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  Praise for

  The Way of Women

  “Two dozen years ago we watched in horror as Mount St. Helens erupted on our television screens, fearing for the safety of those who lived beneath her shadow. In The Way of Women, Lauraine Snelling takes us there in graphic, moving detail as she explores the lives of three women deeply affected by the natural disaster. Her careful research and vivid descriptions make the mountain come alive, and the unique challenges each woman faces draw us day by ash-covered day toward a satisfying end.”

  —LIZ CURTIS HIGGS, best-selling author of Thorn in My Heart

  “In The Way of Women, Lauraine Snelling goes beyond her usual grand storytelling in giving us insights into landscapes, history, and life. This time, through her memorable characters, Lauraine explores the explosiveness of loss, taking us to the depths of our need for relationships in turbulent times. Grief and disaster can be transforming if we allow God to work in our lives. That’s one way of women I’ll take with me from a story that sings with the beauty of the northwest landscape and Lauraine’s own lovely language. ‘The creek gossiped with the rocks’ and ‘Wait—a four letter word worse than cursing’ are phrases worthy of remembering, as is this fine story of God’s power to use each of us to help heal each other and restore ourselves in the process.”

  —JANE KIRKPATRICK, award-winning author of A Name of Her Own

  “Reminding us that love can spring forth from ashes, that life can emerge from death, Lauraine Snelling writes a gripping and powerful novel that will inspire and uplift you.”

  —LYNNE HINTON, author of The Last Odd Day

  OTHER NOVELS

  BY LAURAINE SNELLING

  The Healing Quilt

  Dakota

  The Gift

  Dakotah Treasures Series

  Ruby

  Pearl

  Red River of the North Series

  An Untamed Land

  A New Day Rising

  A Land to Call Home

  The Reaper’s Song

  Tender Mercies

  Blessing in Disguise

  A Dream to Follow

  Believing the Dream

  More Than a Dream

  Secret Refuge Series

  Daughter of Twin Oaks

  Sisters of the Confederacy

  The Long Way Home

  THE WAY OF WOMEN

  PUBLISHED BY WATERBROOK PRESS

  12265 Oracle Boulevard, Suite 200

  Colorado Springs, Colorado 80921

  Scripture quotations are taken or paraphrased from the King James Version and the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

  Though Mount St. Helens and its environs are real, the characters and events in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2004 by Lauraine Snelling

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Published in the United States by WaterBrook Multnomah, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc., New York.

  WATERBROOK and its deer colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Snelling, Lauraine.

  The way of women / Lauraine Snelling.— 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-55207-5

  1. Saint Helens, Mount (Wash.)—Eruption, 1980—Fiction. 2. Saint Helens, Mount, Region (Wash.)—Fiction. 3. Women—Washington (State)—Fiction. 4. Washington (State)—Fiction. 5. Female friendship—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3569.N39W39 2004

  813′.54—dc22

  2004002175

  v3.1

  To all my women friends

  without whom I would be lost.

  And to my mother, my hero,

  who is now at home in heaven.

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Map

  Prologue

  1: Frank

  2: Katheryn

  3: The Mountain

  4: Mellie

  5: Mitch

  6: Jenn

  7: Frank

  8: The Mountain

  9: Jenn

  10: Harvey

  11: Jenn

  12: The Mountain

  13: Harvey

  14: David and Katheryn

  15: Katheryn

  16: The Mountain

  17: Jenn

  18: Mellie

  19: David and Brian

  20: Frank

  21: Katheryn

  22: Mellie

  23: Jenn

  24: Mellie

  25: Katheryn

  26: The Mountain

  27: Mellie

  28: Katheryn

  29: Mellie

  30: Katheryn

  31: The Mountain

  32: Mellie

  33: Frank and Jenn

  34: Mellie and Katheryn

  35: The Mountain

  36: Mellie and Katheryn

  37: Mellie and Katheryn

  38: Mellie, Katheryn, and Jen

  39: The Mountain

  40: Mellie, Katheryn, and Jenn

  41: Katheryn

  42: Jenn and Frank

  43: Katheryn

  44: The Mountain

  45: Jenn and Frank

  46: Mellie and Katheryn

  47: Jenn

  48: Katheryn

  49: Frank

  50: Jenn

  51: The Mountain

  52: Frank and Jenn

  53: Katheryn

  54: Frank and Jenn

  55: Mellie

  56: Jenn

  57: The Mountain

  58: Frank

  59: Jenn

  60: Frank

  61: The Mountain

  62: Mellie, Katheryn, and Jenn

  63: Frank

  64: Finale

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Since this book started in 1983, my public thanks to Linda Waltmire is long overdue for all her hours of copying the newspaper articles of the eruption and making sure I got all available information. Thanks, friend. Marcia Mitchell provided airplane and flight information, and Susan Edmonds at the Frank Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle let me go through archives and provided information on early bone-marrow transplants. Thanks to Kathleen, Kitty, Mona, and Eileen for reading and critiquing. Our writer’s retreats are high points for me both production-wise and spirit-wise. You are all great brainstormers and wonderful friends.

