Inspired: A Renewal Story

By Kathryn Kahn

2021 in Oakland, California.

On a quiet block halfway up the hill, neighbors still live in an altered reality as the pandemic persists through its second year.

In the third book in the Sheltered pandemic trilogy, Carlos, the gifted first grandson in the extended Gomez family, considers a path that may disappoint them. Rachel, the only child of a single mother, discovers something surprising about her roots, even as she is finding a new sense of purpose in her life. All around them, neighbors and family are faced with dilemmas small and large, personal and global, that cause them to re-think their futures. As they find their footing in a pandemic-changed world, the one thing they can all count on is the support of their community.

Will Miguel finish high school and fulfill his college dreams? Will Hila get her family out of Afghanistan before the US withdrawal? When will the Nguyen family get re-settled in their newly rebuilt home after the fire that destroyed their old one? Will Mateo, a Dreamer, be able to become a citizen, or will he be deported to a country he's never known? Every house on the block has a story, and they intertwine as neighbors lift each other up.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Oct 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9781667869803

Book preview

PREFACE

As 2021 began, people in Oakland were sheltering as well as they could, with Covid cases increasing and vaccines still unavailable to most. The surge of Covid cases after Thanksgiving had become a surge in hospitalizations for Christmas, and a surge of deaths in the New Year.

But there was hope — a vaccine was already being given to health care workers and fragile seniors. There was a feeling of just a little longer, just hold out a few more weeks, and we can all be vaccinated and eventually end the pandemic.

But the outgoing president took to insulting the CDC on Twitter, disputing their recommendations and throwing doubt on their credibility. Strangely, at the same time, he expressed his resentment that he wasn’t getting more credit for the quick vaccine development. Meanwhile, his administration struggled with vaccine distribution while he denied responsibility and blamed the states.

Even more serious, he also denied the results of the recent election, and refused to concede, instead amplifying increasingly irrational and clearly wrong theories about how the presidency had been stolen from him…by some sort of evil progressive conspiracy, or by imaginary technological tricks, or whatever came into his mind. He named names and put innocent people in terrible danger by accusing them of non-existent crimes. All his accusations were quickly disproved, but the climate of disinformation he created took on a life of its own.

Lawsuit after lawsuit — over fifty in all — were filed at the defeated President’s urging to try to overturn the results of the election, or prevent certifying votes, or generally create confusion and conflict. Sometimes they were so obviously spurious and dumb they were dismissed immediately. Other times, extensive (and expensive) investigations were conducted, but they all came back with the same results. Joe Biden had won. The former president had lost.

Still, the objections of the losing candidate and his supporters were so shrill, vicious, and unrelenting, the whole country, and even the whole world, felt off-balance and uneasy. Just a few more weeks, people said, and we’ll have a smart and reasonable president again, and this guy will be gone.

CHAPTER ONE  —  JANUARY 2021

On the first day of 2021, Carol Johnson died.

She had lived for many years on the Johnson family farm, outside Fresno. Her brother, Phil, owned the place, and Carol and her son Mitch both lived there. Mitch shared a house on the property with his wife, Abby, and sometimes his grown son Jason.

As soon as they took Carol’s body away, Abby called her daughter, Rachel, to let her know. Rachel was now an adult and living in Oakland with her partner Carlos, and she didn’t feel much of any emotion when she heard Carol had died of a heart attack. Though she’d spent a lot of her childhood on the farm after her mother had married Mitch, she felt no affection for the place or the stern and disapproving Johnsons.

She wondered if she should feel bad about her lack of grief, but her only concern was whether it would affect her mother, whether Mitch might be even more unpleasant than he had been lately. Mitch had never been kind to his wife Abby, and lately the verbal abuse had gotten worse. Abby seemed to just accept it, but Rachel was more and more worried about her mother’s well-being.

Mitch’s son, Jason, had left the house three days before the new year, and hadn’t been back, which enraged his father. When Mitch had called to let him know about his grandmother Carol’s passing, Jason had said he was sorry to hear it. But he refused to say where he was or when he would be back, and Mitch surmised he was with his new MAGA friends, who frequently got together to share conspiracy theories and compare guns. When Mitch reminded him that he had a court date in a few weeks, and that Mitch’s uncle Phil had posted bail for him, Jason growled an obscenity and hung up, and didn’t answer when Mitch called again right away.

Abby had called Rachel with the news about Carol on the 1st, but couldn’t spend time on the phone that day. Then for a couple days she either didn’t answer when Rachel called, or said she didn’t have time to talk. So it was January 3rd when they finally had a chance to have a real conversation, when Abby called, sounding relaxed.

You sound good, Mom. How’s everything going?

Mitch is gone.

What do you mean, gone?

He had a big fight with Phil last night. They were up at the big house so I only heard the end of it, but he came back  and packed a lot of stuff into his car and went peeling out of here. He was screaming the whole time and called me a lot of names.

Did he hurt you?

No, no. He says a lot of ugly things to me, but he hasn’t hit me in… going on twenty years. He’s been so angry lately, even before Jason left for who knows where.  And then his mother died and he didn’t think Phil and Vera were giving her proper respect with the arrangements. Abby seemed calm. To tell the truth, I think he’s afraid that now that Carol is gone, we’ll just get kicked off the place and have to go our own way. I wouldn’t say it to him, but this seems like the wrong way to get in Phil’s good graces.

Rachel didn’t know what to say. Does that — worry you, Mom?

She could almost hear Abby shrug over the phone. I don’t know. I’ve already been thinking about making a change. It hasn’t been great living with Mitch, you know. I don’t really know if he’s coming back or not. She paused before continuing, softly. I hope not.

Mitch did come back the next day, just as he always had before. But Rachel held on to her mother’s words, hoping that she could indeed make a change and find a way to live that didn’t include her abusive husband.

————————

On January 6, the day the votes were to be certified for the recent presidential election, the unthinkable happened. An angry mob stormed and occupied the U.S. Capitol to overturn the results of the presidential election. Other, smarter, more calculating people were busy trying to undermine the election results in more devious, systematic and quasi-legal ways. But many thousands of people traveled to DC after being invited by the defeated President to attend a protest, which he promised would be wild.

He gave a fiery speech at a rally, repeating lies about the election, issuing vague threats against Republicans who didn’t help him overturn it, and finally telling them to fight like hell or you’re not going to have a country anymore.

When his speech ended, thousands of his supporters marched the two miles to the Capitol Building. But many were already there, having gone there instead of attending the rally. For them, the invasion of the Capitol building had been the plan all along, not the inspiration of the moment based on the President’s inciting speech. In fact before the President finished speaking, some of the early-arriving insurrectionists had already broken through a police barrier and were surging across the lawn toward the Capitol.

The rioters were all kinds of people: Militia members in battle gear marching in formation, affluent business people who had flown to Washington in private planes, costumed characters bellowing words and not-words, bearded men in plaid flannel, anonymous figures with their faces covered. The crowd was mostly men but also included women, some literally draped in American flags. Many howled violent threats and brandished weapons for the same reason they wore outrageous costumes, the same reason they carried signs displaying provocative messages, as