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    The Heart Calleth
    The Heart Calleth
    The Heart Calleth
    Ebook76 pages1 hour

    The Heart Calleth

    By Paula Freda

    ()

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    About this ebook

    THE HEART CALLETH (A novella with drama, romance, adventure, and science fiction.) ... Cosmic dust from a supernova explosion millions of light years away, finally reaches our galaxy and collides with our sun. The impact of the collision is so fierce that it increases the explosions in our sun to the degree of causing intense solar flares to radiate toward earth, causing apocalyptic devastation. As the earth heals, Sandra Kile marries the man of her dreams, knowing full well that his heart still belongs to his first wife, Laura, whom he adored, but who died during one of the resulting earthquakes. For fifteen years Sandra has believed herself at "heaven's gates." Her life has been filled with her husband's respect and caring, five beloved children, and a simple, fulfilling, if hardworking life as a farmer's wife, until the morning when she answers the door and Laura stands before her....

    This story appeared as part of the anthology novel Heart Bouquets (ISBN 978-1-4523-4787-5) that comprised 3 novellas and 3 short stories written by the same author.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPaula Freda
    Release dateApr 22, 2011
    ISBN9781458040121
    The Heart Calleth
    Author

    Paula Freda

    About the AuthorDorothy Paula Freda, is also known under her pen names Paula Freda and Marianne Dora Rose. Herbooks range from Fiction and Non-fiction Adventure, Romance, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Poetry, Articles, Essays and How-to-Write Instructional complete with Lessons and optional assignments.Homemaker, mother of two grown sons, and former off-the-desk publisher of a family-oriented print small press, (1984 thru 1999), The Pink Chameleon, that she now publishes on line, Paula was raised by her grandmother and mother, and has been writing for as long as she can remember. Even before she could set pencil to paper, she would spin her stories in the recording booths in the Brooklyn Coney Island Arcades for a quarter per 3-minute record. She states, "I love the English language, love words and seeing them on display, typed and alive. A romantic at heart, I write simply and emotionally. One of my former editors kindly described my work, '...her pieces are always deep, gentle and refreshing....'" Paula further states, "My stories are sensitive, deeply emotional, sensual when appropriate, yet non-graphic, family fare, pageturners. My hope is that my writing will bring entertainment and uplift the human spirit, bring a smile to your face and your soul, and leave you filled with a generous amount of hope."

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      Book preview

      The Heart Calleth - Paula Freda

      The Heart Calleth

      by Paula Freda

      © 2005 by Dorothy Paula Freda

      (Pseudonym - Paula Freda)

      Smashwords Edition

      Bookcover - Licensed iStockphoto

      All rights reserved

      This is a work of fiction, names, characters, places and incidents are a product of the authors imagination. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

      This novella appeared as part of the anthology novel Heart Bouquets that comprised 3 novellas and 3 short stories written and copyrighted by the same author, Paula Freda.

      CHAPTER ONE - Like Trailing Ribbons on a Valentine

      CHAPTER TWO - Almost Heaven

      CHAPTER THREE - Laura

      CHAPTER FOUR - The Road Not Taken

      CHAPTER FIVE - Heaven's Gates

      The Heart Calleth

      by Paula Freda

      CHAPTER ONE

      Like Trailing Ribbons on a Valentine

      Sandra loved Kevin since kindergarten, but for as long, Kevin loved Laura. Puppy love, the grown-ups tagged Sandra's feelings. By her thirteenth birthday she agreed with them. By then, Kevin and Laura were inseparable, as though born joined at the heart. Sandra wanted nothing but the best for Kevin, and Laura was the best. Kevin was smart, attractive, good-natured, and athletic, qualities Sandra had been reared to admire. Laura was beautiful, with the grace of a matte portrait, and character to go along with it. Sandra sincerely cared for both of them. Like trailing ribbons on a valentine, she became their best friend.

      All three lived on the same block in the small Massachusetts town, attended the same schools, and graduated Greenvale High on the same bright sunny morning. The trio's parents were friends as well. Sandra's parents had divorced when she was an infant. Neither had wanted her. Her conception had been an accident, after a night of too much partying. Her mother's sister, Jennifer, officially adopted Sandra and raised her with all the love and care she would have given her own child.

      All that Sandra had ever wanted was to be wanted. But on those few occasions when her parents passed by their small hometown, a hug and a shake of the hand were all they were capable of giving her. Both lived and worked in major cities, in management and sales. Their work required them to travel. Often Sandra had hardly memorized their new addresses and phone numbers, before a letter arrived informing her one or the other had relocated. Both her parents had contributed towards her education. Each sounded appropriately disappointed when she informed them separately, of her decision to leave college and join the local working force. She opted for a Typist job at Greenvale's local and only bank. Her twenty-second year found her seated beside Laura on a bleacher at a UC Davis campus, applauding enthusiastically as Kevin received his Bachelor Degree in Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. She had traveled cross country by air with Laura to the California campus.

      Laura's pale blue eyes, a shade lighter than her neatly pressed pantsuit, beamed quietly with pride at her fiancé's achievement. She, herself, only a week prior, had graduated from their hometown College with a Bachelor in Education, and awaited certification to teach on a grammar school level. Next week, she and Kevin were to be married. Sandra had consented to be one of their bridesmaids. She considered Kevin enormously lucky, and well on his way to achieving his dream of owning and operating a profitable fruit and vegetable farm, and marrying his childhood sweetheart.

      Growing fruits and vegetables was not the loftiest of dreams, but the earth and its natural resources had always intrigued Kevin. He wanted to make his living from and by the earth. His parents had been farmers in their native Abruzzi in Central Italy before immigrating to America, and he had been born shortly after. All through his childhood and young adult years, his mother and father had imbued him with a love for the soil and what it could yield under a nurturing hand. From early Spring to late Fall, the garden behind his parents' grey-shingled home, a modest cape cod, was his training ground. Bearing fruits and veggies in abundance, the garden was the marvel of the block.

      It'll be over soon, Laura said, siphoning Sandra's thoughts back to the present. After the Ceremony, Mom and Dad would like you to join them in the guests' lounge. Kevin and I are joining his roommate and friends for some final good-byes. We may take a later flight back. Sandra nodded. She understood. Kevin would naturally only want Laura with him. Both had been kind enough to invite her to the graduation. They were always kind to her, taking her, as if under their wing, for as far back as she could remember.

      As it turned out, Sandra did not see Laura and Kevin until later that week, two days before their wedding, at the church rehearsal.

      Our Lady of the Roses was a Roman Catholic Church that over the decades had opted to keep its traditional interior. Except for the changes in the Mass's Liturgy, mainly from Latin to English, and the Altar repositioned so the Priest faced his congregation during the Celebration of the Mass and the Holy Eucharist, the Church's hallowed interior continued to boast dark wood and gold trim. The pews, fastidiously polished each week, smelled of walnut and lemon oil. Statues of the Blessed Lady of Fatima and several Saints, stood in carved alcoves, each with his or her own cascade of flickering candles in red glass holders. A flesh tone enameled figure of Christ nailed to a huge wood Cross, hung from the ceiling over the main Altar.

      Sandra loved this Church, especially the Cross, and the expression on Christ's face. The artist who designed this particular Cross had imagined the Lord a moment before death, eyes filled with suffering and weariness, yet conferring an encompassing forgiveness and benevolence. To Sandra the figure seemed almost to breathe, and in its presence she felt protected and reassured. No matter what life might throw at her, the God-man on the Cross was there

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