Omnimystery News Conversation

Thank you to Lance Wright and Omnimystery News for interviewing me. I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation.

MONDAY, JANUARY 13, 2014

A Conversation with Novelist Babette Hughes

with Babette Hughes

We are delighted to welcome back novelist Babette Hughes to Omnimystery News today.

Babette first visited with us last Novemberwith an excerpt from her second Kate Brady novel, The Red Scarf (Lamplight Press; August 2013 hardcover, trade paperback and ebook formats) and we wanted to catch up with her to talk a little more about the book.

— ♦ —

Omnimystery News: Tell us a little more about your series character, Kate Brady.

Photo provided courtesy of
Babette Hughes

Babette Hughes: In The Hat and its sequelsThe Red Scarf and The Necklace, I have taken Kate Brady's character from the age of 18 to 80 — not only for the changes it offers in the writing, but also because of the different political, social and economic forces that exist at each age.

OMN: Are the characters in your books based on any real people?

BH: My father, a bootlegger who was murdered by the Mafia in a turf war when I was a baby, inspired the character Ben inThe Hat and Solly in The Red Scarf. But those are the exceptions. The other characters just spring on the page as I work, fueled by the richness of the unconscious. All of which makes fiction writing not only difficult, but mysterious and interesting.

OMN: Describe your writing process.

BH: Some writers work from an outline, but I don't. I try to develop the plot organically instead of from the top down. In other words, if I can get my characters to come alive on the page I'll just follow them along as they tell me their stories.

OMN: And where do you usually write?

BH: It's my own space with my favorite things — books, files, notes, manuscripts. Computer and printer. Phone that I can turn off. Light from two large windows. Plants. That is where I close the door and turn on my imagination.

OMN: Have any specific authors influenced how and what you write today?

BH: Alice Munro, who just won the Nobel Prize in literature, has been my favorite writer for years, whom I read and reread. Also Elmore Leonard for his clean, crime prose. Philip Roth. Norman Mailer. I could go on and on. I learn from reading.

— ♦ —

In addition to her novels, Babette Hughes is a contributing blogger forThe Huffington Post. She has also been published in the Saturday Review; been contributing editor of Cleveland Magazine; a twice-weekly columnist for the Cleveland Press; and has published articles and book reviews in the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Sunday Magazine. She has also written, produced and appeared in television documentaries and news and feature stories for Cleveland television stations WKYC-NBC and WNBK-UHF.

In addition to her writing career she has been been National Director of Women's Political Action for Hubert Humphrey in his 1972 Presidential campaign, as well as founder and President of Discover Yourself, Inc., a motivation and self realization program for women. She has also been Director of Public Relations for Revco D.S., Inc. in Twinsburg, Ohio, and Account Executive with Frazier Associates, in Washington, DC. She and her husband live in Austin, Texas, and are the parents and step-parents of eight children.

Learn more about the author and her work on her website BabetteHughes.com.

— ♦ —

The Red Scarf
Babette Hughes
A Kate Brady Novel

The Red Scarf opens with Kate Brady, aka, Mrs. Ben Gold trying to find a normal life as the widow of the Godfather of the Jewish mafia, Ben Gold. Ben Gold is dead and the file is closed as far as law enforcement is concerned. The angry remaining Sarsini brother is the killer, or at least that's what the FBI believes. Good riddance is what they and everyone who knew Ben Gold think, and Kate agrees wholeheartedly. Ben had treated her badly, was not a good man, and frankly deserved exactly what he got.

And, so, as The Red Scarf picks up her story she is attending college, living on the millions of dollars of ill-gotten gain that Ben had left her, and trying to put the life of a moll behind her. But once again, even from beyond the grave, Ben Gold drags her back into the dangerous world of gangster and guns.

When handsome FBI agent Adam Fairfield is introduced as a guest lecturer, she feels immediately drawn to him, and he to her. A torrid love affair ensues and soon, she is risking her life by revealing her darkest secret to him, trusting that he won't put her away for life, or worse.

For Kate, this story is about more than the thrill of bringing down another bad man who is intimidating her community and abusing his wife. This is about redemption. It's about getting on with her life and leaving behind as best she can the lengthy laundry list of mistakes she had made as a young and impressionable woman.

The Red Scarf Excerpt on Omnimystery News

Are you a mystery fan? The Red Scarf was featured on Omnimystery News today. 

