by John Smolens
Abigail lifted him up by his stout forearms. He loved this always, releasing silent peals of laughter. She waded out, dragging his legs through salt water. Turning side to side slowly, she pulled him through the small glinting waves and then up into the air, and then down and up again, and again, and again, until she gathered him, wet and shivering, to her chest. “Look, Ezra.” He watched her lips as she formed the words slowly. She was convinced that when she held him in her arms, he was soothed by the feel of her voice, its timbre rising up through her breasts. “We’re home.”
On the shore, Benjamin and Mariah were clapping their hands.
Ezra didn’t hear them—or the caw of the seagulls high overhead—but his mouth remained open with mute fascination as he extended his arm. He pointed, across the harbor, toward the islands, out to sea, and to the high clouds piled upon the horizon. It didn’t matter where or in what direction. He was seeing it all for the first time.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wish to thank Northern Michigan University for the Peter White Scholar Award, which provided me with course release time and funds that helped me to complete this book. For their abiding commitment and enthusiasm, I am indebted to Claiborne Hancock and Jessica Case at Pegasus Books. Finally, I am deeply grateful to my literary agent Noah Lukeman, for his pugilist’s tenacity and crystalline foresight.
The Schoolmaster's Daughter
Pegasus Books LLC
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Copyright © 2011 by John Smolens
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN 978-1-6059-8373-8
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