Rainey Morgan, widowed mom of twelve-year old Shiloh, commercial artist, was getting along well enough. Just fine, thanks. True that her adult-ed painting class was a struggle, that Shiloh was having difficulties in a middle-school class, that her relationship with Pete was problematic, but there was simply nothing she couldn’t handle. 

Then her sister Leah phoned one night to ask a favor. Could Rainey keep Caleb, Leah’s seven-year old, for a few weeks while Leah took her PhD in marine biology off to Germany for several weeks of work regarding the effect of global warming on the seals of the North Sea?

Sure. Caleb was bright, squirrely, and Rainey had enjoyed the boy the few times the family had been together at their parents’ farm down in the valley. It might be fun to shake things up.

After seeing Leah off at the airport, Rainey was making peanut butter sandwiches in the kitchen when she noticed how Caleb was sitting on a bar stool, his hands hanging down, head resting on the island. 

“My mother’s not coming back,” he said.

About the Author

Jane Viehl and her husband live on one hundred acres of Oregon’s Willamette Valley. They lease half the land to a local rancher, and work in partnership with U.S. Fish and Wildlife toward habitat restoration and preservation on the riparian area of the land.

Viehl has an MFA in Writing from Warren Wilson’s graduate program. She also has an ebook published, The Blackest Crow.

For fun, Viehl works in the garden, minds her flock of three chickens, reads, and plays the banjo.