Waiting for Sunrise (36 page)

“Do you have any of the herbal raspberry like you had the last time I was here?”

Lisa stared at me as if I had three heads. “Of course.”

I smiled at her. “Then, yes.”

“Is Dr. Claybourne’s daughter a pediatrician as well?” Lisa removed the stainless steel teakettle from a back burner and set about filling it with water.

“I think so,” Derrick said from beside me. “He said they were in practice together.”

I shrugged. “Well, then, that would make sense,” I said, as though I knew what I was talking about. I wiped my mouth with the rose-colored linen napkin that had rested in my lap, laid it beside my plate, and stood. “Let me get the tea set ready,” I said to Lisa.

“You know where it is.”

Indeed I did. I also knew how special it was to her. It had been a gift from her mother-in-law on her wedding day, passed down two generations. Creamy white bone china from England with a spray of yellow daffodils and green ivy. I also knew how it must pain her that she had no one to pass it along to.

“Are you going to services in the morning?” Lisa asked after I’d arranged the tea set on a carrying tray.

“It’s a Sunday, isn’t it?” I asked with a smile.

She leaned in and whispered, “Good, because Dr. Claybourne asked to go with us.”

“I heard that,” Derrick said.

All I could do was laugh.

Before I begin my ramblings about how much I love Cedar Key and the gratitude I have for those who took part in the writing of this book, I must first tell you how difficult
Waiting for Sunrise
was to write.

A few years ago, I wrote an article for Crosswalk.com about loving those who have mental illnesses and the boundaries we are forced to set. My email account was flooded with responses by folks within the church body who have suffered in silence because of the taboo we’ve placed on mental illness.

Mental illness doesn’t always make itself known by wild ramblings, matted hair, bugged eyes, and frothing at the mouth. It comes in all forms and knows no social or economic boundary. It doesn’t even care about your religious background, and it surely doesn’t care about what you think you know about it. Mental illness can come from places in our bodies that simply are not fully connected or formed
or
it can come from unresolved issues from our past.

In the course of my own life and the lives of my beloved family members, I have learned much about abandonment, post-traumatic stress disorder, Axis I and Axis II psychoses, etc. When I outlined this book, I knew how a form of mental illness would affect Patsy’s story but had no idea how it would play a role in my personal life while I was writing it. This made the writing all the more difficult, but it is something I now feel a passion for as I’ve never before felt. And, I believe there should be no more stigma around mental illness than, say, diabetes.

On another related note, however, what we knew in the sixties about mental illness or dysfunction is a far cry from what we know today. Our methods of treatment are so much more advanced. It was not altogether uncommon in the sixties for those with inability to cope to go away for a while to hospitals and institutions (not that it was
ever
discussed publicly). Some patients were dealt with more severely than others, by use of medication and shock therapy. Praise God some of those treatments no longer exist.

Please know, my reader, that when it came to Patsy’s abandonment issues, I went as deep into her psyche as I could . . . for now. So, bear with me as you read.

Now, on to other things! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Cedar Key is definitely one of my most favorite places in the world to roost. It is, for me, a tropical paradise. From the moment I arrive and long after I leave, the sweetest peace falls over me. Rest and respite: this is what Cedar Key is all about.

As Billy says to Veronica, there’s a lot of history in Cedar Key. I feared I may not have gotten it
all
right when it comes to Cedar Key in the fifties and sixties. But God blessed me; just after book 1 in this series,
Chasing Sunsets
, was released, “old-timers” from Cedar Key notified me. They loved knowing I’d used their home as a romantic setting for the novel, and they were willing to share their memories.

So allow me to start there. Thank you to Annette Haven, who gave me fantastic information. And to Beverly Goode (Edna Brown), who has shared with me so many fond memories of growing up on the island and, better still, who has become my friend. A thank-you to her brother, Henry Brown, who in his eighties has a sharp memory. Henry was the mayor of Cedar Key in years past as well as the owner of the Cedar Key Fish & Oyster Company (mentioned in chapter 26).

