Finding Lavender

By Amy Montana

Lavender Rose is a twelve- year-old girl who exists in a world of her own. Her father is dead, and she is raised by a mother who is both emotionally and physically unavailable to her due to her fixation on her career, and her lack of emotional skills.
This book is artfully descriptive of Lavender's journey through abuse, mental breakdown, and ultimate absolution. It is full of fascinating and suspenseful twists and turns which are entirely unexpected, and powerfully delivered. A renowned psychiatrist is brought out of retirement to work with Lavender, and at the same time, exorcise her own personal ghosts. She leads Lavender out of her tightly insulated existence, and into the world to begin life anew.
The complete development of the characters and the story line are deeply thoughtful and compelling. This is an ending you will never guess.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 9, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465389442

Amy Montana

Amy Montana was born in Burlington, Vermont, and along with two older brothers, spent an idyllic early childhood in the country. She moved to Newton, Massachusetts, where she excelled in high school and continued her lifelong interest in writing. After attending Vassar College, where she majored in Psychology, English, and Secondary Education, she returned to her roots and now happily resides on four acres in rural Timberlake, North Carolina. Amy has three grown children and five wonderful grandchildren. She is widely accomplished in many domestic skills and crafts, and her interests include embroidery, sewing, cooking and baking, wine making and cheese making, and other down-to-earth pursuits. She lives contentedly with her three dogs and numerous chickens and adores simple country life. She is a prolific author and has previously published two novels and a memoir. This is her first foray into Children’s literature and will not be her last.

Book preview

Finding Lavender

Amy Montana

Copyright © 2011 by Amy Montana.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2011919431

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4653-8943-5

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4653-8942-8

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4653-8944-2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

105023

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

To

my daughter, Jade, with whom I have

shared a special bond

and

to all the survivors in this world.

He wants a fight well now he’s got one

He ain’t seen me crazy yet.

I’m gonna show him what a little girl’s made of

Gunpowder and lead.

—Miranda Lambert

And when you get a chance to sit it out

Or dance

I hope you dance.

—Lee Ann Womack

Chapter 1

Y Z

LAVENDER ROSE WASN’T the only girl with a name that was a challenge to spell in nursery school, but with her mother being an artist and quilting her art, it helped people at least to understand her mother’s choice of name better. Besides, Lavender had been tested at the genius level before school started, so Missy didn’t feel so bad about stamping her with an unusual moniker.

Missy Rose did not have a store in which to work on her creations and display her unique designs, or even to store her large inventory of fabrics and take orders. Things were tough financially all over, so Missy worked out of her own home. She had transformed a quiet corner room in her home where she showed off her fabrics and exhibited what she thought of as her comfort works of art using either one of the two large worktables where she sewed her creations completely by hand. In Missy’s mind, the simplicity of beginning with only a single needle, a spool of thread, and a piece of fabric felt organic and appealing.

Missy’s taste in color and texture ran to old-fashioned prints and florals, ranging from chenille to crisp cottons and wispy voiles and flowers, buds, and plumes extending from soft pastels to bolts of fabric laced with brilliant accents. There were large and small blooms and trailing vines and leaves in every color palette spilling through the cut yardage in an appealing loose assortment, piled up high on the shelves that covered every wall in what she thought of as the magic room.

The room itself was painted in a calming aqua, like the Caribbean Sea, with flowing white and crinkled aqua cotton curtains. This was where Missy could be found whenever Lavender needed her. Lavender loved to sit on the sand-and-coral rug surrounded by the enticing scraps from her mother’s current project—smiling, senses filled with flowers and colors. Looking back, that was the only time, when Lavender was between one and two, that Missy saw her daughter smile.

Missy and Lavender could and would spend hours together in that magical room without ever feeling the need to speak. Words were not the language they used to communicate with each other. Smells from cut flowers from the garden and soothing colors took precedence over long talks. Lavender never was one for talking really at all. When she was very young, they would rock in the vast wicker rocker covered with faded chintz and smell the fragrance of the air, which held lilacs and roses that wafted in from the open window behind their chair. That was enough for them.

They happened to have been sitting in that chair. Now at three, Lavender was beginning to be an infrequent visitor to the magic room, when the phone rang. Luckily, it was on the small piecrust table next to the rocker where she could reach it. Missy’s interest was sparked; maybe it was an order or a request for a showing, and Missy’s business was pretty much her main concern in life. It turned out to be the mother of Madison, a girl in Lavender’s kindergarten class attempting to set up a playdate. At three, the girls in Lavender’s nursery school group were just beginning to form groups and venture out to form friendships and attempt to be involved in social activities. Missy immediately adopted the sorrowful and regretful tone she was learning to master when it came to dealing with Lavender’s social life. I’m so sorry, Joan, but Lavender’s grandmother is coming over and was really looking forward to spending some time with Lavender. No, of course, she would love to see Madison another time. Thanks so much for the invitation, and we will do it soon, great. Good-bye.

It was all a lie. Lavender’s grandmother hadn’t been received as a visitor in eight months, and Missy certainly knew that asking Lavender whether or not she wanted to play with Madison was hypothetical, unnecessary, and redundant—seeing how Lavender never made or accepted playdates. Although Missy compiled a list of suitable excuses why Lavender was unavailable, she was irritated and weary from trying to balance her business, her uninspired efforts to keep their house in passable cleanliness and order without having to waste the considerable effort it took to deal with Lavender and her need to escape any sort of social experience whatsoever. So Missy just let things fall where they may and focused her energies on what she could accomplish without the need to dip into areas, which used up much more effort to understand, let alone affect.

After Missy hung up the phone,