Waiting for Us

By Jo-Ann I. Crawley

Waiting for Us is the story of a woman who trades her freedom for what she thinks is security. She finds that she has made a poor choice. When circumstances collide to threaten her children, she has to take action. In the process of breaking free, she discovers herself and a world she never imagined.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Feb 18, 2015
• ISBN: 9781496969798

Jo-Ann I. Crawley

Jo-Ann Crawley is a retired RN and a massage therapist. She is a former world champion in Tae Kwon Do. She lives with her husband and her Australian Shepherd, has seven grandchildren, and is active in her church.

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© 2015 Jo-Ann I. Crawley. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 02/17/2015

ISBN: 978-1-4969-6980-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-6979-8 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Tricia

Cassandra

Friends

Twilight

Respite

Dawn

Business

Intrigue

The Wait

James

Unraveling

Patrick K.

Letting Go

Beginning

Heartfelt Thanks to:

Joey Lloyd and to D for allowing me a peek into their brains.

Elaine and Al bell for editing.

This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance between characters or situations in this book and persons living or dead is purely co-incidental.

DEDICATION

For Sarah

PREFACE

T here is an old saying which states that people trade their souls for security all the time. If we are very careful in evaluating ourselves, we will realize that each of us has probably been guilty of this at some point.

We may not have continued the trade for long, but we did it. Perhaps we did not live off someone else’s money, but we may have kept silent when we should have shouted the truth. Or we took the easy path versus the harder one, and by doing so, put others at risk. Or maybe it was just a case of staying in a bad situation longer than prudence demanded, when what we should have done is drawn a line in the sand and enforced our knowledge of the truth with some action.

Trading the soul for anything is a bad practice; it paralyzes us and leaves us with nothing. This story is about a woman who sold her soul, partly because she was naïve, and partly because she coveted security more than anything else. It is the story of what happens when she finally begins to emerge from her self-imposed hell.

The idea for this book came into my head one morning when I was lying in bed considering getting up. I was not fully awake, and started thinking about people, mostly women, who for one reason or another, marry into very powerful families, believing in the fairy tale concept happily ever after. (I had recently seen Sondheim’s Into the Woods, and it got my brain working!) It occurred to me that in such scenarios, only rarely does that happily ever after deal come true.

All of us who are even remotely plugged into reality realize that any marriage, and life in general, is going to involve obstacles and problems. But in 95% of the cases where a woman has married her rich, powerful prince, he turns into a fat, slimy toad with astounding rapidity. Not only that, but the groom’s family and/or his position may dominate the bride, making independent thought and action impossible, and forcing her to adhere to a way of life incompatible with the respiratory process. In a significant number of cases, a famous bride has discovered that although she has the title, she is reduced to some sort of servanthood in the hierarchy of the family. Some brides discover that the groom’s family is deeply involved with personal and business practices which are extremely immoral and/or illegal, and she is helpless to do anything about it.

Now this would be a horrifying situation for anyone, particularly for a young, impressionable girl just out of school. There are numerous books written by such women; their stories drip grief and regret. It is as if the woman has been purposely dismembered, her personality dismantled by a series of manipulations and intimidations. The term dismantled was indeed used by one very famous woman, and accurately so.

As I lay in bed that morning, I began to wonder what would happen if a woman in that kind of situation was able to extricate herself from her husband’s family and managed to gain some power or some money of her own. Could she put herself back together and achieve some self- esteem? Could she find her own life and contentment? And then a step further – what if she knew someone who was in a position where he could influence the monetary and business worlds? The more I thought about it, the more fascinating the concept became.

So, the story was born. Like most people, I enjoy a happy ending, and so have chosen to end my tale with relative happiness. In this life we do not always see evil defeated. But I have read the end of the Book, and WE WIN! Praise God for that!

Jo-Ann Crawley

January 2015

Cleveland, Georgia

We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.

Joseph Campbell

TRICIA

T ricia was not one of those people who claims that she can remember events when she was two years old. The first she remembered was when she was four or five years old, playing in the back yard of their home, waiting for Momma to come home from work. It seemed she was always waiting for Momma to come home.

The first emotion she recalled was fear. Fear that Momma would not come home, that she would leave in the morning and then never appear again. Fear that there would be yet another new babysitter. Fear that they would have to move again. She knew that Daddy had left; Momma told her so. If he left, anyone else could too. In her childish mind, she surmised that it was her fault Daddy had gone away. If she had been a better girl, if she had been smarter, or prettier, or just better, perhaps Daddy would have stayed with them. She knew that Daddy liked pretty girls; she had heard Momma say that this was so. Momma was not happy when Daddy stayed out late to see pretty girls, but Daddy did not seem to care.

She knew that Daddy had left a year ago. Since then, she and Momma had moved three or four times- first from their comfortable house to an apartment, and then to other apartments, each one a little smaller than the last. Finally, momma found a small house to rent. It was tiny, but it had its own back yard. Tricia liked this one the best. She could go outside and play without momma worrying about her running into the road.

One of the memories that came to her often was a day when she waited for Momma. It was summer, and she was playing with her doll by the back step. She heard the bus stop out front so she knew that momma would come in through the door. The babysitter came outside to sit on the step and make it appear that she had been watching the child, so Tricia knew momma would come in a moment. Tricia would not tell Momma that the sitter spent most of her time inside reading and talking on the telephone; this might lead to a new sitter.

Momma came in the front, then through to the back to say hello. She put her hands out and Tricia took them and kissed Momma. Momma looked tired, as she always did. Her job in the department store left her no energy, and her feet hurt all the time. Right after she embraced Tricia, Momma reached down and pulled her heels off.

Momma’s name was Diane. She was a small woman, about five feet two, and thin. To Tricia, she was beautiful, with her lovely blond hair and fine features. Later, Tricia learned that Momma was thought attractive by most people. Despite the fact that Momma had no money, she always looked very stylish. She dressed in simple skirts and dresses with high heels. She knew just how to accessorize to look special. But it was more than her beauty. It was the way she talked to people. She was kind and treated others well. She was interested in all sorts of things and she knew just what questions to ask so that others felt honored.

In a few minutes, the sitter left, and it was just Tricia and Momma. Momma fixed a supper of soup and a sandwich, which they ate together. They talked about what Tricia had been doing. They read a book, Tricia took a bath, and then it was time to say prayers and go to bed.

Tricia loved Momma very much. Tricia had enough to eat most of the time, and a roof over her head. She had a mother who loved her and was concerned with her welfare. But the child was afraid, always afraid. What if, what if….

Of course, somewhere in her child’s brain