still have room for more. Instead of stickers on the back of an RV, riders cover their vests with reminders of all their adventures. Some of our riding friends have vests that no longer show any of the original black leather.

Munching our sandwiches back in the parking lot, we watch the steady flow of pilgrims. What draws them to the mountaintop? A deep breath of crisp pine-scented air, the crunch of dry needles beneath their feet? A glimpse of creatures older than man’s recorded history?

Perhaps we long for permanence in the midst of whirlwind change and relentless entropy. These trees care nothing about politics or fashion. We are the blindfolded children swinging at the piñata, while the forest, our great-grandfather, smiles fondly at our fruitless blows.

Too soon, it is time to don our helmets and gloves, mount our faithful bikes, and roar through tree-formed tunnels before returning to the cultivated farms and our hotel far below. With regret, we leave our retreat of wood and rock. The HOGs wind our way back down the mountain, our silent vows to return accepted by the swooshing branches of ancient giants.

Dissociative Scarring

Samuel Thomas Nichols

Imet Irene on my thirty-second birthday. She and her crew had been hired by my firm to cater an awards banquet that had some of my fellow employees joking that it was really a party for me. I accepted their humor and even joined in on their apparent cause célèbre by telling Irene she was really catering my own birthday bash. She was a total sport and even managed to scare up a candle for a cupcake that she presented while she and my co-workers sang Happy Birthday. I thought our senior management would have been upset, but they joined in on the fun as well much to everyone’s delight.

Now, the fact is, I had been bitterly single for some time and had a long history of avoiding women, except for an occasional tryst with a willing partner. Even though I was considered by some to be a misogamist there was just something about Irene with those amber eyes and auburn hair. I felt as if I’d somehow known her in another life. I checked to see if she wore a wedding ring and was elated to see she didn’t. When the banquet ended, and the others were leaving for home, I asked one of her employees if she was married or seeing anyone.

The young woman smiled and said Irene had been divorced for more than a year and was not otherwise taken. To my delight, she also suggested that I had caught her eye as well. So, armed with that information, I went to her. She stopped what she was doing, straightened, smiled sweetly, and waited patiently as I struggled to ask if she would have dinner with me.

She answered, I’d love to, and we agreed that I’d pick her up at her Denver apartment on the very next Sunday evening at six.

That first date went exceedingly well as did those that followed, and just after my thirty-third birthday Irene and I married. We had two sons in rapid succession and continued mostly happy throughout the years that followed, although something often seemed lacking in me. The saddest parts of our marriage were when our sons went off to college, and then again, when they took out-of-state jobs down in New Mexico, one in Albuquerque and the younger way down in Las Cruces.

For the occasion of our oldest son’s twenty-fifth birthday, Irene and I drove down from our Littleton home to Albuquerque, and our youngest drove up from Las Cruces. Rather than intruding upon our son and his girlfriend in their cramped one-bedroom apartment, we booked a room at the Midtown La Quinta Inn, as did our youngest son and his fiancée. We all met for dinner that first night, a Saturday, at Chili’s east of the inn where we planned a Sunday afternoon get together for the birthday boy.

The following morning Irene was oddly inspired to attend a church service and asked at the front desk for recommendations for an inclusive congregation. After listening to the receptionist, Irene settled on a church several miles away. On the drive there I had a dark impression of déjà vu, which only intensified when we arrived at the church Irene had selected.

I feel I’ve been here before, I said, as we approached the main entrance.

When would you have ever been here? Irene asked.

Never, that I remember. Still…

We sat in the pews for the service and as first-time attendees, we were asked to stand and introduce ourselves. I looked about as I gave my name, and it appeared that an apparent family group across the center aisle seemed shocked by my presence. During the service, I had the constant feeling that I was a specimen being studied, and I even imagined the whispers I heard coming from that group to our left were about me. I wanted to rise and leave that church but was concerned what Irene would think and sat through my discomfort. When the service finally ended, I took Irene’s hand and headed directly for the exit. We had made it outside when I heard a strangely familiar voice.

Johnny Carlton, the voice called after me.

Nobody had called me Johnny in forty years.

I turned and waited with Irene by my side as the woman approached. As she neared she reached into her purse and I flinched, but she only pulled out a small photo album. She stopped in front of me and showed me a picture of a young man holding a newborn with a pretty young woman who had her arm about him and her head upon his shoulder smiling happily.

