Overshadowed Hope

Copyright © 2014 by Becca Lee Nyx

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review. If you really have to have a copy of this book and you do not want to pay for it, contact me on Facebook, Twitter or Goodreads. We can work something out if that means you aren’t stealing this book from a torrent site. If you have downloaded this book for free on a torrent site, please remember that stealing is wrong and you have just taken from a normal hardworking person, not much unlike yourself.

Disclaimer: While this is a work of fiction the characters are inspired by real people. Views, Ideas, actions, and morals of the fictional characters in no way reflect those of the people who inspired this story. Names have been changed to protect privacy. This story was not told to exploit but to offer an alternative ending and to tell the story of what could have been. Names, Locales, and some places are entirely made up by the author and are used ficticiously. Any resemblance to any persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

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Overshadowed Hope

Becca Lee Nyx

For my cousin, whose life inspired this story.

While your story ended in an unfair abrupt way,

I hope this ending is all that you wanted and more.

MDF, gone but never forgotten.

Chapter 1

Guilt: it stabbed at her like a knife and twisted; imbedding itself firmly inside Missy. Her stomach churned, her face grew pale. Why her? Guilt; memories of being a little girl and loving her grandmother more. Guilt; giving up the only man she ever loved because of the color of his skin. Guilt; introducing her father to someone who caused him to cheat. Guilt; her family torn apart. Guilt; the fights with her mother. Guilt; putting everyone through this hardship because she couldn’t pull it together. She couldn’t admit there’s a problem. She reached down to turn on the tap and splashed cold water on her face, hoping to push the guilt deep down; to keep it from surfacing.

Her stomach growled audibly. How long since I last ate? She quickly pushed the thought aside. People like her didn’t get to eat. People like her didn’t need to eat. People like her didn’t deserve to eat. Her family was broken and it was her fault. Her mother loved her sister more than her. Her father was gone and it was her fault. It was all her fault and she didn’t see any other way around it.

She avoided looking at herself in the mirror. She didn’t want to see the visible damage to her body; her thin face, straw like hair from lack of nourishment, and frail frame. She didn’t want to admit something was terribly wrong. How could she?

Instead she left the bathroom and walked down the hall to her 8th grade English classroom. This was her only saving grace. Something she’s done right, being able to teach; her only out.

As a child it was her teachers that influenced and helped her. They inspired and pushed her. She looked up to them and dreamed of the day she would be able to be someone’s mentor; someone’s inspiration. She pushed herself through college to achieve this dream, running track to maintain her scholarship to the point of hate. Just one more time. She told herself often, just to make it through the run for the day. She used to love the freedom it gave her, but now she hated it. She was excited when she landed the teaching job at Ashdell Academy. If only she could command the respect of her students. If only… If only…

The students chatted and played with their phones while Missy struggled to talk over them. Respect: she wished she had it. It was blatantly obvious that she didn’t. She knew better. She knew not to let her students control her. But today, she didn’t think she could. Today there was too much on her mind. Today she wanted nothing more than to be alone at home with her cat. Prissy loved her. Prissy understood; he didn’t make judgments behind her back or ask her if she’s eaten. All Prissy cared about was being fed and getting his next bowl of food. Missy gave him the good stuff, too; only the best for her Himalayan Siamese cat.

The noise, the texting, the giggles; Missy finally had enough. SHUT UP AND PUT YOUR PHONES AWAY. WE ARE READING! She yelled and a group of schocked faces stared back at her. Damnit. I need to stay calm. The end of the day is almost here. She knew she was going to hear about this later. She knew it as well as the time on the clock. There’s always someone who tells; there’s always someone who knows. She’s already talked to the principal about this many times, but every once in a while she loses control. Today of all days has to be the worst for her. Today was the anniversary of her grandmother’s death. Her sweet, sweet grandmother, who took care of her as a child. Her grandmother who made Missy dresses and spent time with her. She listened to her grandmother and loved her possibly more than her own mother. Her grandmother who gave and gave until she had nothing left and died one day after eating a banana. Her health already weakened from battling cancer. Missy only knew her for sixteen years, but those sixteen years weren’t enough. She wanted to see her grandmother get old and live a long life. Instead she lived to be 43. Even though she was young she looked old. Radiation cooked her, and left her with nothing. She was in and out of the hospital for years. Every time family would gather by her bedside, and be there for her. No one knew she was so close. Her reports showed she was getting better, but one day at breakfast it was all over for her.

Missy would always remember the funeral; putting the orchid pink lipstick on her grandmother before the viewing, looking at the pallid face of the woman who cared for her, and looking at her own mother who was too busy to care. Too busy to be there. Too busy thinking about everyone but her. Her death was only amplified by the death of her great grandmother two years before. Only her great grandmother lived to be old. She was happy, for the most part, but endured abuse from her late husband. Irene was a woman of steel. She endured and survived life during a time life was hardest. She didn’t put up with much, but she had a heart of gold.

