Chapter One
Early in the day of the storm that stole Olivia, I watched in
horror as she barely avoided being trampled by the pony I
had given her as an indulgent consolation gift. At the moment
of her rescue, with her small body shaking in my arms, I realized
that this new task of fathering would demand all my wisdom, heart,
and courage.
But only her abduction later that day drove home the knowledge
that parenting—more exactly, my failure at it—could make me feel
like dying myself.
Or like killing the man who, using the storm as cover, had kidnapped
her.
That October morning dawned too much like an idyllic autumn
Sunday: butterscotch light, a few stray vanilla ice-cream clouds, and
sparrows singing in the sycamores. It wasn't a Sunday, though, a
circumstance that left life's cheap irony incomplete. Instead, I faced
another prosaic Wednesday, which people with jobs call Hump Day,
the Heartbreak Hill in the Peachtree Road Race of their workweek.
&nb ... read full excerpt from Muskrat Courage ebook
