Souls That Bind

By Crystal M. Moran

Determined to shake living in her older sister's mistake-filled shadow and fresh out of high school, Chloe McKinney is eager to show her strict and overbearing parents that she is a responsible adult that can make it on her own. The only person she seems to have on her side is her grandpa whom she has always had a special bond with.When Chloe's homelife with her parents becomes unbearable, she plots a way out and applies for a job as a live-in caretaker to an elderly lady named Hanna Hutton. Chloe can't quite put her finger on why her new employer seems so familiar to her, as if she has always known her.One night, Hanna reveals a shocking secret to Chloe that she had lived a past life with the only man she ever loved. Together they made a beautiful life and family. Had it not been messed up by tragedies, she would have lived the most perfect life. Hanna seems trapped and saddened in her new life while wishing for her old life with her family back. She fears that once this life is soon over that she will be born again and live another dull life without ever finding true love again.As Chloe struggles with believing Hanna's secret, clues and jaw-dropping revelations keep coming up that may very well explain just why it is that her sweet elderly boss seems so familiar!While Chloe works to figure out the mystery of Hanna's secret, she finds herself also falling in love with the perfect man. Her newly found love makes her sad for her employer's lost true love and finds her wanting to believe the impossible. Can true love last forever? Could one be reincarnated? And if one could be, then couldn't there be more?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9798885403467

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Souls That Bind

Crystal M. Moran

ISBN 979-8-88540-345-0 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88540-346-79 (digital)

Copyright © 2022 by Crystal M. Moran

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of 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

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

About the Author

To my sweet cousins Vern and Brenda. Thank you both for supporting and motivating me through my writing journey.

Chapter 1

I was eighteen years old when I met Hanna Hutton. It was the end of May 1980, and I had just graduated from high school. All my friends, the few that I had, were getting ready for their first year of college, and all I could think about was not having to do school work ever again if I didn't want to. I despised going to school! I was looking forward to getting a real job and becoming more independent. I just wanted to do what I wanted to do without so many rules and I was ready to do grown up things without grown-ups telling me I wasn't grown up enough to make good decisions.

I hadn't been a bad decision maker, but my parents always acted like I was incapable of taking care of myself or navigating my life alone in any way. I blamed it on my older sister Christine. She got pregnant and ended up getting married when she was a senior in high school, and her husband Richard was far less than par. A real loser that always hung out with the bad boys on the south end of town. The ones who wore leather jackets and had long, greasy, stringy hair and wore long dangling earrings with a cross on it in just one ear. Which I found so sardonic considering they enjoyed getting in fights, were thieves, vandalized the town when they got bored and bullied everyone including each other. The ring leader of that bunch, Jeff Smith, was even rumored to have murdered several people. They were proud self-proclaimed sinners, and I personally was offended that they wore matching, fake gold dangling cross earrings when not one of them had one righteous bone in their bodies and had never stepped foot inside of a church. They hung out at Twin Oaks Billiards, a dingy and poorly lit pool hall that smelled of alcohol, cigarette smoke, and body odor and once that closed for the night, or on frequent occasions, they were thrown out for bad behavior, they would congregate near the train tracks on Old Mill Road, leaving behind all their trash and empty beer cans and liquor bottles.

Richard didn't even finish school once Christine found out she was pregnant. He dropped out and when he wasn't with his bad boy, gang buddies, he spent his time playing video games. His idea of being grown up was forcing my sister to go to work so he could sit home, drink beer, and smoke cigarettes all day with his so-called friends while playing video games on the Atari. We suspect he stole the expensive gaming system from somewhere because my sister said it just showed up one day, and she wasn't missing any of their bill money that she kept hidden inside an empty bag of frozen peas in her freezer. Richard even made her take their baby to daycare so that he didn't have to be bothered with caring for him while my sister was at work. A bill my parents paid grudgingly.

Listening to my parents banter back and forth over how stupid and unfit he was for my sister kept me amused and entertained for days after Christine and Richard would visit, which, these days, wasn't very often. My parents were constantly questioning how someone like their perfect Christine could end up with someone like smelly, sin-filled Richard. My mom was repeatedly going by their small apartment to help my sister clean or do laundry, and she always came home completely baffled at how Christine could put up with Richard for this long. She would lecture Christine until she was blue in the face about how much better she could do than to settle for a street rat, but Christine always just politely smiled in her natural sweet way and went on as if she wasn't listening.