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2013

An Excerpt from The Red Scarf by Babette Hughes

The Red Scarf by Babette Hughes

We are delighted to welcome novelistBabette Hughes to Omnimystery News today.

Babette's second suspense novel to feature Kate Brady is The Red Scarf(Lamplight Press; August 2013 hardcover, trade paperback and ebook formats), and we are pleased to introduce the book to you with an excerpt.

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September 6, 1933

IT IS THE FIRST DAY OF MY CRIMINAL justice class at Cleveland College. Waiting with the other students for the professor to arrive, I try to look innocent. I have taken the precaution of sitting in the back row between a boy with acne and a chubby girl with a pretty face and too much makeup. I wish I were like them. I wish acne and weight were all I have to worry about. I wish I could shake the plump girl until her teeth rattle. I want her green life.
 The room smells of paper and the cologne on the girl sitting next to me. Someone has carved initials in the wood of my desk. Does "H. R." belong to the wood carver? Or to the wood-carver's spouse? But that's silly — most eighteen-year-olds aren't married. As I was. To my regret. And surely to my former husband's, who is now safely buried with the other dead Jews in Mayfield Cemetery.
 The door opens and the dean arrives with a man so handsome there is a collective intake of breath from the girls in the room. Who is he? I knew Dean Conway from his boring speech to the freshman assembled last week in the auditorium. But the other? I would have remembered if I had seen him before. You don't forget a face like that.
 "Good morning, students," Dean Conway says, with a pasted-on smile. "I have a swell surprise for you. The instructor for this class will be a real-life F.B.I. agent. This," he says, gesturing to him grandly, "is Adam Fairchild. "Before joining the Bureau, he taught law and criminal justice at Ohio State University. How about those credentials? How lucky can you get?" Someone starts to clap, the dean joins in and then the rest of the class.
 Fairfield is standing a bit to the side, his hands in his pockets, looking like Tyrone Power or maybe Douglas Fairbanks without the mustache.
 I slide my eyes over to the door. Too far away.
 "I leave you now in the capable hands of Special Agent Fairfield," Dean Conway says, pausing and lifting his chin as if posing for a photograph.
 "Thank you, Dean. I only hope I don't disappoint after that introduction," he says, grinning as if he knows better.
 He takes a sheet of paper from the desk. "Please stand as I read your name so I can get a look at you." As he reads the names, each student stands, saying, "Here." As I wait for him to call my name, I start to sweat. When he does, I rise, manage a mumbled "Here," and slide back down into my chair. His eyes linger on me. Or am I imagining it? No. I am not imagining it. He knows who I am. I thought I could disappear among hundreds of college students. I thought by using my maiden name I could erase the time when I was Mrs. Ben Gold. I was wrong. I should have packed up and gone as far from Cleveland as I could get — California. Oregon. Anywhere but here. Well, it isn't too late — this is my first day in Mr. F.B.I's class. It's a big country.
 I see that he's dressed for the part of charming professor in one of those tweed jackets with leather on the elbows, a blue shirt and neatly knotted brown tie. Even though his hair is cropped short, I can see the grey starting. Still, it's hard to tell his age — 30's? 40's?
 After the roll call, he looks at me again. I make myself return his stare as if that will make him drop his. It does not. I drop mine.
 He looks at his watch. "There's still time for me to tell you a bit about the F.B.I," he says, sitting down on the edge of the desk. "Before J. Edgar Hoover became Director it was just the Bureau of Investigation. But Hoover got it federalized so we could cross state lines to chase the bad guys. How many of you have heard of Baby Face Nelson, Bonnie and Clyde and Machine Gun Kelly?"
 A bunch of hands shoot up.
 "Okay, I can tell you that we know Nelson's in San Francisco, a source has Machine Gun Kelly in Chicago, and we've spotted Bonnie and Clyde in Des Moines. Believe me, their days of robbing banks and killing people are numbered." There is a sudden gravity about him with that grim look you see on the faces of F.B.I. agents in the newsreels.
 The boy with acne raises his hand.
 "Mr. Arlington," Fairfield says, nodding.
 "So how does a person get in?" the boy asks.
 "You want to be an F.B.I. agent?"
 "Yes, sir."
 "Well, son, you've got some years to go — you have to be twenty-five. And before that, you have to have gone to law school. You have to be a lawyer. And come from a good family."
 Good family. That lets me out.
 The boy sits down.
 A skinny girl in a navy blue dress raises her hand.
 "Miss Sawyer," Fairfield says. But he is looking at me again.
 I feel my face heat up and look down at my white schoolgirls' blouse to check on buttons.
 "Does the F.B.I. take women?" she asks.
 "Not any I know of," he says. "Although there were a few. Emma Jentzer back some twenty years or so. Also, Alaska Davidson and Lenore Houston in the old bureau." He stops, as if searching his memory. "And oh, yes, Jessie Duckson." He lets go of his charming smile. "Maybe by the time you're twenty-five Hoover will let women in. So go to law school, just in case. That way, if you can't be an agent, you'll have a back up. You can be a lawyer."
 "I don't know any women lawyers, do you?" There was a nice edge to her voice. I liked her.
 "Well, no. A great injustice. But perhaps you'll change that and be the first woman agent in modern times."
 The girl looks doubtful.
 Another hand is raised.
 "Mr. Linsky," Fairfield says.
 I am impressed with his memory of names after only one hearing. More to worry about.
 "So how come Mr. Hoover can't catch Dillinger?"
 "Well, Mr. Linsky, we have it on good authority he's in Dayton, Ohio. As we speak. He moves around a lot but we'll get him. Sooner or later we'll get him." He narrows his eyes. You can imagine him wearing sun glasses, a fedora, and that serious expression, moving silent as a cat, stalking Dillinger, ready; you can imagine him shooting. No questions asked. Just the Springfield Armory Model M 14 machine gun with 20 round USGI — like the gun that laid under my husband's side of the bed. Or the Smith & Wesson 22, with a clip that holds 12 rounds. Small enough to fit in a pocket or hide in a hat. Small enough to fit in a woman's hand. I feel a small thrill.
 The boy sits down.
 Fairfield looks at his watch again, opens a notebook, and recites the course agenda: Intro to Criminal Justice; Criminal Law; Criminal Investigation; Intro to Forensic Chemistry; Human Relations. I dutifully write the list in my notebook with a shaking hand, now convinced that he knows who I am.
 "Class, please read chapters one through four in your textbook, ‘Intro to Forensic Chemistry' by the next class," he's saying. My classmates begin noisily scraping chairs, murmuring, moving toward the door. A couple of girls almost trip as they turn for one more look at Fairfield.
 I close my notebook and gather up my books.
 I am almost at the door when he calls from the front of the room, "Miss Brady."
 Pretending not to hear him, I put my head down and keep on walking.
 "Miss Brady!" he calls. "My office, please! Room 321."

