Friday, July 18, 2025

Beginning ~ with an earthquake

Beginning
The year I lost my wife and son, my son performed nine separate tests of my character.  One night during Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, the sofa tipped beneath us, and this is how it began.

"Whoa," he said.

His palms were flat on the sofa cushions.  Liz was sitting cross-legged on the floor, and before I could think to stand, she had taken him by the wrist and led him to the shelter of the door frame. 

The Testing of Luther Albright ~ by MacKenzie Bezos, 2005, fiction (California), 256 pages

Luther Albright is a builder of dams, a man whose greatest pride (besides his family) is running his hands over the true planes of the house he built himself and knowing that he’s constructed something that will shield and shelter them from harm.

A relatively minor incident  an earthquake that shakes his Sacramento home — reveals fault lines and cracks in the facade of his family.  His teenage son’s behavior becomes increasingly bizarre and threatening, his wife becomes more distant.  Then a dam of Luther’s design comes under investigation for structural flaws exposed by the tremors.  In the midst of his heartbreaking family dissolution, Luther must battle against the need to withhold his emotions and push his family even farther away.

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