A huge thank-you to Captain Doug and to his lovely wife Barbara of Tidewater Tours
.
Somehow the “thank-you” to these two was left off in the last book’s acknowledgments, and quite frankly I cannot imagine having written the book without them! I have taken many tours with Captain Doug and enjoyed every one to the fullest. He is a font of information and knowledge.

Thank you, Karlene Duke, for sitting one afternoon and talking with me about being a young teenager in the late 1940s. What fun (and I enjoyed the cake and coffee and view from your lovely home)!

Thank you to Lena Nelson Dooley, Connie Stevens, Fred St. Laurent, and Ed Vandemark, for sharing with me about that day in May when an American astronaut went into space for the first time. And thank you, Loyd Boldman, for explaining to me what was being said by NASA on the YouTube tapes.

Thank you, Mark Hancock, for explaining to me about abandonment issues and syndromes. Not to mention just listening to me ramble on about
my
problems, never mind Patsy’s!

Thank you to my Cedar Key traveling buddies: Robi Lipscomb, Cheryl Moss, and Janice Elsheimer. Thank you to my friends Cynthia Schnerger, Gayle Scheff, and Rene Forehand, who read pieces of the work. Thank you (HUGE “Thank you!”) to Shellie Arnold, who read the whole thing and kept making me dig deeper into my feelings. Ouch.

Thank you to the Jerry B. Jenkins Christian Writers Guild Word Weavers Orlando chapter and to our novel group for the critiques and praises. You also make me work harder than I knew I could.

Another huge thank-you to Jan Powell, who gave me a place to write in her Tampa home, undisturbed, so I could get back on track with my word count.

Thank you to my readers and fans. You are why I write and who I write to.

Thank you again and again to my agent Jonathan Clements (you da man, L’il Bro), to the whole Baker Publishing Group family, to my editors at Revell, Vicki Crumpton and Kristin Kornoelje (whom I met for the first time in—ta-da!—Cedar Key)! Thank you to my family, who puts up with me while I’m writing—most especially to the most wonderful of all huggy-hubbies, Dennis.

Always and always,
Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you will never leave me nor forsake me and that you show me, time and again, how even the rotten details of my life are clay in your hands.

For further clarification within the book, to my knowledge, there is no Mercy Street Baptist Church or Alachua County Hospital in Gainesville, Florida.

Eva Marie Everson
is the author of over twenty-five titles and is the Southern fiction author for Revell. These titles include
Chasing Sunsets, Things Left Unspoken
and
This Fine Life
. She is the coauthor of the multiple-award-winning
Reflections of God’s Holy Land: A Personal Journey Through Israel
(with Miriam Feinberg Vamosh) and, of course, the Potluck Club and the Potluck Catering Club series with Linda Evans Shepherd. Eva Marie taught Old Testament theology for six years at Life Training Center and continues to teach in a home group setting. She speaks to women’s groups and at churches across the nation and internationally. In 2009 she joined forces with Israel Ministry of Tourism to help organize and lead a group of journalists on a unique travel experience through the Holy Land. She is a mentor with Christian Writers Guild and the first president of Word Weavers, a successful writers critique group that began in Orlando and has since become the Jerry B. Jenkins Christian Writers Guild Word Weavers. She serves on its national leadership team. Eva Marie speaks at writers conferences across the country. In 2011 she served as an adjunct professor at Taylor University in Upton, IN. Eva Marie and her husband Dennis enjoy living “life on the lake” in Central Florida, are owned by two dogs, and are blessed to be the grandparents of the five best grandkids in the world. Eva Marie considers a trip to Cedar Key the perfect respite.

Things Left Unspoken

This Fine Life

Chasing Sunsets

Books by Linda Evans Shepherd
and Eva Marie Everson

The Potluck Club

The Potluck Club—Trouble’s Brewing

The Potluck Club—Takes the Cake

The Secret’s in the Sauce

A Taste of Fame

Bake Until Golden

The Potluck Club Cookbook

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