Free Fearless Hope: A Novel by Serena B. Miller

but she put her hands behind her back.
    “No,” she said. “I’m sorry, Mr. Parker. It is no longer for sale.”
    He was puzzled. Could she be suffering from dementia?
    “I don’t understand.”
    “I won’t sell it to you, but I will rent it to you,” she said. “My name is Violet Hanover. I used to teach high school English at Garaway High School. I am afraid that if I let you walk out that door with this instrument under your arm, you will never come back and you will never finish this story. If that were to happen, I would be devastated because . . .” She beamed at him. “I cannot wait to see how it turns out.”
    Bless her heart.
    “I might even be able to give you a few pointers from time to time,” she said. “I’m an awfully good proofreader.”
    He just bet she was.
    He was intrigued. It had been a long time since anyone had shown any interest in his writing except to wonder how soon he could crank out the next book.
    “What do you mean, you’ll rent it to me?”
    “Do you have a day job, Mr. Parker?”
    “Not exactly.”
    “Perhaps you could come here every day?” Her smile never wavered. “Let’s say around one o’clock.” Her voice had taken on the echoes of the teacher’s voice she might have used when dealing with a promising but recalcitrant student. “I shall have a cup of tea waiting for you. You may sit here at this table and type until the store closes at three.”
    “How much do you want for rent?”
    “Your rent, Mr. Parker”—her faded blue eyes twinkled again behind her thick glasses—“is to let me read whatever you manage to write each day.”
    “But you will have customers.”
    “And I shall tend to them. But no one will be allowed to purchase this writing instrument from me.”
    This was one of the strangest offers he had ever received as a writer. To sit in this out-of-the-way antiques shop tapping away at an old typewriter while a ninety-something former girl pilot brought him tea.
    He loved the idea.
    Writing on a state-of-the-art computer in the silence of his old farmhouse was certainly not getting him anywhere. Instead, he would give this a try for a day or two. If things went well, he would have learned a new method of getting over writer’s block. If things went badly, well, he couldn’t be in any worse shape than he already was.
    “I’ll be back tomorrow,” he said. “At one o’clock. I’ll bring some Earl Grey tea. That’s my favorite.”
    “Don’t bother. I just happen to have quite a stash of excellentEarl Grey. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Then she made a comment so adorable and old-fashioned that it made him smile long after he left. “Make sure you have your thinking cap on when you come back in here, young man! I shall be expecting great things from you.”

chapter E IGHT
    “M ay I put this on your bulletin board?”
    The Amish woman was dressed in a dark green dress and was holding hands with two cherubic children. She dropped one child’s hand long enough to give a card to Violet.
    “What is it?” Violet asked.
    Logan ripped a sheet of paper out of the old typewriter and added it to the growing pile of manuscript pages in front of him. This was the most prolific he had been in ages—as long as he was writing on the antique typewriter. He and his laptop were still at odds.
    There was something about working here, with people coming and going, that wasenergizing. Sometimes he listened in on the conversations swirling around him, but more often the voices of customers became background noise as he immersed himself in the culture of 1942 Germany.
    “I’m looking for work,” he heard the young woman say.
    He felt sorry for Violet. As tenderhearted as she was, it would be hard for her to turn the woman down. He doubted that there was enough work here for Violet to hire her.
    The story was going well and he was excited. He had gotten books about World War II out of the library and ordered morethrough a local bookstore. Each night