“He’ll be here in a minute.”
That’s all I heard. I walked to the farthest car in the line, acting like it was mine, then I dropped and rolled on the ground to the bottom of the hill where there was a tree line. I never looked back—I was into the trees and running.
Snow started falling and piled quickly. Hypothermia must have started its process by the time I got to Dad’s. He never came to the door. I knew he was in there—his pickup was there.
I went to the shed thinking I’d get in his old truck and at least be out of the wind when I saw the key hanging on the wall for the cabin down the road. If I could get in that cabin, I knew I could run a hot bath, start a fire, there might even be some food in the cabinets, left from a former tenant.
But somewhere between Dad’s place and the cabin I lost that key.
The Bible refers to stolen water as sweet. I think it means a stolen kiss from someone who is not your wife. And those stolen clothes had looked so sweet, the bite was in the hole in the pocket of the jacket.
When I lay down on the porch of that cabin, realizing that the cold was reaching up to my throat with her icy clutches, I could see a light in the distance.
I thought of Ezekiel, my namesake in the Bible, and his vision on the banks of the Kebar River. Heaven. Splendor. An understanding of the vision God had in mind for His people. We’re forever falling out of the rows and pulling our oxen through the muck.
Meanwhile, He never gives up hope on us, that we’ll someday figure it out. I think Tandy saw right there at the end. I think she saw that my love for her, while flawed, was the best I had to offer. I wanted to believe she was grateful at last. That she wanted to end on a good note, and I wanted that for her.
As I lay on the porch looking at that light, I thought I could see Tandy whole in the distance, like Ezekiel looking at that vision. And my mother standing beside her, smiling. I envisioned myself with self-respect again, standing upright, somewhere out in front of me.
But it was a long way off, so I lay down there a minute to rest and thought back over my life and decided it was a good one, after all. About as good a life as any man could ever hope to have. I was offered imperfect love, and I gave it. That is something fine indeed.
* * *
It took Maggie nine months total, January to September, from the first words to the sending off of the manuscript to the editor—same as the gestation period for a baby.
“What happens now?” asked Maggie. She and her agent sat in the same hipster coffee house where Maggie so frequently met Cal or Robbie.
“They’ll send you a schedule.” Julie, a deep auburn redhead, smiled at her from across the table. “Maureen will send her suggestions back to you in a couple of months. You’ll have a few weeks to review them and send her another revision. Then you’ll do it again, but you won’t need as long on the second go-round.”
Maggie had known Julie was the right agent for her. An onslaught of emotion bubbled up, causing her eyes to fill. “And Maureen is a good editor? It’s important to me that the final version is as strong as we can make it.”
“She’s great! And that’s what editors are for.”
It was hard to believe, after all this dreaming, listening, slicing and dicing, that it was time to let Zeke’s story go.
“What are you going to work on next?” asked Julie.
“I’m thinking about a series of historicals called Tales from Marston County.”
Julie cocked her head. “I like the sound of that. Tell me more.”
34
And that’s how story comes. Like a ghost. A wisp. An apparition. Like a snippet on a website. Love seeped into the walls of a cabin.
Romanticized. Imagined. A feeling you get when you walk into a lonely man’s farmhouse. Gossip in a library. Memories etched into the wood of a doorframe. A memory…a smell…red hair…a promise. A dream that comes in the night and rekindles your hope.
Mark and Robbie’s wedding was lovely the following April. Canon had informed the town planners he was done planting cherry trees around the square, but it was decided Marston would continue having an annual festival.
On the last Sunday in April…two weeks after tax season ended…Tom walked Robbie down the white steps of the Marston County Courthouse, and she and Mark were married on the lawn surrounded by friends, family, and thirty cherry trees shedding the last of their blooms.
Tom and Canon shared an awkward handshake after, while Maggie walked over to Bethany and asked if she could hold the baby, a girl they named Carmen, with soft tufts of blond hair.
Later, when Maggie, Yvette, Dot Jenkins, Becky and Shirley, who had long ago stopped giving Maggie a hard time, had cleaned up the last remnants of the couple’s reception, and Robbie and Mark were headed to the cabin for their honeymoon, Maggie walked out of the library where Canon was waiting.
He offered her his arm. “I’m thinking about retiring early.”
“But law enforcement is in your bloodline.”
“I know. A day like this makes a man wonder about his future, though.” Canon’s voice dropped, “Can we be next?”
Maggie had held him off, not wanting to steal thunder from her children. Cal and Yvette had gotten married in a destination wedding to Jamaica in February. Maggie had gone alone since Canon couldn’t get away that long. Now that Cal and Yvette’s and Robbie and Mark’s weddings had come and gone, it was time.
“Pick a date,” Maggie said.
In your fifties, the urgency of love is different.
It’s, how long do I have? And, let’s get to it—to making a wooden sign together that says, ‘Canon and Maggie’—sharing coffee on a white-railed porch watching the sun come up over your fruit orchard.
