Visions of her Cherokee grandmother, Cordie, flashed through Mary's mind as her mother, Marguerite, informed her that her stepfather shot himself and was in the hospital. Oh no!
No! This can't be! Not after the joking around at my home last night. NO!!!! Did she use me last night? She'd never use her scapegoat child. No, she couldn't! Even Marguerite wouldn't sink that low! Or would she? Marguerite had always been abusive and vile to most people, and especially to her children and husbands, but would she shoot Harold?
Yet, here I was, and I had to tell the police that, yes, my mother was at my home all evening and into the night. How despicable that my mother connived her way into using me as her alibi.
This book is a true memoir drawing upon the locals and inspiration of the areas in which the author lives and works. Names of towns, places, facilities, and people are real except for three men. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is not coincidental in nature and places where events take place are from her life growing up.
Mary L. Schmidt writes under the name of S. Jackson along with her husband, Michael, pen name A Raymond, and Mary L. Schmidt. She grew up in a small Kansas (USA) town and has lived in more than one state since then. At this time, Ms. Schmidt and her husband split their time between Kansas and Colorado (they love the mountains and off-road 4-wheeling). Traveling is one of her favorite things to do and she always has a book or even three books to read, in the same week. She drew paper dolls and clothes for them, and with watercolor as her medium when painting scenes, especially flowers. She continued with art in high school exploring a wide variety of arts and loved it! Her creative side loves to be an amateur "shutterbug" and they have an online art gallery. In college, she went into the sciences of all things and received a bachelor's degree in the Science of Nursing. Her nursing career was phenomenally successful, and she hung up her nursing hat in December 2012.She is a retired registered nurse; a member of the Catholic Church and has taught kindergarten Catechism; she has worked in various capacities for The American Cancer Society, March of Dimes, Cub, and Boy Scouts, (son, Gene, is an Eagle Scout), and sponsored trips for high school music children. She loves all forms of art but mostly focuses on the visual arts, such as amateur photography, traditional, and graphic art as her health allows.She has written sixty-one books with others in various stages of production, and she is included in four anthologies.
