Eileen’s Guesthouse

Genre: Contemporary

A place, a guesthouse, where visitors come face to face with their devils.

Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DB6FHRY7

Synopsis

Overlooking Horseshoe Point at the end of Sea Lea Avenue in a quaint village of Charlestown, Rhode Island, you’ll find Aileen’s Guesthouse, where a smattering of locals and lodgers cross paths in the 1970s. Whether through cultivated connection or random encounter, these folks have more in common than first meets the eye for their unintentional culpability in jeopardizing the life of an immediate family member.

Cross the threshold into a home away from home, a refuge for healing, and a retreat for cultivating hopes and dreams. Eavesdrop on those who survive the ravages of a guilt-wracked conscience and struggle to find meaning in the suffering they’ve caused. Mind you, dinner is served at six o’clock sharp.

Excerpt

The independent three-year-old swaggered to the Point under a delusion of invincibility. Stepping into shallow water up to his ankles, he stooped to fill his pail. His compromising position put him in harm’s way. Before Reid knew what hit him, a rip current snatched his pail away and lay claim to a hapless victim. He shrieked in fright.

In the throes of getting sucked from shore at a speed of eight feet per second, he thrashed his arms around in an all-out effort to keep his head above the rip. About a half-cup of saltwater entered his airway, closing it. The lack of oxygen rendered him unconscious, and seawater filled his lungs. Within twenty seconds, he went limp. Going along for the ride, the rip current carried Reid fifteen yards away before circling back with him to the beach in a span of three minutes.

Unforgivable Accident

While Reid’s lifeless body crested a wave on his return trip, Aileen managed to pin down the fitted sheet on the clothesline. Craning her neck to peer out from behind to check up on her brother, and not finding him in his sandbox, her stomach knotted in fear. She came around and stationed herself by Reid’s excavation site, noticing three towers at their tipping point instead of the usual four. A palpable sense of dread portended an end to the easygoing life she cherished. Surveying the immediate surroundings in search of him, she trembled.

Rubbing her eyes in disbelief at the unspeakable horror she descried, Aileen could not rebuff reality. The tempest-tossed mannequin lying belly-down along its hitch from the breakers to the shallows was none other than Reid. She willed her legs to take off in the direction of the rip current as it circled back to where it had absconded a once, carefree child.

Wading into the Point up to her knees, Aileen bent forward to snatch her brother from the clutches of the sea. Cradling Reid in her arms and bracing his neck to stabilize it, a surge of adrenaline combatted the shock of embracing his rigidity, while beholding the bluish discoloration of his lips and beds of his fingernails. With reverence for her heavy bundle, she averted her eyes away from Reid’s blank stare and plodded along to the Stantons’ home stretch of dry land.

Opposing thoughts tore at Aileen’s heartstrings as she laid Reid with painstaking gentleness on dry land next to his staging area. A transitory monument to his artistic aptitude, allotments of sand set aside for turrets awaited Reid’s deft fingers to configure them into a splendorous castle. Waging war from within, Aileen’s body shook with convulsive sobs. She rested her head on her brother’s cold and clammy chest, squandering precious seconds while she debated the right thing to do. Fully aware, brain damage and death can occur without resuscitation if a drowning victim has been submerged for as little as four minutes. Fully aware, a drowning victim can be brought back to life for as much as two hours after the heart has stopped beating and the brain isn’t getting enough oxygen.

“Oh, God!” she wailed, blinded by tears.

Indecision

Believing Reid brain-dead, restoring his cardiovascular function so he could survive for years on life support in a vegetative state, went against her grain. In a heartbeat, from out of nowhere, self-guilt tore through her line of compassionate thinking and filled her mind with doubt. Faith in her moral judgment wavered. Unable to refrain from initiating heroic measures to save a life, she turned Reid’s head to the side, allowing any water to drain from his mouth and nose. Centering his head back, she began the procedure of artificial respiration by expelling four breaths into his mouth while pinching his nose.

About to put her ear near his mouth and watch his chest for any movement, a flashback of Reid swatting her hand and telling her to go manifested itself as a sock right between her eyes. Dumbfounded, Aileen didn’t know what hit her. She hadn’t the foggiest notion about the body’s energy channels. Specifically, the third-eye chakra, purportedly linked to receiving communication from beyond the materialistic world.

Call it a whammy emanating from Reid’s spiritual essence hovering over her in the fly space between heaven and earth. No, Ai-leen! Now, go!

Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DB6FHRY7

Eva’s Interview on this site: https://writeanygenre.com/2020/09/04/eva-pasco/