Epilogue
A month before her book was set to come out, as Maggie packed her things to leave the condo—her lease was up and she was getting married in a week in a little white country church, freshly painted, with new windows installed—she pulled her cookbooks from the shelf. The one with the Brown Sugar Salmon recipe fell open and a thin sheet of paper fell out. How had she not noticed it before? Maggie used recipes from this book all the time. But the paper was fine and must have clung to the back of the page.
She picked it up, not recognizing the sharp, slanted handwriting.
Don’t judge me too harshly about the man they’ll find in the ditch, Maggie. He was a bad egg, unlikely to convert.
You’re going to be fine, you know, just fine in the end. There’s a strong light in you, a light meant for sharing. I had that light once, or at least I like to think I did.
I didn’t tell you this, I’m not sure why, but I tried my hand at writing, too. I tried to write my story. They let you have pen and paper in prison. I could never quite tell it like I thought it, though, and the pages got left behind. They’re long gone to the incinerator by now. I wanted to explain I wasn’t mean like some folks at the trial made me out to be, that I had my reasons for doing what I did.
Maybe you’ll tell it for me, Maggie. But don’t paint me with greater grace than I deserve. I don’t justify my actions. They were wrong, and I paid dearly.
Here’s the one piece of advice I’ll offer—this is for writing, and for life in general. Don’t try to write the truth exactly; the truth is slippery. A man—or a woman, I suspect—can go crazy trying to decide what the truth really is. Base what you write on what people need to hear, Maggie—on what you need to hear—or better yet, on what you need to say. I don’t see how anyone can do better than that.
You’re in there typing now. I won’t be here when the snow melts, but you keep typing, Maggie. Whatever you do, don’t fear your life. Don’t fear your death, either. And don’t fear whatever crosses you are handed between the two.
It’s all meant to take you to the place you’re supposed to be.
Zeke
Author's Note & Acknowledgements
I have fond memories of riding to Perry County from Nashville in the back seat of our family
car—often tucked onto the back window shelf before seat belts were required by law—listening to my parents talk about the homesteads we passed as we traveled to visit extended family.
When I moved to Hickman County that neighbors Perry as a young bride, then moved to Gainesboro, then back to Hickman County, I came to understand how you do know people who live all up and down the winding highways. And like Norman Maclean alluded to in A River Runs Through It, words telling stories lie under the rocks of the rivers, and words are buried in the Tennessee soil.
I include this in an effort to help readers understand where I'm coming from as a writer. My goal is to weave a tapestry of stories connected to a common place—by homesteads and intersecting family lines—over time. Most of these will be in historical settings, but Alone in a Cabin takes place in 2016, the year my first book was published. The year Maggie turned 50 is the year I turned 50. A divorce wasn't my kick-start into writing (I am happy to report that Stan and I are solid), but there were other events that had me re-evaluating and finally leaning into the calling I'd always felt to write.
It is my privilege to teach Business Communication classes at Lipscomb University in Nashville. God knew I needed some business acumen, so He put me in the College of Business where I get to help students refine their career goals and give them practical advice on how to achieve them. What a blessing this is to me!
Thank you, LORD, for the many ways You have equipped and blessed me through the equipping and blessing of others.
Thank you Don (posthumously) and Joan for first planting the seeds of story in me.
Thank you DePriest Bend and the old Wood homestead (now an Amish farm) and the family lines that have extended from them for providing such a rich sense of place.
Thank you friends, family, and church communities of Hickman, Perry, and Jackson Counties for teaching me to love small towns and for fostering my early writing dreams.
Thank you to all the thought leaders and influencers, several of whom are quoted or mentioned in this work, for teaching and inspiring the rest of us.
Thank you Matt Hearn for giving me such a spot-on quote about the writing life, and Jennifer from LIFE who helped teach me that the bars of prison can be a source of freedom to some.
Thank you Dana Chamblee Carpenter for all the practical wisdom you’ve shared as my critique partner and propping my arms up when needed.
Thank you Julie Gwinn for believing in me and serving as my agent.
Thank you Andrea Lindsley, Jade Novak, and Patti Trapp for being my Friday morning walking crew/sounding boards.
Thank you Donita Brown, Denis Thomas, Holly Allen, and Tessa Sanders for being my fellow faculty writers group/sounding boards.
Thank you Shelby Mick, Kathryn Mick, Mary Beth Best, Joan Wood, Kathy Steakley and Andrea Lindsley for being early readers of this manuscript and offering such great feedback for improvement.
Thank you Randy Bostic for easing my mind on legal matters.
Thank you Ami McConnell Abston for being a great friend and a great connector for all those who love story and work in this industry, and Jenny Hale for the generosity of your time and wisdom, and Mary O’Donohue and Jenny Baumgartner for that great therapy session at Ami’s that served as a final nudge I needed to set this story on the waters.
Thank you Stan and Jo for offering me daily pep talks.
And thank you Shelby and Lincoln who kept me propped up on this one: pre- during- and post-pandemic. Watching the two of you continue to bravely create your art in the face of a challenging year did more to keep me moving forward than you know. My pride and love for each of you fills my heart and keeps me dancing.
