Here's an excerpt from the chapter I'm currently writing. The dog has been named Shadow in memory of a real dog I once had and in respect to all the dogs I have loved over the years.
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS EXCERPT MAY BE UPSETTING
There’s only silence from behind the door and I wonder if she’s
gone.
“They said at the hospital we could go for family counselling. Do
you think that might help, Scarlett?” she asks quietly from the other side of
the door.
“Yes, why not?” Even though she can’t see me, I shrug. “Why don’t we
all go and sit in some psychiatrist’s office and tell him about how we heard
our dog howling in agony as his fur was scorched from his skin. Why don’t we tell
the nice doctors how Shadow howled until his throat was burned, how we could
hear him, but we couldn’t get to him, couldn’t save him… about how loyal he was. He wouldn’t have left us to burn like we left him.”
I can hear my mother openly crying now but still I lash at her with
my words. Because just like the wounds I made last night, these cuts help my
pain too.
