Rural Route One
a novel in progress
Redemption comes to us in various forms. Sometimes it arrives unexpectedly, and remains long after we expect it to leave. Sometimes, it finds us at the very last moment, when we seem to have lost the capacity for hope. And other times, it grows into itself, transforming right before our very eyes.
Mary Everly has made peace with solitude.
Ruth refuses to leave her side.
And Tess—well, Tess has a story only she can tell.
In the small town of Troy, Indiana, three women endure heartache and keep going, find one another, and in the process, discover a family they never imagined. Told in a series of first-person narratives, the people of Troy weave in, out, and around the lives of these three women, telling their own tales, and revealing a larger story in the process.
In this debut work of fiction, author Adrienne Garrison explores what it means to make a way in a world that is not our own through the themes of motherhood, vulnerability, and the redemptive work of family life.
Chapters 1-3
featured in...
LETTERS JOURNAL
Issue 10, Winter 2021
LETTERS is published with the support of the Yale Institute of Sacred Music (ISM) by students at the ISM and Yale Divinity School.
Chapter One: No Longer Mine
Frost came with enough persistence to force down any leaves that still remained, and color drained away from the world. It’s no surprise anymore how fast the seasons desert us, never pausing to look back, and it’s exactly in this same way that a boy becomes a man. One evening, you smooth the hair back from his forehead, place a hand on his rounded cheek, and when he wakes, the face is no longer soft, but angular. A jaw cleaves out, a new topography along the throat, the chin superior. And later, as you kiss him goodbye, you find you must lift your heels ever so slightly, and each day after he firms up like granite, rises higher above you, substantial and unfamiliar, something new entirely.
featured in...
LITERARY MAMA
Sept/Oct 2021
Literary Mama believes that all mothers have a story worth sharing and honors the many faces of motherhood by publishing work that celebrates the journey as well as the job.
Chapter Two: Nightfall
My thoughts flash again, to the river, the trestle, how he’d park his pickup near the loading ramp, and we’d ignore those No Trespassing signs and walk out over the Wabash, the summer leaves full enough to hide the ground below us. Nathan would always leave one tie between us, walking behind, making it look easy. But me? By the twentieth tie, that same pitching sensation, as if I might throw myself off the side just to see if I’d survive.
When the ground below us turned to river, Nathan would reach for me, his palms dry and warm, mine slimy and cold with the fear that if he plummeted, he’d take me with him. The Wabash was maybe two-hundred yards wide, though we’d never gone more than halfway across, nothing on the other side but woods we didn’t know.
featured in...
PACIFIC UNIVERSITY
MFA Graduate Reading, Jan. 2022
Chapter Three: My Mother, the Angel
Most grown-ups assume that kids aren’t watching very closely, or don’t understand what they see, but I’m not that kind of kid. For example, my mother, she’s a pretty sad lady, though I’ve heard all my life how her smile lights up the whole room, and how she is, truly, an angel on this earth.
We don’t go out to eat all that often, but when we do, my father and I try to predict at what point during the meal some old man will stop by our table and say hello to my mother. Nearly always they’ll turn to me and say something like, “Your mother cared for me after my amputation,” and I’ve learned from my dad to smile politely, nod, and not make a face. Or lean over to see what on earth this old coot is standing on, a prosthesis, usually, or sometimes a scooter-like cart that they rest their knee on. “Your mother,” they’ll say, “she came straight from heaven.” To be clear, my mom is a regular person, though no doubt something like a star pupil in God’s eyes.