Both women Missy looked up to. Both women Missy tried to draw strength from, after all they shared the same birth month. There was something about the women in the family, they came from good stock. That was before Missy’s life came crashing in around her. Before she stopped running. Before, when everything made sense and she had something to look forward to. Now Missy was beginning to think there was nothing left for her. Her family was moving on and she was left behind, hands stretched out waiting for someone to grab her hand and pull her close to them. Someone to offer her protection and tell her it was all going to be okay, that it wasn’t her fault.

Missy kept it all to herself though. No one knew of the battle she fought every day. No one knew of the guilt she carried around. No one knew just how hurt she really was. Maybe her outward appearance showed of her struggle with food, but no one really understood why. Everyone just assumed. She doesn’t like her body, she wants to be thin. She’s heard the whispers behind her back. The names she’s been called, the girls who wanted to be like her.

But she walked the halls letting no one know how she felt. She walked the halls constantly thinking about her empty belly and food. It kept her mind off the pain she felt daily. It was a distraction, and it was something she could control. She felt better; superior when she didn’t eat. She felt she was accomplishing something more, like she had a super power. It made her feel special. It made her feel something. Her lack of eating brought as much comfort to her as comfort eating did to a fat person. It was safe.

She made it home to her house; Prissy greeted her at the door with a welcoming rub against her legs. Missy reached down and smoothed Prissy’s soft fur, then walked to the kitchen and gave him a bowl of food. Prissy happily tucked in after a sniff, and Missy rifled through her fridge. Fruits and vegetables lined the insides. She could take her pick if she wanted, but the lurch in her stomach changed her mind, and she curled up on the couch instead with the Food Network on. She liked cooking even if she didn’t eat. Cooking reminded her of her grandma. Cooking put her in tangible reach of food, getting close without actually giving in.

The farm was the only place Missy felt at peace. She loved standing in the middle of the golden field filled with wheat as the breeze brought the wheat’s sweet smell to her. She didn’t mind the foul smell of the chicken houses that belonged to the neighboring farm. She always passed when she went to feed the pigs that were kept by the pond that her great grandfather made. There was something deep inside her that she loved about the farm and a longing existed to continue the work of her family even if it wasn’t a farm that distributed to any large companies. The only thing the farm was good for now was growing food for the family and land for neighboring farms to rent. Even if it was a little run down, there was something to be said for the simpler life it provided. Far away from any big cities and surrounded by other farms in a rural area, it was the perfect place to Missy.

As a child her summers were spent there with her grandmother, grandfather and great grandparents. She would listen to her grandmother, Agnes and great grand mother, Hazel work together as they would can the harvested fruit and vegetables from the garden for the winter. Missy would shell the peas, snap the green beans or shuck the corn, along with picking whatever they needed to be picked. It wasn’t a task she liked as a child but as she grew older she began to appreciate the work that went into it. She would listen to the stories Irene would tell while they sat with a big bowl of peas or green beans. Irene would explain what life was like in the 1930s on a farm practically in the middle of nowhere and Missy would listen and try to imagine what life must have been like. It wasn’t just a story of a time and place. It was stories of her heritage. Irene would explain that in the 1800s her family emigrated from France. Over the next two generations they moved from the East coast into the West so they could find a place all their own. The Chatel family finally settled in the Oklahoma and Texas border near the Oklahoma panhandle and Irene met Archie Bahm, they began seeing each other and it wasn’t long until Irene and Archie married. Shortly after they had Agnes, the depression years hit and the three picked up and moved in search of a better place. That’s how they ended up on the border of Missouri and Oklahoma. They found an old Army barracks that was selling for cheap. From there on out it was hard work clearing the trees and rock from the ground so they would have decent land to plant on. Archie turned the barracks into a house and made nothing into a working farm.

Soon Archie was planting crops and Irene was right alongside him helping. It was how they ate and thrived during those times and they came out of the depression better than most. The stories of her families’ hard work and survival helped Missy. She learned that she can accomplish anything she sets her mind to. In the afternoon, Archie and her grandfather, Charles would come in from the hot summer sun and would sit down to a warm lunch. They would grunt and talk of the work that they still needed to do, finish quickly and go back out to finish their tasks. Missy would leave the house in search of something to do, having already finished her kitchen duties for the morning.

She would ride her bike up the street and around the town, that’s when she met Danny Rivers. He was walking alongside the rode with a kite in his hands. Missy stopped and asked him what he was doing. He told her he was looking for place to fly his kite and Missy offered him a ride on her bike back to the farm. Danny smiled, his teeth were bright white against his dark lips and skin.

