Amanda

R.C. White

Description

The beautiful cherub Manda Bear and Papa develop a seemingly unbreakable bond, as Papa is always there for her. But as Amandas coming of age journey leads her into adolescence, the precocious teenager becomes troubled. Amandas parents attempt to deal with rebellious behavior that eventually lands her in jail, and she begins to isolate herself from all who love her. But when Amanda disappears without a trace, her familys once-happy world is turned upside down.In this compelling tale, as a frantic search for Amanda begins, her grandfather must learn to trust that all he has taught his beloved granddaughter in her younger years can somehow save her from herself in adulthood and allow her to fulfill her true destiny.engaging read from beginning to enddrawn into the storyemotional and moving Amazon Top 500 Reviewerwill make you laugh and make you cryvery moving story of a very unique and wonderful relationship between a grandfather and his beloved grandchildI highly recommend the book to readers across the globe.Cant wait to read the next book by RC White. Amazon Reviewers

Informations

• Publié par: Inspiring Voices
• Date de parution: 03 octobre 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781462403226
• Langue: English

Extrait

Amanda
PAPA’S STORY
R. C. WHITE


Copyright © 2012 Ronald Charles White
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
Cover photography by Tracey Ivy Photography
 
 
 
Inspiring Voices books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:
 
Inspiring Voices
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.inspiringvoices.com
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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.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
 
Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.
 
ISBN: 978-1-4624-0323-3 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-4624-0324-0 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-4624-0322-6 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012917389
 
Inspiring Voices rev. date: 10/01/2012

Contents
Preface
Part I The Early Years
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Part II Signs
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Part III Search
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Part IV I Had To Do It Myself
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Part V New Horizons
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Epilogue

 
 
 
For Nana, without her encouragement,
this book may never have been published

 
 
 
Everyone has oceans to fly. Does it seem reckless?
Perhaps, but dreams have no boundaries.
 
Amelia Earhart

Preface
A manda was a labor of love. I know that’s a cliché, but it applies here. And that’s why clichés become clichés, because they apply to so many situations.
I’m now convinced that God’s gift to senior citizens is grandchildren. I dearly love Amanda and Brittany — yes they are both very real persons — and I thank God for bringing them both into the lives of Nana and myself. When I refer to them as “precious angels,” that’s exactly how I see them. Can they do wrong? Yup. Are they perfect? Nope. Do I love them any less for some occasional indiscretions? Not a chance.
They’re little girls. They do what little girls do: they play, they have fun, they mix with friends, they get into trouble, they scare their parents (and grandparents) from time to time, they learn how to say they’re sorry (and mean it sometimes), they endear themselves to adults and they wrap their grandparents around their little fingers. Wikipedia should include all that in its definition of precious angels.
It was my observation of all of those actions in Amanda that made me begin to think about writing this book. I thought about it for two or three years before putting pen to paper (actually fingers to keyboard). My initial concept was simply to capture specific things that Amanda was saying and doing as a child — nothing more than surface observations, because I wasn’t seeing the underlying characteristics developing.
I later began to visualize how certain personal traits might serve her in later life. Admittedly, I let my imagination take over my thoughts as fiction surpassed facts. However, I tried to retain those characteristics observed in Amanda’s younger years and project them into fictional settings in her later life with additional efforts to tie them all together as the narrative progressed. If some of my transitional threads seem a little thin, I just attribute that to literary privilege.
My overall objective, in addition to introducing you to one particular precious angel, is simply to provide a source of entertainment and inspiration. Children will be children (oops, another cliché), but they can still turn into valuable assets in our sometimes crazy society if they have great parents and possibly a “Nana” or a “Papa” on whom to lean for a little extra support.
It is also important to point out that my characterization of Amanda’s parents as somewhat passive in this novel could not be farther from the truth. They are extremely active in the lives of their children, and I regard them both as superb parents. I only wish they had been around when I was engaged in parenting 101; I would have taken lessons.
In addition, I must take a moment to express enormous thanks to my family, especially my bride of forty-three years and counting, for the tremendous encouragement, support, editing assistance and even content suggestions. They all made this endeavor a better product, and I am forever grateful.
Other friends who have read all or portions of the book and extended moral support to this first-time writer were definitely influential in my progression toward publication. I thank Chloe Dannenfelser for standing in for the fictional adult Amanda hiding beside the tree on the cover photo. Tracey Ivy’s photo expertise was also very valuable in creating the right look for the cover photo. Thanks, Tracey, for your patience with us too.
In this book, I have tried to create laughter, tears, anger and joy. Perhaps some of you can provide feedback on my success as I plan my next book, Brittany .

PART I The Early Years

Chapter 1
S ilence. Unnerving silence. We both said nothing, just left the building and walked to the car parked in the lot across the street. Still nothing. If I didn’t see her walking beside me — well, slightly behind me, I’d want to check her pulse. Is she still breathing? I can’t hear it. I even opened the door for her, thinking perhaps…. Nothing. She just plopped herself into the seat like I was some unknown driver, hired just for this trip.
We crept through three lights and onto the freeway entrance ramp. My attention was diverted briefly as I merged into traffic, speeding up as I did. For perhaps the only time in my life, I realized that I was finally cruising just under the speed limit. My usual speed is six to seven miles per hour above the speed limit—no matter what the speed limit is. I figure that living in Texas brings with it the privilege of driving above the speed limit. Countless speed traps have excused me at those rates, so that’s simply the norm in Texas—except in school zones; perhaps two to three mph above the limit there.
Transportation has always been a waste of time to me; I’m a strong advocate of teleportation if it ever works. But today I deliberately wanted to take extra time. We both needed it: time to think, time to reflect, time to fully understand the events leading up to this moment.
What really brought this on? Whose fault was it? Anyone’s? No one’s? I still didn’t have all the facts. I hoped she would open up to me, give me all the (gory?) details. If she wanted to hold back, maybe she would hold back with her parents, but not with me; at least that’s what I hoped. Now, nothing but silence. I had to let her be the first to speak, really tough for a talkative person like me. I bit my tongue and drove.
No judgments on my part, at least not until I heard her side of what had happened. Right now, I knew only what the police had said, and that wasn’t much, just the results of perhaps many details creating a domino effect into the final outcome. Even the police admitted there was likely much more to the story than they knew.
Think. What was occurring at her home yesterday, last week, last month? Could anyone see this coming? Should we all have seen this coming? I needed to think about it.
However, rather than thinking about all that had just happened, I found myself drifting back some fifteen years to that day in Mercy Health Center in Oklahoma City. Nana and I had just flown up from Houston. Driving down the John Kilpatrick Turnpike, Mark’s “outside temperature” reading on the dash showed triple digits. But we didn’t care; it was a great July day—bright sunshine both outside and inside the car. As we jumped from the SUV, we didn’t even notice the hot wind, slowed only by a few old oil derricks or perhaps a barbed wire fence or two on the prairies west of town. Wind always blows in Oklahoma, plays havoc with your golf game. On this day, however, our thoughts were on only one thing. Our second granddaughter awaited us in the hospital nursery!
Everything leading up to this wonderful event had been great. The pregnancy had been planned. Three years after the first child, just like Nana and I had planned for our children. So it took a few extra months to conceive; no big deal. Not everyone could time it to within two days as Nana and I had. We were lucky, plain and simple, lucky.
Everything was fine; that is, everything except that Mark had been transferred by his employer from Dallas to Oklahoma City. For grandparents, a four-hour drive from Houston to Dallas is not a big deal. Easy weekend. But a seven-hour drive or a two-hour flight on a puddle-jumper to Oklahoma City is in another dimension. No more