The Manuscript (Electronic book text)

Monday morning Bess Harper climbs the stairs out of the subway into the snowstorm on her way to her Madison Avenue office. She isn't even thinking about Christmas that's on Saturday. Trudging through the snow she finally arrives at her building.

Her desk is covered with work. When Nick retired, she told him she could handle all of the work herself, but now she wasn't so sure. Seeing Betty walk into her office with another bundle, Bess quickly grabs the manuscript off her desk that she'd decided to read next. It was well-known author, Paul Osborne's, latest. Normally Nick handled his work.

Page after page, the dj vu engulfs her. Catapulting her back to her 1970's childhood and the lilacs that grew around her house. Giving her pause to remember when her father left home to work with a friend while he gave up his drinking.

Bess was eight, watching from her bedroom window, when he drove away that morning in his blue Ford pick-up truck. And it would be the last time she would see her father. But the worst day of her life wasn't the day he left, it was the day he died.