— ♦ —

Photo provided courtesy of
Babette Hughes

In addition to her novels, Babette Hughes is a contributing blogger for The Huffington Post. She has also been published in the Saturday Review; been contributing editor of Cleveland Magazine; a twice-weekly columnist for theCleveland Press; and has published articles and book reviews in the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Sunday Magazine. She has also written, produced and appeared in television documentaries and news and feature stories for Cleveland television stations WKYC-NBC and WNBK-UHF.

In addition to her writing career she has been been National Director of Women's Political Action for Hubert Humphrey in his 1972 Presidential campaign, as well as founder and President of Discover Yourself, Inc., a motivation and self realization program for women. She has also been Director of Public Relations for Revco D.S., Inc. in Twinsburg, Ohio, and Account Executive with Frazier Associates, in Washington, DC. She and her husband live in Austin, Texas, and are the parents and step-parents of eight children.

Learn more about the author and her work on her websiteBabetteHughes.com.

— ♦ —

The Red Scarf
Babette Hughes
A Kate Brady Novel

The Red Scarf opens with Kate Brady, aka, Mrs. Ben Gold trying to find a normal life as the widow of the Godfather of the Jewish mafia, Ben Gold. Ben Gold is dead and the file is closed as far as law enforcement is concerned. The angry remaining Sarsini brother is the killer, or at least that's what the FBI believes. Good riddance is what they and everyone who knew Ben Gold think, and Kate agrees wholeheartedly. Ben had treated her badly, was not a good man, and frankly deserved exactly what he got.

And, so, as The Red Scarf picks up her story she is attending college, living on the millions of dollars of ill-gotten gain that Ben had left her, and trying to put the life of a moll behind her. But once again, even from beyond the grave, Ben Gold drags her back into the dangerous world of gangster and guns.