I felt sorry for my sister in so many ways, but I also found so much irony and humor in her situation. She was always a good girl. She was kind to everyone and was the most popular girl at our school, at least up until she got pregnant. She was Mom and Dad's favorite, though they refused to admit it. She got straight As, worked hard, and loved studying. She was beautiful, favoring our blond-haired and blue-eyed mother. Her long blond hair was always neatly styled and no matter what kind of outfit she wore. She always looked well put together and stylish. The other popular girls at school would often try to mimic her style. She was tall and slim with a girlish figure and had curves in all the right places. Her complexion was flawless and smooth, her perfect straight white teeth were seen constantly as she always had a smile firmly planted on her sweet looking face, and she was graceful in her movements in an angelic kind of way. The true picture of a classy beautiful woman. Unlike myself. I wasn't beautiful, but cute at best. I had muddy-brown hair, boring, carnelian-colored brown eyes that sometimes looked golden in the sunlight but in a creepy kind of way. My face was excessively dotted with freckles, and I often had at least one pimple somewhere. I sported awkward wire braces for far too long to straighten out my crooked teeth. I was short, barely standing at five feet tall and a little more filled out in all the wrong places opposite of my slim, older sister. I was awkward, clumsy, and quiet and my face always looked like I was in a really bad mood when I wasn't smiling. Mom was always telling me to straighten up my attitude when I looked this way, even though that is just what my face happened to look like at its natural repose.

Christine volunteered as a candy striper at the hospital during the summers and had big plans of becoming a nurse one day. But so far, she hadn't accomplished anything other than working two jobs to keep their bills paid and caring for her son with absolutely no help from Richard. Unlike Christine who had high hopes and dreams of going to college one day, I had decided against heading straight to college after graduation. I didn't have any particular interests that college could help me with, and I never considered myself a scholar. I preferred real life experiences to the strict structure of schooling. I wasn't a failing student nor a straight-A student, but I was always content with Bs and Cs on my report cards. My mother didn't really care for it though. She always said Cs were unacceptable. Christine never brought home any Cs on her report cards.

I had overheard Mom once tell her friend Susan who had asked how I was doing in school that I didn't do as well as my sister Christine, but that my grades were average.

Christine does it this way… Christine makes straight As… Christine always follows the rules, why can't you have as many friends as Christine… Why don't you ask your sister for help and try out for the cheerleading team? My head would spin when my parents started comparing me to my sister and trying to motivate me to be more like her. Now just look at their precious Christine. In a loveless marriage with a slob and with a poor innocent baby to care for. I guess they figured if someone as smart and perfect as Christine could end up in that situation, that an average person like me didn't stand a chance. Ever since that day, I deliberately started referring to myself as just average to annoy my mom.

Christine becoming pregnant pretty much ruined any chance of me having a normal high school experience. Girls like that got a bad reputation, and as if it wasn't bad enough that people assumed that since it happened to her, it would happen to me, my parents basically put me on lock down, and I wasn't allowed to do things she was once trusted to do. No parties or school dances, no hanging at the lake on weekends with friends. I even had to have signed notes from friends' parents to have a sleepover at their house, and Dad set his alarm for every two hours to get up and make sure I wasn't sneaking out of my window at night. He lost a lot of sleep for no reason because he always found me snoring away in my bed, right where I was supposed to be. They were always in my business. They demanded to know where I was, who I was with, and what exactly I was doing, and my 8:00 p.m. curfew was more than ridiculous.

I felt like I was grounded for something Christine did. Although I was technically an adult now having turned eighteen years old in March, they still had their strict rules and would constantly tell me that it was their house and their rules. Even though I had no interest in the partying life, I would have felt better if they allowed me to go to one. Just feeling like they trusted me would have helped our strained and insane parent-daughter relationship. But Christine had sealed my fate, and instead of having normal parents, I was stuck with strict, nosey, prison guards who dictated every aspect of my life.

