a novel by Katie Bertola
Tax collectors and sinners. Thieves and adulterers. They needed mercy. Rich depths of it. But Casper had never sought out more than the bare minimum.
In fact, despite growing up in the evangelical bread basket of America, Casper had never prayed before. Not really. All of those meandering, distracted mutterings, memorized and recited as needed whenever he felt particularly guilty or frightened — they were formalities. But he had never asked God for anything more than to be spared from hell, and as far as he knew, that request was still pending.
But the instinctual grasping of his heart for even a handful of mercy was something foreign to him. Mercy for someone else, but mercy for himself, as well. If there was enough. Somehow he found himself asking for one as much as the other, finding that his fate was no longer his own.
Thank you for visiting! Here, you will find my novel in two formats: a link to the Kindle edition on Amazon, or chapter by chapter, blog-style.
Part 1
Chapter 1 He was putting on his shoes when his phone rang. He could let it go to voicemail again.
Chapter 2 He didn’t usually seek his big brother’s advice on girls. Not that Nick was ignorant on the subject. Indeed, he seemed to know everything.
Chapter 3 The September sun peeked out from behind the gray clouds, tossing an errant ray through the conference room window as people filed in for the morning meeting. Reagan sat across the table, scribbling a note as the beam of sunshine lit her hair in a gold-tipped silhouette.
Chapter 4 He took a seat next to her in the cafeteria. He did it with studied ease, pulling out the chair and sitting as if he’d done it a thousand times. Of course, he had pulled out a chair and sat in it a thousand times, perhaps ten thousand times. But this was no time for cockiness.
Chapter 5 Together, they walked out the glass doors of Carver on to the steaming concrete, which glittered in the early evening sun.
Chapter 6 “Ray, I can go. You don’t have to do this.”
Chapter 7 It was isolated, dark, and warm as he walked down the trail. The lake was on his left, gray and moving rapidly, tipped with white.
Chapter 8 She pulled her sweater firmly around her body and sat next to him on the porch steps. They looked out at the sleeping neighborhood. The sky was slowly brightening on their right, and the city was beginning to stir.
Chapter 9 He jammed the gallon of milk into the bottom of his backpack, added the rotisserie chicken beside it, then stacked the frozen garlic bread and cheese crackers on top.
Chapter 10 He stared at it while he watched a stupid documentary about the aliens who sank Atlantis. He stared at it before he fell asleep.
Chapter 11 His knees were knocking, and he tried to stop tapping his foot as they sat in the waiting room.
Chapter 12 That same evening, he went up the overgrown sidewalk to her house. Reagan opened the door and walked straight into his arms.
Part 2
Chapter 1 He balled up the pillow under his head and sank his face into it.
Chapter 2 Dr. Shakir placed the stethoscope against his chest and listened.
Chapter 3 He edited the final cell on the spreadsheet and sat back.
Chapter 4 Fifty-four hundred dollars. Rosa had stopped by and given him the money in an envelope.
Chapter 5 The oxygen tank hissed.
Chapter 6 Around six that evening, he found that he was ravenous. Not shocking, considering that he had eaten nothing over the past twenty-four hours.
Chapter 7 Pastor Bruce and the four elders were with him on platform, beaming. The poinsettias on the steps of the platform stood tall with their red faces lifted toward the frigid blueness streaming through the sanctuary skylight.
Chapter 8 It wasn’t bad. Maybe it was, actually. It was hard to tell from the photos. With all of the furniture cleared out of the rooms and the daylight pouring in through the windows on to the white-ish carpet, it almost appeared promising.
Chapter 9 He waited a few weeks to tell them, but his family were unfazed when he told them of the development in his personal life, as if it had been an open fact to everyone else but the two of them.
Chapter 10 Nick had asked him how someone so smart could do something so stupid.
Chapter 11 Without a word, he raced to the kitchen and pulled the pan off the heat.
Chapter 12 Duplo City had developed to a concerning level of urban sprawl.
Chapter 13 and Epilogue The Honey Slope Golf Club was not perfect, but it was cheap and it would probably be available. The dining room had been updated sometime in the mid-nineties and the facility boasted fully carpeted bathrooms.
Katie Bertola 