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Twins’ Double Victory
A Story of Forgiveness
Karen A. Jones
Copyright © 2015 by Karen A. Jones
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form whatsoever — including electronic, photocopy, recording — without prior written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
FIRST EDITION
ISBN: 978-0-9962716-1-5
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015935388
Published in eBook format by
P.O. Box 2839, Apopka, FL 32704
Converted by http://www.eBookIt.com
“Twins’ Double Victory is a heartwarming tale on the power of forgiveness and the bond between two sisters that helps them persevere throughout difficult times.”
— Donna Adkins,
National Board Certified Teacher
“I enjoyed the story of love and forgiveness expressed through the lives of Emma and Emily. This book would be valuable to readers of all ages because it is a story of hope.”
— Detri Brech, PhD,
Professor of Dietetics and Nutrition
This book is based on some true events, however, it has been fictionalized and all persons appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
In loving memory of
my mother and aunt
PROLOGUE
“There’s a warm breeze tonight,” I said to my twin sister, Emily, while I was closing our bedroom window. “I’m so tired now that school’s finally out for the summer, I could fall asleep the second my head hits the pillow.”
“I’m going to bed, too,” Emily said, yawning. “And, Emma, whatever you do, don’t wake me up again with another one of your nightmares.”
Deep into the night, I tossed and turned as moving pictures played in my mind of Dad saying, “Girls, I can’t support you without a job, so I’m trying my luck at gold prospecting. Tomorrow, you’ll be going to a children’s home to live. I’ll return for both of you if I find some gold in Arizona.”
“No, Daddy, I want to stay with you,” I said.
“You’ll like living with all the other children,” Dad said to Emily and me.
“All the other children,” I repeated over and over, seeing the boys and girls crowding around my sister and me at the children’s home.
Suddenly, I heard Emily saying, “Wake up, Emma. You were having a bad dream again.”
“It’s that same dream about being in our first home with orphans and children whose parents couldn’t keep them,” I said. “I wish I could dream about the times when we were little and living with Mother and Dad.”
“Emma, you’ve always earned high marks in composition. Remember when our fourth grade teacher, Miss Gleeson, laughed when you read your story about the cat that grew a mustache? Last year, Mr. Cobb bragged on your use of vocabulary and description and said your writing was outstanding for a ninth grader. I bet if you wrote everything down, beginning with your earliest memories, your bad dreams would stop.”
“I’m surprised that I can still remember as far back as when we were six,” I said. “Writing a story from 1924 until now may take a while, but it’ll be worth the time if it stops my nightmares.”
“Someday your story may even be made into a book,” Emily added.
“That sounds wonderful,” I said, jumping out of bed. “I must dress and eat quickly. I have a story to write.”
In the cool of the morning, I sat at my small desk under the window in the sunlit bedroom, and the magic of words came together to tell my story.
Chapter 1
DANGER AT THE BRIDGE
“Henry, you’ve got to get me out of this god-forsaken place,” Mother said to Dad when he came home after cutting down trees at the logging camp. “Living in this old shack in St. Maries, Idaho, is no place to raise our six-year-old daughters.
“I’m going crazy trying to keep Emma and Emily entertained while also doing everything else around here. I want to return home before the twins begin their first year in school.”
“All right, Eliza,” said Dad. “I’ll quit my job and we’ll move back to Washington if that’ll please you. But I’ll need to find work soon, or we’ll have a hard time making it.”
Within the month, Dad found a rental house in West Seattle and employment at a logging camp. From the porch of our Alki Point home, high off the ground, Mother gazed at our surroundings and declared, “We have a miracle view of Alki Beach, the Puget Sound, and the Olympic Mountains!”
“So we have!” Dad responded, giving Mother a kiss on her cheek before smiling down at Emily and me. We looked up at our father who stood five feet, eleven inches, and who almost popped a button on his shirt when he made his chest and stomach go way out.
“We should do all right now that I’ll be earning extra money cooking for the logging camp crew along with chopping down trees,” Dad bragged, flexing his big arm muscles.
Mother stared at our father, who was strutting like a peacock, causing our mother to grimace and Emily and me to giggle.
Three weeks later, Mother said to my sister and me, “School starts tomorrow. Let’s get your bath over with so you can go to bed early.”
We climbed into the galvanized tub of water that Mother heated on the wood-burning cook stove, and she scrubbed us clean using a washcloth and a bar of her homemade soap. After we slipped into our matching blue nightgowns and climbed into bed, Mother kissed our cheeks and blew out the burning wick in the kerosene lamp.
On our first day of school, Mother helped us put on our matching green dresses with white collars. She combed our wavy brown hair and handed each of us a tin lunch pail.
I liked our first-grade teacher, Miss Arlis, who taught us our colors, alphabet, and numbers. Each day we learned how to read more words, and after lunch, she read us a story.
On
