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Author Insight
Chasing Yesterday, Chapter 1
The book opens with the main character, Katie Murray, feeling anxious and overwhelmed at a wake. We find this isn't just any wake, but it is for her young husband, and she is standing in the receiving line. She is dealing with the grief of his death, a sense of guilt given she believes she should feel more devasted since he was the only man she had ever been with after he pursued her as a secret admirer in high school, and the stress and assumptions raised from this strange mourner with an inappropriate hat. The conflict in the way she feels, and questions left unanswered, and a little help from above, start her on a journey to recapture a second chance at yesterday.
Book Excerpt
Chasing Yesterday
Chapter 1It was the hat that Katie first noticed. Glimpses of it appeared and disappeared as people moved together and apart, in groups talking low, the gentle hum like a beehive in the background. This summerlike hum was sporadically broken up with laughter like they forgot why they were there, with others crying softly and needing consoling off to the side.The room was overly serene, decorated in the barest of blush pink, gray, and ivory. It had been very elegant in its day, but that had been many years ago. The air was cloying, heavy with the scent of roses, lilies, and gardenias, coupled with far too many people. They moved slowly about, in a rhythm that mourners instinctively knew and adopted while wearing the customary somber mix of dark suits and dresses.It was against this muted background that Katie first noticed the bright turquoise hat with peacock feathers. It stood out in stark contrast. It was a hat that Katie thought said: Kentucky Derby -- festive, not funeral.Between handshakes and hugs, the mumbled I’m sorry’s, and awkward introductions, Katie looked over the ever-growing sea of people for the turquoise hat, her eyes flicking between the person in front of her and the crowd.Waterfield was a small town, and she knew most people as a photographer from years of working at the local paper, The Journal. There were also many faces she didn’t recognize that were colleagues. This hat should not be a distraction, but it was. Who would wear a hat like that? Or wear it to a funeral? Flashes of bright turquoise or peacock feathers, swaying and bouncing above the crowd, would come into her line of vision and then disappear again, but always at the far end of the room, off by the doorway of an adjoining room, as if the hat-wearing woman was not sure whether to come in to offer condolences or not. Katie thought there could be only one reason the woman was on the fence; if that were the case, it would not be good.As Katie scanned the throng of people at the far end of the room, the late spring sun dipped low enough to find the tall windows previously sheltered by deep navy awnings. Dust motes danced in the beams of sunlight, and the already airless room would only become more suffocating soon. The sun beams also made it more difficult to search for the woman with the odd hat, so she turned her attention back to the husband and wife in front of her whom she had never met. The man looked sad, and the wife had red-rimmed eyes. She listened to them without really hearing, shaking her head and saying thank you in low tones, and then they were gone only to be replaced with another mourner, another handshake, another condolence.The stately home-turned-funeral parlor was a pale-yellow Victorian set along Waterfield’s Main Street near the town common. Waterfield was a small suburban town just north of Boston, spotted with small ponds and clusters of woods, surrounding a quaint downtown area with brick sidewalks and a graceful town common. Small shops and boutiques lined the few streets in the business area, including her storefront a few blocks away. This was an idyllic location she now called home and never wanted to leave until now, wanting to escape this day. Especially now, in this stifling hot, overly loud room.It was an unseasonably warm spring evening. Katie could picture the young families heading out for ice cream after dinner further up the street, the teens gathering on the town green, throwing Frisbees or talking in groups, commuters from Boston getting off the train hungry and looking forward to getting home to light their grills. All so normal and peaceful, she stood in this room, greeting many people she did not know and repeatedly saying the same canned responses – more for their closure than hers. This seemed surreal, even with the last few weeks of preparing for this end. Or maybe because it had only been a few weeks? She could not be sure, but then again, she hadn’t been sure of much these last few weeks, months, hell, years.Before the attendant made his way to the front windows to adjust the blinds, blocking the setting sun and view of the small but neatly manicured front lawn, Katie could see there was still a line of people waiting on the sidewalk for their turn to pay their condolences. The heat, partially from an abnormally hot day in May, the number of mourners not moving along, and in part, she guessed, from air conditioners that needed an overhaul, was starting to make her feel closed in. She wondered if this was what her mother had described as hot flashes as her whole body would flare up, and she would feel hot and dizzy, and it would die off again in waves.Pushing back a loose tendril of wavy dark hair behind her ear, Katie turned to her father-in-law and whispered, “I need some air.” He leaned toward her to hear as she kept her voice low. She caught a scent of peppermint as he nodded his assent and gave a weak smile and an even gentler shoulder squeeze to indicate he had things under control. She knew he really didn’t. He had stopped talking about a half-hour ago and was nodding a lot now, not trusting his breaking voice. This was taking a huge toll on him, and she felt an immediate surge of guilt that it was not more devastating to her.Katie bent her five-foot-two-inch frame to grab her purse tucked under the chair behind her. The chair she had stood dutifully in front of for the last two hours had seen better days and she felt like she probably looked the same. At thirty-three years old, she felt time catching up to her and she kept promising herself she would start practicing more self-care or at least address the silver strands starting to show up.Clutching her small gray bag, her mossy green eyes scanned the room again, catching a flash of the bright blue she was searching for but still could not see a face. Just the damn hat. Weaving herself through the crowd, she avoided eye contact with those looking pitifully at her or wanting to talk. She intended to find the peacock-feathered hatted woman and figure out who she was.She felt a hand stop her sideways maneuvering between two groups of people and her friend Maggie’s voice, “Honey, where are you off to?”“I was looking for someone . . .” Katie craned her neck but could not spot the hat. “Did you see someone wearing a fancy hat?”“Fancy, how?” Maggie’s face had a look of both concern and curiosity.“Like those big Kentucky Derby hats. Or something a woman would wear to a polo match. Bright blue with peacock feathers sticking out and a bow made from some sheer gauzy material. You would know it if you saw it.”
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