When handsome FBI agent Adam Fairfield is introduced as a guest lecturer, she feels immediately drawn to him, and he to her. A torrid love affair ensues and soon, she is risking her life by revealing her darkest secret to him, trusting that he won't put her away for life, or worse.

For Kate, this story is about more than the thrill of bringing down another bad man who is intimidating her community and abusing his wife. This is about redemption. It's about getting on with her life and leaving behind as best she can the lengthy laundry list of mistakes she had made as a young and impressionable woman.

   

Boardwalk Empire Season 4: Acres of Diamonds

I know this is going to shock a lot of Boardwalk Empire fans, but I actually felt a pang of sympathy for Gillian Darmody last night. I thought my brief compassion for Gillian might stem from the fact that she is one of the only vulnerable female characters on the show this season, but that can’t be so. We have Harrow’s sister, Emma—pregnant, recently widowed, with very few prospects –and we have Sally—a savvy booze slinging roadhouse owner who is pushed around by Tampa con-artist, August Tucker. Boardwalk Empire has many male characters to empathize with as well, so why Gillian Darmody? Why this week?

Gillian is telling the hardscrabble life of my mother. To my recollection, my mother didn’t resort to prostitution or heroin, but she did marry a bootlegger at 18—a man who could show her the comforts of life that she wouldn't dare to dream of as a child raised in a Jewish Orphan Asylum with no prospects of a higher education or pulling herself up by her bootstraps.

Just like Gillian lost her son, Jimmy, to Prohibition related crime, my mother lost her husband, my father, to the mafia during a bootlegging turf war in 1924. When my father died, my mother was no longer the attentive housewife and mother. She embraced the 1920s culture of debauchery—drinking, staying out late with her ‘boyfriends’, and neglecting her children.  

By the end of the episode I was routing for Gillian to win Roy’s heart. Maybe it will give her the chance to repair her life and “call herself to account” as Emma suggests to Richard during their good-byes. I can’t help but hope that Gillian becomes the exemplary mother and has a wholesome life with her grandson, but maybe this is a wish from my past and only the writers of Boardwalk Empire can make it so.

Read More by Babette Hughes

For a recap of Acres of Diamonds

Boardwalk Empire Season 4: Resignation

My father, Luis Rosen, was a bootlegger during the Prohibition. He was murdered in a turf war by the Jewish mob in November 1924. In last week’s episode, when the screen flashed, February 1924, I couldn’t help but remember the newspaper articles recounting the cold-blooded murder of my father and uncle. What are these mad men willing to do for power? Apparently the Boardwalk Empire characters are eager to pay the price for a piece of the pie.

In the beginning of Sunday night’s episode, Detective Van Alden, a.k.a. Mueller, is willing to crack some skulls to buy his wife a new davenport—a far cry from where he was in Season One. He is O’Bannon’s muscle during the day and Capone’s “political pressure” during the evenings. How quickly Van Alden has gone from praying and preaching the gospel of sobriety to defending a group of booze swilling sociopaths. At the democratic rally, we watch Van Alden embrace his new power when letting out a roar of strength before he bats another Democrat over the head at Capone’s request—making sure these citizens spread the word “…voting Democrat is bad for your health.”

Our next shocker for a plunge at power is Eddie. Last season he took a bullet in the leg to protect his beloved boss, Nucky, and he is ready for his promotion. Eddie has proved to be Nucky’s right-hand man in business and hygiene, and he “resigned” in order to get Nucky’s attention. Fortunately for Eddie, Nucky didn’t call his bluff. Will Eddie be successful in his new powers or will he finally fail Nucky?

BE’s third swing for power is the new character Dr. Narcisse. The New York businessman strolls into the Onyx with Cora, sharing his knowledge of God’s word and his own personal beliefs—“ a thing mixed is a thing weakened”. Narcisse suspends all black entertainment acts at the Onyx to muscle Nucky and Chalky into 10% of Onyx’s income, using Cora’s testimony of Dunn “raping” her as leverage.  He also plants the beginnings of a wedge between Nucky and Chalky—pointing out that a relationship between a black and white man can only be based on the white man’s need to use the black man to gain power. I have a feeling with the build of race relations and the introduction to Dr. Narcisse, an equivalent to a black supremacist, we are going to see the two communities clash, but who will win the struggle according to history?

