I took a bath. I needed to cleanse myself psychically as well as physically. As I washed, I thought about what Owen said concerning Viola Parker. Thinking of Owen nauseated me and made me feel quite guilty so I switched my concentration to Viola Parker…my ethereal intruder. Funny he should say what he did—like he knew her or of her. I couldn’t figure the connection because she was quite old and, as far as I could discern then, not related in anyway to Jake’s family. Her name had never come up in any conversations, or her existence. So I wondered why Owen thought it odd that I bought her house after she died. But I was sure, Viola Parker herself would reveal her past to me because…she never really left here, never gave up claim to this place.
Shockingly, startlingly, Viola just started showing up, rocking away in that old chair and grinning at me like the Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland. She rocked and rocked in that damned chair or Chair of the Damned, as I like to call it. And I was not happy about it. My aversion to Viola’s corporal presence and ethereal spirit might seem odd given my desire to make contact with Jake but I knew nothing about her. She could have been a crazy person in life and be a slasher-type in death like Nightmare on Elm Street’s Freddy. So, naturally, I was cautious. At first, I thought I was hallucinating. I had placed the chair in the living room right near the fireplace. It looked smart there. It was not a fancy rocker, just plain wood with a worn seat cushion but it had character like an antique. Could have been from JC Penny for all I knew about antiques but it had the look. I never sat in it because that worn seat suggested its heavy use by a now dead Viola Parker and that was creepy. I decided I would sit in the chair when I got a new cushion, but I was too busy studying and being a mentally disturbed hermit to refurbish anything.
The encounters began one night after dark (naturally), exactly one week after my mother left. The chair started rocking by itself. I was walking in the hallway and threw a glance into the living room. The chair had rocked. There was movement. I stopped to catch another look. The chair was still. I looked away and then sensed a one-two rock. I was intrigued and freaked out so I went over to the now stationary chair and felt around for a shot of air or any other logical disturbance. I manually rocked the chair but there was no explanation. I decided that sleep deprivation had distorted my accurate assessment of rocking versus not rocking so I went to bed to get some much-needed rest.
The next night the same thing—edge of vision rocking—straight on looking no rocking. This went on for five nights and I decided to throw out the chair. I took it out to the street for pick up and watched the truck drive away with the chair in its bowels. But my intuition or premonition did not give me a peaceful feeling as I watched the truck drive out of sight. With dread, I walked back into my house and sure enough, there was the chair.
Sunspots is personal. A personal journey of grieving, a personal journey of self-discovery, and a personal journey geographically. A young woman from Brooklyn, Aurora, a man from Austin, Texas, Jake, meet accidentally in NYC and it changes the trajectory of their lives. Aurora decides to grab on to what she perceives may be her only chance at the comfy married existence that has so far eluded her. But it is no hardship to leave NYC and her stalled acting career for this apparently wealthy, dynamic, handsome lover who whisks her off her feet. But after the honeymoon, reality sets in and she realizes that marriage can be isolating, and that the socio-economic differences between her and Jake can become a wedge. How can Aurora adjust to these changes? How can she regain the independent personality she had before Jake became her only focus in life?
Fast forward two years, and Aurora finds herself a widow. An accident. Unexpected. And then her journey becomes one of accepting the harsh reality of encounters with Jake’s ghost, the real nature of her time travel experiences, and Jake’s true character. Viola Parker is her guide through these episodes not of this world. Viola, a ghost who has a connection with Aurora’s past, leads her to find, Cliff, her true soulmate, her true love in this life erasing the pain of her mistakes with Jake Stein through the centuries. Sometimes from the ashes, sometimes from blackness awaits the brilliant light of a life of happiness.
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Genre – Contemporary romance, Magical Realism
Rating – PG-13
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