Photo by Shelby M'lynn Mick
Alone in a Cabin is Leanne W. Smith's first contemporary romantic suspense novel. Her Amazon bestseller, Leaving Independence, and its follow-up, A Contradiction to His Pride, were post-Civil War historicals. Regardless of the time differences, all three inspirational stories have ties to the fictional Marston County in Middle Tennessee. In addition to writing, Leanne teaches in the College of Business at Lipscomb University in Nashville. She and her husband have two grown daughters and a son-in-law who each make the world more beautiful with their artistic talents. Visit Leanne's website at www.leannewsmith.com for more information about her books or for inspiration in pursuing personal and career-related dreams.
About the chapter headings
Most of the chapter headings in Alone in a Cabin are original to me. Others are a collection of thoughts and quotes that come from a variety of sources that have inspired me as a writer.
Readers will already be familiar with some, others may be new. Following is more context for each in case you find it interesting. If I were sitting with you in a coffee shop and you asked me to share what I've learned about the craft of writing, I would say, "Read Alone in a Cabin. It's my love story for writers. I put the best lessons I've learned in there."
1: A story begins with a disruption to the heroine’s daily life—a major disturbance in the balance of things that throws her off her footing and sets her on her rump.
Stories typically focus on something extraordinary that happens in an otherwise ordinary life. The place to begin is in the middle of things (known as "in media res") where that extraordinary something happens. The other two goals of Act 1 (the first 15-20% of your novel) are to set the background and establish what the character wants.
2: “Rustic cabin. Built in the 1850s. Original fireplace. New windows. Only 70 miles from Nashville. Perfect writer’s retreat.” Airbnb description
I made this cozy little spot up—my own idea of the perfect writer's retreat—but real ones are out there.
3: After the inciting incident kicks the heroine to the ground, she has to decide whether to lie there or stand up and put one foot in front of the other. If she can rally the reader has cause to cheer.
Your main character can't be weak or the reader won't root for her. She doesn't have to be perfect—she shouldn't be perfect. But something about her should inspire.
4: Nothing can remain as it first appears. If it does, the reader won’t turn the page. If the reader doesn’t turn the page…well…what’s the point?
Karl Iglesias wrote in Writing for Emotional Impact that movie audiences “pay to feel.” And readers read to feel. So make them feel something.
5: An artist must prepare for the unexpected. Entering a new realm is frightening, a risky proposition with a real chance of failure, including the chance of harm and damage to your soul.
I don't know how to separate who I am from the story I'm seeking to tell. Things have a way of working themselves into the manuscript that I didn't even consciously know I was wrestling with. So for me, it takes courage to write, because I don't know all that it may reveal.
Even though Alone is a Cabin is my third novel, it's the story where I finally gave myself permission to be a writer—an affirmation that I’ve learned something about the craft. But also an admission that brilliant writing will likely always elude me. The critics will forever loom large, and I am my worst.
6: "Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?... Search me, God, and know my heart…lead me in the way everlasting." Excerpts from Psalm 139, NIV
Psalm 139 is my favorite passage in Scripture. The last phrase encapsulates what I want for my writing—that God would lead me to pen everlasting truths that glorify Him and help people feel less alone.
7: “It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.” Marcus Aurelius
I do fear death. But like I think Marcus Aurelius was getting at, I don't want this to keep me from being courageous.
8: There is something sexy about a man in uniform. Prison garb does not count. Nor does clothing from the eighties.
Admittedly, Rick Springfield did look good in eighties clothing. That bit about Maggie seeing him in concert when she was sixteen? That was me and my friend Rhonda, fourth row, screaming with the
best of them.
9: Stephen King said in Secret Windows that writing allows you to step into another world, to “be someplace else for a while.”
In the movie adaptation of Isak Dinesen’s Out of Africa, Karen von Blixen tells Denys Finch Hatton that she has been “a mental traveler.” That’s what books allow us all.
10: The Shirelles first asked the question in 1960 and women have been wondering ever since: “Will you still love me...tomorrow?"
This is the tune that popped into my head when I was here in the story. Sometimes you agonize over a name, a scene description, the right word to use. Other times the Rolodex of your life spins and shoots out a name, scene, or sentence fully formed, ready to go.
11: There can be no resurrection if there is no death. Conclusion drawn from the study of Ezekiel in the Bible
I always need a minute to let that sink in.
12: According to Sol Stein, the fiction writer's job is to entertain—to create pleasure for the reader.
This seems in conflict with what Stanley Williams says in The Moral Premise. (Great illustration of this is Les Mis. Every character’s arc runs along the common moral thread of redemption.) I actually think Sol and Stanley are both right. Entertainment that has a point stands to resonate most with the reader.
13: Twice in Act 2 there should be a plot twist, a major turning point, something the reader is not expecting. Often it surprises the writer, too.
There are two camps of writers: the plotters and the pantsers. I secretly envy the plotters. They outline the whole story, the scenes, then fill in the details. Which sounds like a very smart way to go about it. But I write by the seat of my pants. The only picture I had of Cabin when I started was of a lonely woman in a remote place. And then a guy showed up.
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