Now, whether they liked it or not, It was my turn to start my life, and I refused to live in Christine's tainted shadow in my parent's prison any longer. Despite what my parents might think, I knew I was capable of success as well as making good decisions, and I was going to prove it to them once and for all! Maybe I was a bit of a dreamer and a hopeless romantic. Maybe I was a bit eccentric, unpredictable, spontaneous, overly blunt, and a little mouthy. Maybe I did march to my own beat, was a little clumsy, and loved to go against the grain of society. And just maybe, I did prefer escaping in a good romantic book rather than yell out stupid rhymes and jumping around on the sidelines as a cheerleader to fit in with everyone else that was socially acceptable. I liked being different than everybody else, and I strongly felt like my parents should appreciate that. Did they not know what all those popular, good-looking, social kids were really doing? Did they learn nothing from Christine having been one of those people they longed for me to be like? I would show them that I wasn't Christine, didn't want to be Christine, and wouldn't end up like Christine. I would prove that I could stand on my own two feet despite my awkwardness and without constant supervision and nagging if it was the last thing I would do!

So the summer of 1980, I was determined to find a job to get me out of my house lockdown without having to explain where I was going, what I was doing, and who I was with. At all costs, I had to escape my current living conditions and start living my own life for myself! That is when I came upon a Help Wanted ad pinned to the top of the community board inside the entrance of our local grocery store.

The ad was so small that I almost glanced right past it, but something caught my eye on that tiny piece of yellow paper as I skimmed over the board. It was the handwriting on the signature. Hanna Hutton. Written out so precisely and carefully with the most extravagant curves in the loops of the cursive writing. It was almost as though every letter had been measured on a ruler; they were so uniform.

I was so envious of that penmanship as I studied it. All my life I heard from my parents, teachers, and friends how horrible my handwriting was. My Aunt Caroline even mentioned to me on several occasions how my handwriting resembled that of a lazy, adolescent boy. In all honesty, I really did try, but no matter how many times I practiced scribbling my name on a piece of paper, it never seemed to be neat enough.

The ad said that Hanna was looking for a live-in house cleaner and a caretaker for a short time. My mouth formed a grinchy smirk with the notion of moving out of my prison. I was planning to start a job and begin a moving-out fund so that I could find an apartment of my own, but this could allow me to move out now and still be making money! My hands slightly shook with excitement, and I looked around quickly to see if anyone else had noticed my giddy and ridiculously happy facial expression.

The customers coming in and out of the store just continued to pass me by without a glance or care. I didn't have much experience in care taking, but I was a pretty tidy person, and I was eager to learn. People had also told me I was a fast learner, and that gave me a boost of confidence in trying new things. My mind raced at all the possibilities and new life that getting this job could bring me, and I was elated that I could have a small chance to be out of my parents' house and into the real world of independence, as early as a couple of weeks!

I wondered if Ms. Hanna would be interesting? With handwriting that fabulous, she couldn't be dull. Or at least I hoped not. I stood weighing all the pros and cons of getting this job, in the same way I determined all my decisions in life and then quickly reached into my purse for a pen and scribbled the address down on the back of the grocery list that my grandpa had given me. He also had horrible penmanship. I must have inherited that trait from him.

I walked into the store still smiling, causing the cashier, Gregory, to look at me oddly, as this was not in the norm for me. I nodded at him to say hello, and he looked even more shocked and perplexed. I headed to the produce section. I was on an errand for my grandfather to buy a few green apples and a bunch of purple grapes and a few other random things. But he had to have those apples and grapes. That was his snack he had to have daily. I offered to get them for him every week until he healed up from his knee surgery a few weeks before.

Poor guy had had a rough year, and my parents were always too busy working and babying my sister to find the time to look after him like he needed, so I volunteered myself. At least that was a little bit of experience in caretaking I had thought, but he was on the mend now and getting around pretty good on that new cane of his that I had to constantly remind him to use.

Since before I could remember, he was always a constant in my life. My go-to person for everything. Whether it was help with an assignment, advice, if I needed a few extra bucks to buy something I had been wanting, he was always there for whatever I needed. He was my closest friend who always knew just what to say in any situation. He always had my back no matter the circumstance. Even if it was a quarrel with my parents. He was always telling them to let me live my life exactly how I felt like and to trust my decisions while pointing out I hadn't made any bad ones. He was also on my side when I would bring up how they punished me for Christine's mistakes and had told them I deserved to prove my trust. All his motivational speeches he gave to them on my behalf fell on deaf ears.