It was the thought of Danny that jolted Missy from her sleep. She found herself on the couch, the TV was on with an infomercial, the fan whirred above her, circulating the air of her vaulted ceiling. Prissy was curled up next to her, the lights in the house still on. She grabbed her cell phone and looked at the display; she had to rub her eyes to clear them so she could read the time. It was 2:56 in the morning, and her stomach gave a painful growl. She stretched and made her way to the kitchen. She wasn’t fully aware of what she was pulling out of the fridge, she just knew she was starving. By the time she was done stuffing her mouth with food her stomach began a new protest and Missy found herself running to the trashcan as her body rejected everything she had put in it. Missy sat there on the kitchen floor next to the trashcan and cried. The day of her grandmother’s death was over, but she still wasn’t better. She was still consumed with her past and the mistakes she had made and her body was unforgiving. Her life was still spiraling and all she wanted was someone to still her; someone to help her. The one person who could left her life a long time ago. The guilt still stabbed at her, guilt for letting that one person get away and leave her.

Chapter 2

Missy’s mother, Lois wasn’t a bad person. She did the best she could. Money always seemed to be a problem so Lois found herself working to pay the bills. It didn’t help that she used her credit card with the same enthusiasm that a child eats candy. A little retail therapy never hurt anyone and after a long day of working she deserved it.

Lois never realized the toll her lifestyle took until she watched her daughter waste away before her. It wasn’t sudden it was subtle like a gentle breeze on sweat during a hot summer day. First Missy explained she was going on a diet. She wanted to lose the weight she had gained after she stopped running. She wasn’t fat but she wasn’t as thin as she used to be. Mom you should diet with me. She told her mom one Sunday afternoon two years ago. Oh honey, I would like to but I don’t really have the time to think about it. Lois had said, not because she didn’t want to lose weight, she did, she didn’t want to add one more failure to her list that was steadily lengthening.

That was how it started. Missy began to diet, and then she started running again. She took on the assistant coach position at the school along with her other teaching duties. She had pride in her job and believed in practicing what she preached. As time went on she stopped eating around people. She would stay in the kitchen or show up late at restaurants when invited. She lost the weight she had gained but it didn’t stop there. Her body kept getting smaller, and Missy didn’t seem to notice. Her constant talk about food worried Lios, but Lois was hopeful it meant that her daughter was eating. After all she had other things to worry about. Her other daughter was pregnant. Missy could take care of herself but she wasn’t so sure about Erin. She was fifteen and in her first year of high school. Once Erin told her boyfriend about her pregnancy he dropped her like a hot potato and started seeing another girl at the school. Lois was excited about being a grandmother but unsure of the responsibilities another person would bring. She was having a hard enough time keeping her head above water. Erin would have to find a job, that’s all there was to it, but the situation wasn’t solved so easily. Someone had to watch the baby when he or she got there and Lois was so busy she wasn’t sure how it was going to happen.

Missy took the news of her coming niece or nephew as well as she could. She was excited, but at the same time she couldn’t help but think it should be her. The full extent of her loneliness was brought full circle with the news. And every time she looked at her sister all she saw was the baby she didn’t have, the baby she should be having. Missy often thought life was cruel and unfair and this only solidified the idea. After all, girls were supposed to grow up, get married and have babies. She was the exception to the rule and it haunted her. She wanted nothing more than to be a wife and mother, yet somehow a family of her own seemed out of her reach. Sometimes she would allow herself to think that she had never been in love, but that would be a lie. She had been in love. She was still in love. He was the reason that she hasn’t met anyone else. She always compared everyone else to him and no one could hold that flame in her heart and tame it. Only one person could and he was half a world away because she let him go. She became a coward when it mattered most. It was the one moment in her life that she wished she could take back over all the rest. If she could then maybe she would be the one having a wonderful bundle of joy and not her sister. Maybe she wouldn’t care so much what her mother did, or how her sister acted, maybe she would be able to focus on her own life and herself. But she couldn’t change the past and her future seemed aimless; with little promise to give her what she desired most. Missy had the summer to look forward to, though. She was going to go to the farm and help. She was going to learn how to run it, how to plant, and help her grandfather. It was the only shining glimmer that she desperately held on to and maybe just maybe she would get news of him. The only part she wasn’t looking forward to was her step-grandmother. She was like a dark, foreboding cloud in the middle of a sunny day, which only grew worse with each passing. It had yet to turn into a storm, but Missy felt it was only a matter of time. The soon to be storm that was Bertha was biding her time. Missy hoped that the clouds would recede before Charles gave in.

Missy’s original intentions for dieting were innocent. She really did want to lose the extra weight she had gained when she quit running. She was having to buy clothes that were two sizes up from the ones she wore in college and she worried that her weight would continue to increase if she didn’t get some control back. She was never naturally thin. It was running and her diet