Speaking of history, the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, J. Edgar Hoover, has made his appearance this season. He is in Atlantic City and ready to infiltrate the northeast crime ring through the US Attorney General. It looks like Nucky is on the government’s radar yet again. Is his stronghold in DC worth being in Hoover’s  spotlight?

Read more by novelist and Huff Post blogger Babette Hughes. 

Boardwalk Empire: Season 4, “New York Sour”

With Harrow home from his last tour of “business” and a mob boss truce for Nucky maybe the episode should’ve been entitled “Clean Slate” considering both men are starting over for themselves. Harrow is back home in Wisconsin after “dealing with” some home title “issues” and Nucky, now a bachelor, is seducing new actresses and has his hand back on the reins of Atlantic City after paying Masseria and Rothstein some fat cash.

Chalky’s built his new night club, Onyx, upon the ruins of Babette’s (sorry to see my namesake go!), and the club’s opening night offers the dazzling party scene of the roaring 20s—scantily clad black women shaking their tail feathers while white men and women guzzle their giggle water and use words like “primitive”.

Gillian is also trying to be the poster girl for motherhood reform during her trial to gain back custody of Jimmy’s son from Harrow’s gal, Julia. Little do the courts know, she is fully addicted to heroin and selling herself for $30 a customer to save the cat house. Will Ron Livingston from The Office save her from herself? (That woman is pure evil, and although I am not a violent person, I am hoping that her days are numbered.)

Al Capone is making a mark for himself through the newspaper, and I am sure the writer will be sure to spell Al’s name right in the future.

It may be a clean slate for most of the Boardwalk Empire characters this premiere but there is one man who has already muddied his opportunities for success. Chalky White’s right-hand man, Dunn, has stirred up some trouble for “15 minutes of jelly”. While Chalky and Dunn are in New York, scouting acts to bring to the Onyx, Dunn takes the talent agent’s wife up on a scandalously irresistible offer. In the midst of “jelly”, Dunn and the wife are caught by the talent agent, Dickey. Without giving away the story, let’s just say, somebody dies. With the birth of Onyx and Dunn’s indiscretions, I’d say BE writers are making race a major topic this season.

Here’s a recipe for a New York Sour for next Sunday. Enjoy!

Looking for more Prohibition Mayhem?

Nonagenarian author Babette Hughes has penned three books, including the forthcoming The Red Scarf, due out in July. She lives in Austin, Texas. To learn more about Babette and her work, please go to: http://babettehughes.com/author.html

My Left Breast - Chapter 2

May 20, 2013, The Huffington Post, Babette Hughes

Writer Babette Hughes shared her experience with breast cancer in a powerful blog post recently. Here is a follow up to that must-read blog.

Back home after the diagnosis, I make dinner, noting that the salmon smells fishy. I cut the ends of the string beans and wash the romaine for a salad. I hear my husband's key in the door. He comes into the kitchen, says hi and gives me a kiss. His face feels scratchy. "It's cancer," I say, smiling. (Smiling!) I feel my absurd grin, pleased to be crazy.

But over the next days my brain begins to let in a little news at a time, like a gate that opens and closes at mysterious intervals, as if it knows how much my mind can handle without imploding. The gate swings open when I'm alone and I find myself crying at a traffic light; or on the freeway (risk cheating cancer by getting killed by the pickup truck tailgating me); or standing in the shower with a tight heart. The gate closes when I run errands, have dinner with friends, sit in the radiation waiting room. As the hours and days go by the gate stays open longer and longer until I begin to get it. I get it. This thing on my breast can kill me! Reading and writing become lost to me. The now wide-open gate has me imagining the unthinkable. Imagining my own death, my absence from my own life. In a crazy, perverse way it is secretly thrilling. I have cancer! I'm still alive! I check out my will and talk to my husband about his options when he's a widower.

When you show up for your doctor's appointment you are handed a clipboard on which lies a questionnaire with a laundry list of every disease, malady and symptom known to man. You are supposed to check those that you have or had, or think you have or had. You are also asked to check whether you have it sometimes, often, never or frequently. You obediently ponder the clipboard and make your checks.