My parents were always telling us how alike we were and that one day we would get each other in a pickle, and when we did, we better not call them to help us out of it. I think our relationship was the one thing that made Christine jealous of me. She didn't have the bond with him that he and I always had, and because I knew she envied our close relationship, I was always happy to show it off. She could be Mom and Dad's favorite, fine by me, but I was Grandpa's favorite, and Grandpa was a whole lot more fun to be with than my stiff parents.

After a lot of self-pep talks into the bathroom mirror to boost my confidence, I had mailed a letter addressed to Ms. Hutton to the address I had scribbled down in the grocery store. My hands trembled as I put the letter in the mailbox and threw up the red flag that indicated we had outgoing mail.

It took me two hours to write a very short letter unsure if too much information would be better than not enough information, so I diligently worked to find a happy medium, crumpling up the letters and starting all over eight times. The waded paper balls laid in a heap beside my bed. I let her know I was very interested in the job, and that though I didn't have much experience, I was trustworthy and dependable. I told her a little about myself, and I also added a very short list of my previous job experiences, which included a few babysitting jobs, being the lifeguard at the public pool, and the waitressing job I had in the evenings last summer at the café downtown. And although it wasn't technically a job that I got paid for, I included that I volunteered at the library and performed duties such as returning books to the shelves, dusting, sweeping, and taking out the trash. I left out the part about me constantly getting in trouble for hiding between book aisles reading while on the job. I also had my dad take a picture of me with my new Polaroid camera that my grandpa had gotten me for my graduation gift, and I enclosed the picture along with the letter.

It took just three days to get a reply from Ms. Hutton in the mail. I hadn't realistically expected one at all, but opening the mailbox to see a letter addressed to me in that beautiful handwriting gave me a small fleeting glimmer of hope that was automatically replaced with a worry of rejection. That was the pessimist side of me. I didn't see cups half full. I saw them half empty. Negative should have been my middle name. With as little experience as I had in life, I couldn't fault her for not giving me a chance. I was sure she had gotten better applicants than myself, but that didn't change how badly I wanted the job. I was ready to make some kind of declaration on my own life and separate myself from my sister's ruins and the low expectations my parents had of their just-average daughter.

I ran to my bedroom kicking the door closed with my barefoot behind me and jumped on my bed with Hanna's letter inside the envelope. In the excitement, the force of my jump sent my pillows and purse flying off the side of my bed. My curtains flailed up in a rippling whoosh that caused my cat, Abner, to screech out loudly and dash under the bed.

Before I started to peel back the flap of the envelope, I stopped and took a deep breath to try to steady my bundle of nerves that had been festering since I opened the mailbox. I whispered over and over with my eyes squeezed shut as tight as I could, Even if you don't get the job, you will be okay, followed by a string of repeated Please, God, let me have this one thing, trying desperately to talk myself into accepting my rejection gracefully. I slowly opened the envelope and pinched out the paper neatly folded and tucked inside. The note was folded three times and smelled of fresh fruit. I remember thinking how odd it was that my mail had an odor at all, let alone a pleasant one.

On the floral stationery paper, I recognized the extravagant handwriting. The same beautiful writing that was on the ad at the grocery store. The calligraphy in itself was an art form that was pleasant for the eye to look at. Perhaps she could give me a few tips on my own handwriting? My heart raced as I began to read and the trembling of my hands caused the paper to waver, making me focus harder on the words written in Hanna's beautiful penmanship.

Dear Chloe McKinney,

After going through a dozen applicants, I found your letter along with your résumé to be quite refreshing. Of all the ones I reviewed, none of them included a personal touch of a handwritten letter as yours did. Your portrait you sent along was just beautiful! I appreciate the endearing touch of making it a bit more personal rather than so stiff and professional. I already feel like I know you, and since we will be spending a lot of time together, I think that is important. You seem like such a pleasant young lady, raised with respectful manners and just enough independence to conquer the world. You certainly don't see that often in the world as it is today. I would love for you to come work for me. I realize your list of experiences are short. However, I too had to start somewhere as a young girl. If I can give you another stepping stone of experience toward whatever you wish to accomplish in life, I will truly be honored to do so. I look forward to enjoying your company and getting to know you better.

Sincerely,

Hanna Hutton

P.S. You start Monday at 8:00 am. My address is 2106 Ambrose Lane. Please be prompt on your time, as I do not like to be kept waiting.

