Amelia's Children

Chapter 1

1985

As Amelia lay curled up in the underbrush by the riverbank, her blood-soaked nightgown felt cold against her skin and made her shiver. She knew she was dying. Nothing was going to stop that now.

Her last thoughts were of the decisions that had brought her here. She contemplated the terrible secret that she had protected for so long and that had finally caught up with her. She was being punished for that secret now.

She also thought about Robert, remembering how in love they had been on their wedding day seven years before. That day had been the turning point. If she had not married him, then maybe she wouldn't be where she was now. Maybe she wouldn't be hiding here in the bushes, her feet caked with mud and her hair a tangle of leaves and twigs, as blood loss and hypothermia fought to see which one would kill her the fastest. But as she fought through the cold and the pain and the fatigue she knew that, deep in her heart, she still loved him. And had she known what was in store for her, she still would have made the same choice.

The cold was unbearable, but somehow her body stopped shaking. It was as though she simply did not have the energy for it anymore. Her eyelids felt heavy and she closed them. And she slept.

2015

It was my first week back. I was working at Rick and Rhonda's, the little restaurant that my parents owned. It was not my first choice for a career, but it was where my life seemed to be headed at the moment.

Like a lot of girls—well, people in general, really—who grow up in small towns, I had big dreams, but before I could live those dreams, I had to get out. And I did. At twenty-two years old I graduated from college with a degree in dramatic arts. The very next day I hopped on a plane that took me to Los Angeles and what I hoped would be a successful acting career. The irony is that I spent most of my time there working in restaurants—the very fate I had been hoping to avoid when I first decided to leave home.

I stayed for three years. The first thing I discovered was that it was going to be hard for a Baptist girl from the Bible Belt to assimilate into the culture of Hollywood. But I needed to assimilate, so I made a decision to change my religious practices. I thought maybe it would help me fit in better. In my working life—both in the restaurants and in the few acting jobs I was able to land—I was surrounded by people who were either atheists, new age spiritualists, or Catholics. Not being ready to give up on Jesus completely, I chose to align myself with the Catholics, but that ended up leading to my second discovery, the one that eventually prompted me to return home.

It quickly became evident that, despite my four years of intensive study and the money my parents had poured into my education, as an actress I was mediocre at best. I was, however, young, tall, slender, and blond. So casting directors were interested in me. Or perhaps I should say they were interested in my headshots. Once they met me it was a different story. Good little Baptist girl turned good little Catholic girl that I was, I proved to be rather uncooperative as an actress. I refused to take off my shirt, I giggled if I was asked to kiss anyone, and I actually slapped a young actor who tried to fondle my breast, even though he was only doing what the director told him to do. My colleagues—fellow waitresses who were also waiting for their big break—told me I was nuts. That I was killing my career before it even started.

"It's not like you have to actually have sex with anyone! It's just pretending," was one response that I received from a well-meaning friend.

Other, less friendly comments contained words like "prude" and "goody-goody."

I stuck with it, though. I pointed out that there were lots of actresses out there who had never done a nude scene, and whose sex scenes were at least tasteful. That was the kind of career I was after, and I knew it existed. What I didn't realize was that those actresses had something I did not have—talent. Not that I was terrible. There was just too much competition for me to be able to make my mark.