Welcome Bettye Griffin to the blawg!
***
If you’d like to get the full schedule of where Bettye’s
characters are visiting this week, please check her
blog.
Secrets & Sins by Bettye Griffin
In this sweeping, 115K-word novel, Bettye Griffin introduces
readers to the Cheeks family of Zion, Illinois: Eldest daughter Faye,
whose placid, orderly life is about to be disrupted in a way she
never could have imagined...middle child and only son Scott, who
brings new meaning to the phrase 'midlife crisis'...and youngest
daughter Robin, who is divorced from but not exactly rid of her
former spouse.
At the center of the story is their mother, Julia Scott Cheeks,
who along with her devoted husband Melvin, has tried to keep two
scandalous family secrets hidden and has been successful for 55
years...but when Robin mentions the name of the former classmate she
has a romantic interest in, Julia fears that the events she has tried
so hard and for so long to keep her children from knowing are in
danger of being exposed...
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Bettye would love to give a complimentary download of
Secrets
& Sins to a reader. To be eligible, all you have to do is
leave a comment before midnight Central Time today.
There must be
at least two comments left for an eBook to be given away, if there is
only one there will be no prize. Bettye will post the name of the
winner tomorrow morning, so please check back, for she will need to
hear from the winner.
And now, today’s character sketch:
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Zion, Illinois, January 2010
I’m Diana Major McMahon. I’m 55 years old and am right back
where I started: Zion, Illinois…and broke as the day I was born.
I was born here, but moved to St. Louis when I was 17. I was
unmarried and pregnant, and every day I had to endure comments from
my parents about how it was all my fault that they had to leave their
home and friends behind. You see, the reason we moved wasn’t so
much just because I was pregnant, but because I knew the baby was
going to be biracial. My parents were beside themselves when I broke
the news, worrying about what all their so-called friends would say
once it became apparent that their daughter had spread her legs for a
black guy. My mother even suggested they tell everyone I’d been
raped…except one of our neighbors was a policeman and would have
known about it. My father arranged for a job transfer, and to rent
our house in Zion to a colleague, because it was their intent to
return to there as soon as I could stand on my own two feet. They
longed for that day. Never mind that they were merrily planning their
return well before I even had a high school diploma.
I gave birth to my daughter, Sabrina, and then got my GED. I
worked nights at a supermarket and studied when I could. Then I went
to a technical school to learn computer programming, which was a hot
profession back then. I’d been working for three months when my
parents informed me they were going home. They helped me rent and
furnish a one-bedroom apartment for Sabrina and me. They told me
they’d be back to visit us when they could…in other words, don’t
visit us; we’ll visit you. They still didn’t want their friends
and neighbors to know they had a mixed-race granddaughter.
I resolved right then and there that I was
going to make it. I was 22 with a 5-year-old daughter. I’d managed
to have a sex life once I got out on my own, after Sabrina was in bed
for the night. She never knew what went on after she was asleep; I
didn’t want to expose her to a parade of lovers. Looking back,
having sex with the knowledge that you could be discovered at any
moment added to the excitement. With no bedroom of my own, my partner
of the moment and I would do it in the bathroom or in the coat
closet, and occasionally on the sofa, always half-dressed, always
ready to spring to our feet if the door to Sabrina’s bedroom
opened. I was always drawn to black guys; I’d never experienced sex
with a man of my own race, but eventually I got tired of illicit
relations with men who were always broke and had nothing else to
offer me but a bottle of cheap wine and a hard dick. I knew guys who
made nice salaries from work, but they were always married.
Then one day at the supermarket, Sabrina wandered away from me. I
was frantic when I saw she was gone, and I rushed to the customer
service desk to report it…and there she was, smiling and holding
hands with a clean-cut, handsome, brown-haired man with a lock of
hair that kept falling over one eye. His name was Larry McMahon. He
hadn’t wanted to leave Sabrina until her mommy came to get her.
Larry was a rising financial star, an accounting director at a
manufacturer. He asked us to lunch on the spot, and we went. I was
thrilled at my good fortune. This good-looking, free-spending man was
interested in me. Sabrina’s biracial heritage didn’t bother him
at all. I soon learned that I needn’t have worried about him being
able to satisfy my strong sex drive. Well-off, handsome, and a great
lover…I was in heaven.
When he was promoted to corporate treasurer, he asked me to marry
him. I hesitated, thinking of how wonderful my life could be:
manicures, pedicures, facials, shopping, the gym, lunches with
girlfriends. I didn’t want to tie myself down with diaper duty
unless it was a deal-breaker. I told him that I wasn’t sure if I’d
be able to have any more children due to some unspecified female
problem, and that I didn’t think I was made to be an adoptive
mother. He said not to worry, that he loved Sabrina like she was his
own.
Sabrina asked me about her daddy as soon as she made friends who
had two parents. I told her that he really hadn’t wanted us around,
so it was just the two of us. I was so happy when Larry asked her if
he could be her daddy. Heaven knew I couldn’t tell either Sabrina
or Larry the
real story…
Anyway, Larry and I got married, and he kept climbing the
corporate ladder. Eventually he became the CFO of a beverage
corporation. We lived the good life…a mansion in a pricey
suburb…private school for Sabrina…wonderful
vacations…furs…jewelry. I had a housekeeper and always drove a
sleek late model car. How I gloated when my parents came for one of
their rare visits.
The party continued for thirty years. Larry suffered some
financial setbacks from investments that went south. He told me we
needed to tighten our belts, and I tried, I really did. I honestly
didn’t think it was that bad. He kept the magnitude of our
financial situation hidden from me. It wasn’t until after he died
that I found out just how bad things were, that the years of high
living were over and that I’d been left with nothing.
So here I am, back in Zion. I hate to say it, but the best thing
my mother did for me was pass away when she did. My father had died a
few years earlier, and her passing meant Sabrina, her kids, and I
would have a place to live. My brother, Mark, and I had never been
close. He’s a college professor at the University of Wisconsin in
Madison and didn’t want the house, which had been left to us
jointly. The house is paid for, but Mark said if I wanted to live in
it, I’d be responsible for taxes and upkeep.
I hadn’t worked in years, and jobs writing code aren’t nearly
as plentiful as they used to be anyway. Sabrina was a trained LPN,
and not only hadn’t she worked in years, she had never really
warmed to the profession. Besides, not having an RN degree limited
her earnings. Since both of us knew how to type, we got
administrative positions at the largest employer in the area, Abbott
Labs.
So I’ve gone from living the high life to barely eking out a
living. I can’t remember the last time I bought something new for
myself. There’s a possible way I can get my hands on some money,
though. Now that I’m back in Zion, I’m hoping I can get the
answer to the question I’ve been wondering about for 38 years…
Which one of the guys that I slept with in high school got me
pregnant?
----------------------------------
Read more about Diana in
Secrets & Sins, out
now! Kindle owners can get it at
Amazon
or at Bettye’s
eStore.
Readers needing EPUB or PDF formats can get theirs from Bettye’s
eStore,
where eBooks always cost less, usually $1. You can always whet your
appetite by getting the FREE download of the prequel,
Sinner
Man, which is available at
Amazon,
Barnes
& Noble, and at Bettye’s
eStore.
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