And wait. And wait. Finally a woman fetches you and your clipboard. She leads you into a small room. There is an examining table, a desk, a computer, a chair. There is an illustration of the human body on the wall with its map of organs and blood vessels and arteries, but no genitalia. It is as sexless as I have felt since I found the lump.

The assistant invites me to sit in the chair. She is young and pudgy with pretty blond hair. She is wearing a tiny diamond engagement ring. She settles in front of the computer, and looks at the clipboard. Then she says, "When was your last mammogram?"

"Didn't I fill that out? I thought I filled it out."

She looks at me. "No, you didn't."

"My last mammogram? It was a year ago, I think. Well, actually, a little over a year," I lie.

Actually it is almost two years but I'll be damned if I'll admit it to this sullen kid.

"Are your parents alive?" she asks, turning back to the screen.

"No."

"What did they die of?"

"My mother died of polycythemia --well actually it was leukemia, but the polycythemia started it," I say.

"And?" she says, waiting, fingers poised on the keyboard.

I am silent. I hear voices in one of the examining rooms.

"Your father?"

"My father."

I clear my throat. "He died young. No medical history there -- he died too young to get anything."

I look at my watch. I want to get out of this barren room with the sexless person on the wall.

She turns to me and I smell her perfume. It smells of lilac. "What did he die of?"

I am feeling a familiar rush of shame. It has rendered me speechless.

"So what did he die of?" she asks again.

I sigh. "Murder. He died of murder."

She looks at me.

"He was a bootlegger," I explain. I smile.

She turns to the computer and types something.

"It wasn't my fault, I was two years old," I want to say.

She sticks a thermometer in my mouth, puts a blood pressure sleeve on my arm and starts pumping. She doesn't make eye contact. I decide I don't like her.

She hands me a paper robe. "Take everything off above the waist. The doctor will see you shortly," she says, as she leaves the room.

I do as I am told. And wait, wishing I had brought something to read because "shortly" turns out to be a long time.

Why didn't I say "accident," to this stone-faced girl? Why didn't I say he died in an automobile accident. Or that he died in the war -- I could have said he was a war hero! Or simply repeated my mother's lie: "He died of pneumonia," she told me when I was old enough to ask.

I believed her. My father wasn't a murdered bootlegger, he died innocently in bed of pneumonia. So I don't have cancer cells multiplying mysteriously in my breast, and therefore will live to be an old, old lady with great grandchildren, no matter what the doctor says if he ever turns up.

My mother never uttered a word about my father's violent death. Even 40 years after his murder she was still unable to speak the truth. But denial was too late for me. Cancer doesn't lie. Cancer, unlike murder, doesn't kill in seconds. It's always there, on standby. And as I sat waiting for the doctor, my bare breasts covered in a paper jacket, I envied my mother's lifelong delusion.

Read More

MOTHER

My mother fascinated my friends with how unmotherish she was; how charming, vivacious, flirtatious; how much like a girlfriend.  Back then mothers stayed home but she went to work every day in high heels and bracelets; people thought she was  my sister.

             But I wanted her to be like their apron clad moms who didn’t scare and excite and hypnotize and then slip away like ether. I longed for safer plumper arms, the smell of dinner cooking in a warm kitchen. My mother brought home cardboard cartons of Chinese food for our dinner smelling of her office and stale perfume.

            After being raised in an Dickensian orphanage in 1901, from the age of 3, widowed at 26 by my bootlegging father’s murder by the Mafia, she was too damaged for mothering and shipped me around to relatives while she lived the life of a flapper. When the Great Depression hit and she lost her money she came home to my brother and me.

            Self-educated in literature, music and art, fluent in the German and Hebrew that she learned growing up in the Jewish Orphan Home, she had nothing but scorn for the institutions the rest of the world lives by—school, organized religion, government, marriage, politics. But anyone who dared label her iconoclast, existentialist or feminist or any other “ist” would have been met with a withering look. Her independence and courage thrilled me because I always knew how alone and frightened she was.

            She could electrify a room with her brilliance and charm but she didn’t know when or how to stop; people became restless, they looked away; they would leave if they could. I was ashamed of her. I was proud of her. But I didn’t know what I had learned  from her. That is, until my divorce. Needing independence and courage, I discovered it within myself, put there by her spirit. Also, the pleasure of learning and the life of the mind. Integrity of the self.  Compassion from watching her struggle, and even, from my own unmet needs, how to mother my children.

Read more