Susan Madison
BOOKS BY THIS AUTHOR
- Title: The Colour Of Hope
- Description:
The Carter family spend their summer holidays in Maine. On Will's 14th birthday a sailing trip goes tragically wrong. Daughter, Josie is swept overboard and lost without a trace. Life for the Carter's begins to fall apart. Can they find the courage to overcome the tragedy and rebuild their lives? From the Back Cover All her life, she had feared death by water. All her life, she had imagined the death would be her own. Ruth's strength is the strength of the Carter family, forged across the generations in the elemental beauty of the Maine coastline, though unlike her forebears she has pursued her destiny by achieveing a partnership in a Boston law firm. And Carter's House, once the home of rugged, seafaring adventurers, is now an idyllic holiday retreat. But this summer there is no escape from the tensions that have surfaced between her and her gentle husband Paul, and their beautiful, troubled sixteen-year-old daughter Josie - or from the tragedy that overwhelms them when a long-promised sailing trip turn their son Will's birthday treat into a nightmare. Trapped in a spiral of guilt and denial, Ruth knows only the darkness of grief until she finds the courage to return to Sweetharbor and confront her loss, and to understand why we sometimes inflict the greatest pain on those we love most. The Colour of Hope is the unforgettable story of a family's triumphant struggle to recapture the joys of the past, rebuild their love for each other and together confront the challenges of the future. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. About the Author Susan MadisonSusan Madison, was born in Oxford and now divides her time between Oxford and Tasmania. He first novel The Colour of Hope is published by Corgi. Excerpted from The Colour of Hope by Susan Madison. Copyright © 2001. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved All her life, Ruth Connelly had feared death by water. Once, standing as a child at the sea's edge, foam covering her feet, she had been filled with the sudden knowledge of terror, clear and sharp as the knife her parents sliced bread with. She held their hands, as water heaved away from her and lunged back again, heavy with intent. Wrinkles of water, glinting where the sun caught them. Diamond fingers, beckoning. Terrified, she tried to move away, out of its reach, but they urged her forward. Go on, don't be frightened, it won't hurt you. Unconvinced, she pulled at their hands but they held her tight, stepped nearer themselves. It's the sea, the sea, they said in high bright voices, come on, honey, the sea. Pebbles shifted under her toes. Slippery. Cold. The ground gave way. She stumbled and fell. Mommy! Daddy! She heard them, miles above her, laughing. She tried to stand but an unexpected wave slammed into her, green and glassy, determined. Daddy! She screamed again and the sea poured through her, swamped, deluged her. The gasp, the choke, clutching at green, at water which slid through her fingers: she remembered it still, salt stinging in her eyes, burning the back of her throat. She would never forget the purity of her panic, the premature step into adulthood as she sensed something of which she should not yet have been aware. Death. Oblivion. Nothingness. You were only under the water for a second, her father soothed, big, jovial, as he swung her up against his chest, it's all right, baby, it was only for a second. It was a second that would last a lifetime. All her life, she had feared death by water. All her life, she had imagined that the death would be her own. Standing on Caleb's Point, the low bluff which marked the ocean-most edge of their property, she looked down at the scene of that unforgotten moment. Beyond the fallen boulders was a tiny strip of sand, not even sand, small pebbles really, ground over the centuries to the size of peas. A beach, that was all. Nothing to be frightened of. But all these years later, she still feared the sea. At some instinctual level, she knew that it would destroy her if it could. And yet she loved this place. Up here, with the murmur of the waves, the honey-colored air, the waving grass brilliant with devil's paintbrush and field daisies, she found solace. She had come here so often during the years of her growing up. She did the same now, as an adult, a mother, a wife. The Point pushed out into water dotted with lobster-pot buoys. Arms of green woodland curved round the horizon on either side, trees falling down to narrow shorelines of rocks crushed and scarred by the fierce winter tides. The woods were broken here and there by the shingled roofs of summer cottages. Further out, in the open channel, lay the gray hump of Bertlemy's Isle, a barren piece of granite which rose from the water like a turtle shell, crowned with a small stand of spruces. Tomorrow, as they always did, the four of them would be sailing out there to celebrate Will's birthday. She grimaced, thinking that they needed something to celebrate. Wind flattened the dry grass of the bluff. Hawkweed leaves scratched the back of her thighs as she lowered herself to the ground. Behind her, a granite boulder reared out of the earth; the rain-formed dip at its center provided a toehold for reindeer moss and sphagnum, a creep of bearberry, asters, blue flags. Ruth leaned against it and closed her eyes, turning her face up to the sun, smiling as she remembered how, as a little girl, Josie had believed that the boulder was a pixie's garden. She sighed. It was so peaceful up here. No arguments. No bickering. No tension. Ants scurried over her feet. Maybe she should get one of the local carpenters to make a bench so she could sit in comfort. Every time they came up to Maine from the city, she toyed with the idea of suggesting that they move here permanently. Paul already held a part-time visiting professorship down at Bowdoin; he would surely find it easier up here to finish the book he was writing than in the Boston apartment, spacious though that was. The children, it went without saying, would be ecstatic. What held her back were her own needs. She would probably find work with one of the legal firms in Portland or Bar Harbor, but she had worked too hard, for too long, to want to start again at the bottom. She stared at the distant whaleshapes of Mount Desert Island on the horizon. Triangles of white sail were scattered across the water, heading out to sea from the little yacht club down at Hartsfield. One of them belonged to the children, though at this distance it was impossible to say which. Could they see her up here, watching from the bluff like a new-made widow still scanning the heaving sea for the drowned sailor who would never again come home to sweep her into his arms, smelling of salt and wide horizons? Though she did not feel like smiling, she waved, just in case. Smiled. Just in case. At her back, higher up the slope, were the pinewoods. Spruce, red and white pine, balsam, hemlock. The hot resin-scented air always recalled the simplicity of summer days when she was still just a mother and not a lawyer as well. Picnics under the trees. Hide-and-seek. Swimming in the pond. All the innocent things which, as a child, she had done in this dear and familiar place with her own parents. Where had it all gone, that security, that sweetness? Time had rushed by, leaving her to wonder what had happened to the chirping voices of her children, to their unconditional love, their trust.