Is that you? Irene asked.

I don’t see how it could be, I answered, staring at the photograph.

I took that picture, the woman said, right here in front of this church just four days after your daughter was born.

That’s not possible, I asserted.

She continued angrily, Cynthia was born on Wednesday. You didn’t arrive here until early Saturday morning. I took this snapshot before the church service. Cecilia had been so happy because you told us you were staying.

She then turned to Irene and continued: Do you know Johnny rode his motorcycle down from Durango almost every Friday night after work to be with her?

I never knew he had a motorcycle.

Cecilia loved him so much, and they had so little time together because he would turn around and get back on that motorcycle Sunday night so he could be at work Monday morning.

I think you’re a crazy woman, I said angrily.

She slapped me hard and said, How could you abandon Cecilia and your daughters? Cynthia was not even two months old.

I shook my head as Irene asked, Daughters?

Christina is ten-months younger than Cynthia.

I looked past the angry woman and saw three generations of women studying me. Without taking my eyes from them I asked, Melanie, is that them?

You remember now, do you?

Some.

Why did you leave?

She told me to get out and that she didn’t love me. I never knew what I did wrong.

My baby sister was suffering from postpartum depression. She didn’t really want you to leave.

I was eighteen-years-old.

Is that some kind of lame excuse?

I remember she told me she didn’t want me around, I asserted, all the while studying the older woman I took to be Cecilia. I remember crying on the back of my motorcycle through the mountains on my way back to Durango. I remember once pushing my bike over one hundred in the middle of the night on that broken two-lane highway. I remember promising myself that I would either die on that road or forget them forever so I would never be hurt again.

Irately I turned to Melanie, but she wasn’t there.

In my confusion, I turned to Irene and then did a three-sixty looking for her to no avail.

Instead, there now in front of me was Cecilia, smiling brightly and holding Cynthia, our newborn daughter—Cecilia with the amber eyes and auburn hair. I stepped to her and took our daughter into my arms. Cecilia placed her arm about my waist, kissed me on the cheek, and then laid her head upon my shoulder.

Smile, Melanie called.

We looked up with smiles that needed no prompting as Melanie snapped several pictures with her Instamatic.

Cecilia, I said, this time I’ll get it right.

A Mother’s Love

Ben Alirez

Based on a true story

Should it be my kidney she’s getting today? Esperanza Mendoza wondered wishing she could force away her own inevitable second-guessing but realizing it was impossible. The middle-aged mother of three was lying in a hospital room awaiting the all-important, potentially life-saving surgeries of the day. She had arrived at the hospital hours before thanks to her devoted and supportive husband, Lalo.

Suddenly, one of the attending nurses entered the room. She had a warm and friendly smile as she performed a last-minute check of the IV.

How are you doing, Mrs. Mendoza? Are you feeling good?

Yes, thank you, the mother replied with a smile of her own. And please, call me Espy.

Happy to hear that, Espy. It shouldn’t be long now, okay?

I’m ready.

Great. I’ll be back in just a few minutes then.

Espy nodded from her prone position. Alone again with her thoughts, she heard her cell phone ping and saw that her son, Abel, had texted:

You are so strong, Mom! You truly are Wonder Woman! There is nothing you would not do for our family. I love you for always taking care of us! Everything is going to work out great! I’ll see you later! I love you!

Tears welled in her eyes blurring the words till they were barely discernable. She realized how truly blessed she was for the hundredth time. Her family was absolutely everything to her—Lalo, Abel, her twenty-one-year-old daughter, Anna, and of course, her oldest daughter, Audrey.

It was February 23, 2017, when Audrey went in for a routine doctor’s visit. Not that anything was routine where Lupus was concerned. More specifically—Lupus Nephritis, an autoimmune disease she suffered from for several years, and a condition that primarily affected her kidneys.

Bright, engaging, and blessed with a spirit to help others, Audrey was working hard to achieve her Master of Social Work degree. For the time being, she was living with her loving parents. During the week she served as an intern at a patient-centered medical home providing behavioral health therapy. And weekends often saw her in Santa Barbara spending time with friends. There was dancing too. She had to have dancing.

On that fateful day, nothing could have prepared her for the unfortunate news that her kidney function was down to twenty percent. She was also extremely anemic.

What happened? The decline of her kidneys was