My heart fluttered as realization that I got the job started to sink in. I stared wide-eyed with a gaping, open-mouthed, ridiculous, smile on my face at the letter for a long moment before the beautiful handwriting became out of focus as tears of joy bubbled up into my eyes. I folded the letter back the way it was on the neatly pressed creases and tucked it back into the envelope. I hugged it to my chest with excitement. I wiped my joyful tears off my freckled cheeks, peered up toward heaven, and thanked God for letting me have this one thing! I just knew in my heart, this was going to be my very first adventure without the pressure of my parents peering in and telling me I was doing it wrong, just like everything else I did.

My eyes roamed around my room, visually deciding what things I needed to pack to take along with me. The unsettling feeling of nervousness set into the pit of my stomach as I laid back on my bed and took deep breaths in and out trying to still my rapid beating heart. Abner jumped back on the bed and stared down at me with his big yellow eyes from his stance on the pillow.

I got the job Abner! This is my chance to spread my wings and fly, I declared as I opened my arms and closed them again mimicking a flying bird, messing my bed up with all the flapping.

Abner just stared boringly at me before yawning, walking with his stuck-up slow stride to the end of the bed and lazily lying down. In just two days, I was going to be off to my first serious adult role of my life. My parents would see that I could stand on my own two feet and that I did have motivation for my life even though it wasn't going straight to college. They didn't need to hold my hand for everything, and I didn't need them telling me how to live my life all the time. I was an adult now, and they had to realize that giving advice and dictating were not the same thing.

At the supper table that evening, I slid the letter across the table to my mom with a sly smile on my face. She looked at me curiously before opening up. While she read it quietly, Dad glanced back and forth between both of us trying to figure out what was going on without asking out loud.

Once she had read it, she slid it over to Dad and raised her perfectly sculpted eyebrows at me. I am impressed by this Chloe! I had no idea you went looking for a job. I was beginning to wonder if you were going to be motivated to do anything with your life since your graduation. I am disappointed this isn't an acceptance letter to college, but I am pleased to see you are making plans for yourself.

I rolled my eyes at her compliment followed immediately by her usual and predictable insult. I sighed loudly.

I deserve a break from school, Mom. High school wasn't exactly easy for me. I didn't fit in with many people anyway, and after Christine got pregnant, the other girls looked at me like I was trying to steal their boyfriends, and I became a target for the boys who mistook Christine's pregnancy as me being a hoe, an automatic assumption of a reputation that I definitely do not have. Christine made it impossible for me to be respected at school after getting knocked up, I ranted with a little more attitude than I had intended.

Mom peered at me over the top of her glasses with the look that meant she didn't approve of my tone.

What is a hoe? Dad questioned, looking perplexed.

I think that is what young adolescents call a girl who is promiscuous these days, Mom answered, still glaring her disapproval at me.

I didn't back down and glared back silently telling her she put all her eggs in one basket with her precious Christine.

Dad, sensing the rising tension, quickly changed the subject after reading the letter and ending the stare down between us. Congratulations, Chloe! he smiled sincerely, handing me back Hanna's letter.

Thanks, Dad, I said, taking a bite of chicken and relaxing back into my chair.

Well, she seems like a sweet lady. I know you will do a fine job Chloe, Mom chimed in.

I wasn't expecting it to go so smoothly, and I stole glances at them all through dinner with anticipation of one of them trying to talk me out of it, but they had already begun talking about Christine and her latest problem.

After dinner, I cleaned the kitchen while Mom and Dad went for a walk around the neighborhood in their usual routine. They liked to walk through the neighborhood and chat and gossip with all the neighbors. Much like Christine, my parents were popular in the neighborhood while everyone seemed to look at me like I was doing something wrong, never really speaking to me just staring in their unapproving way. I usually took this time to glare back at them as if I could see the rottenness of their souls until they finally felt uneasy enough from my returned stare to avert their nosy, prying eyes somewhere else. I went out to read on the back patio sitting slumped and unlady-like in the cedar porch swing that my grandpa had built for Christmas one year. Aside from being away from my parents, the porch swing was my favorite place to be.

Hey, Chloe, a cheerful voice called over from the fence of the neighbors back yard interrupting my flow of reading. It was Jessie, the neighbor boy. The one person in our subdivision that didn't look at me like I was a witch that was up to no good. He had dazzling blue eyes that really stuck out from the contrast of his solid black hair that he kept really short on the sides but a little longer on top. He was always taller than me despite me being a year older than him, and he stayed very tan