After surviving a horrific childhood, Lucy ends up on her own trying to find solid footing in her tumultuous life. Unfortunately, her early attempts at doing so leave her living in her car and knocked up by her drug dealer.
Being a teen-aged mother drastically changes Lucy's life, but also allows her to view herself in a positive way for the first time. Her new perspective has changed her entire concept of love, and she is able to see that everything she was searching for was right in front of her all along.
Set in Southern Suburbia, Light through the Cracks is a story of resilience, strength, love, and the ability to not only survive in a formidable world, but to find peace and hope there, too.
Excerpt:
Lucy froze as a low, drawn-out moan rose from the floor in the hallway outside of her room. Her father’s steps were heavy and slow and deliberate, and the sound immediately turned her body to stone. She considered for a moment that she imagined the noise, but knew from the way everything in her mind seemed to tilt a little to the left that he was there. She knew he was making his way to her door, creeping like a cat toward an unsuspecting bird.
Lucy was not a bird, and she was not unsuspecting because she was awake and intensely aware of her surroundings. Falling asleep at night was not something that came easily to her. She regularly pulled her covers over her head and read by flashlight long after her mother insisted she went to sleep.
Reading her books carried her through the days, and very slowly and softly eased her into sleep at night. Her father’s presence outside her bedroom door terminated this process, and Lucy was immediately at full alert, the stillest and most awake she could possibly be. She wanted him to believe she was sleeping, so did not turn her flashlight off or close her book or roll over into a proper sleeping position because sleeping people did not do that.
She strained to hear the noises in the floor to determine where exactly her father was going in the middle of the night. It was not uncommon for him to wander the house at all hours, or to raid the pantry, binging on entire loaves of bread and entire jars of jelly and anything else he could get his thick, calloused hands on. He would then often fall asleep wherever he was sitting, usually on the couch in front of the television downstairs.
Lucy did not like it when he slept on the couch, exposed and out in the open. She always recoiled from the sight of his bloated and hairy belly, of his mangy white briefs, and of his hair sticking up all over his head on the mornings after his nighttime gorging forays.
She liked it when her father stayed in her parents’ bedroom, or in his home office. These were his designated areas of the house and as long as Lucy did not disturb him, he mostly stayed put, deeply engrossed in whatever it was that he did.
Regardless of his intended destination, the sound of him moving about in the middle of the night was cause for alarm. As Lucy sat perfectly still under her blanket, she heard the soft metallic sound that her door handle made when someone was trying to turn it. She was immediately grateful for her recent insistence on locking her bedroom door.
Her mother told her that she could not keep her door locked because the firemen would not be able to get her out if the house went up in flames. Lucy did not tell her mother that she had more immediate concerns than being trapped inside a burning house.
Her father’s steps lingered in the hall. The flimsy lock on her bedroom door delayed his entrance, and also sounded a tiny alarm to warn her he was trying to get to her. Lucy knew he could easily get through her security system, but she also knew that it would be noisy if he did.
The only way he could get her door open without too much clattering was if he went into the bathroom across the hall and retrieved the tiny flathead screwdriver that fit perfectly into the groove that sprang the lock on the handle. But this would take at least a full minute.
Earlier that summer, Lucy took to leaning outside of her room through the dormer window after the smoldering sun went down, and observing the predictable life occurring on her suburban street. On each occasion she did this, she removed the window screen, much to her mother’s irritation. She initially replaced the screen each time she pulled herself back into her room, but quickly ceased going through all of that trouble and instead left it tossed aside on the roof of the front porch.
This allowed her to open her window and quickly spring from inside her room and out onto the top of the porch without hindrance, which is exactly what she did once she was certain her father was trying to get into her room.