  Cheers for my editor, Dudley Delffs, at Waterbrook Press, who encouraged me to push the envelope—a scary thing. Thanks to all the people at Waterbrook for your encouragement and the pleasure of working with you. My agent, Deidre Knight, rates five stars. Thanks my friend.

  Cecile, you had no idea what you signed up for when you agreed to be my assistant. Diamond you are, and what a ride we are having. Thank you, God, for all my friends and family who put up with so much and help keep this storyteller on track.

  Much has been published about the eruption of Mount St. Helens, and I think I’ve read and watched most of it. But I’ll never forget the happy hours we spent on her flanks, the awe we felt watching what looked like a concrete pillar rising miles in the sky in the early days, and the tears
I shed at the sight of the devastation and again when I saw new green sprouting from the ashes. To God be the glory as life is reborn from ashes and we go forward.

  MAY 18, 2000

  Some days are for remembering.

  The visitor stared out across the silver-gray river bottom of the Toutle Valley. Twenty years ago, Mount St. Helens had spewed her insides all over the valleys, laying timber out like wind-flattened stalks of grain and turning the river into a cauldron of rock and ash, snow, and ice. She had turned death loose on the hills and valleys in one cataclysmic stroke. Twenty years ago, life changed in an instant, and no one had any control over it.

  Least of all The Lady.

  What direction would life have taken had this not happened?

  The anniversary commemoration had attracted international attention around the now-quiet mountainside. Media events and photo ops could be had at various points as the world today remembered Reid Blackburn, Harry Truman, David Johnston, and the others who perished. A bronze plaque listing the names was comforted by a recently planted grove of trees. The visitor read the names and remembered many of the individual lives they represented. It was difficult to be present at the base of such an altar of loss, but far more difficult not to have come, not to have remembered.

  It had been called a holocaust, a natural disaster of mega proportions, an act of God. But looking down at the river twisting its way between banks of ash, like café au lait in a silver frame, one could see alder and willow now taller than saplings, their green leaves sparkling in the sun.

  Life does return and it can be good again, can’t it?

  The visitor lingered and tried to recall how much had changed over the span of twenty years, what had grown out of the soil of grief. The visitor sensed a hint of green just now beginning to show within. But there was so much to overcome. So much to remember.

  MAY 18, 1980

  The scream ripped through him again.

  He jerked upright in bed as the cold damp sheets slid away from his sweat-drenched body. Fumbling for the half-empty bourbon bottle on the bedside stand, he ignored the glass and raised the bottle to his lips. Warmth flowed around his internal core as the liquid glugged down his throat.

  Cowlitz County Sheriff Frank McKenzie was not by nature a screaming man.

  He had not screamed that night twenty-two months ago when he had returned from a fruitless search for a reported lost child and found his wife and ten-year-old son murdered. He had not screamed at the note stuffed in his son’s hand lying on the table: Now we’re even. He had not screamed when the killer was remanded to a psychiatric hospital.

  Maybe all the screams just echoed in the empty caverns of his mind. He was never sure.

  Empty mind. Empty heart. Empty life.

  Frank hoisted the bottle again. Empty. He flung it across the room in a slivered crash against the far wall.

  Sig, a mammoth-shouldered German shepherd, whined low in his throat and shoved a cold nose into Frank’s shoulder. Sig had the best tracking nose in all of Washington State. He was also the most loyal friend and guard a man could have. But Sig had been up on the mountain that night with Frank, not in his usual place guarding Barbara and Jacob.

  Frank flopped back on the pillow, a rip in its case. The stench of his own unwashed body and bed made even him wrinkle his nose. Sig inched his muzzle under his master’s flaccid hand lying on the sheets. After a moment, the dog lifted gently, a persistent hint. Frank mechanically massaged the dog’s ears and the back of his skull until they both dozed off.

  When Frank awoke again, the shard of silver dawn had succumbed to the onslaught of morning. Sunlight stabbed his eyes. The clamor of the phone crashed in his ears.

  Muttering profanities, he reached for the missing bottle.

  Sig barked. A short, sharp demand.

  “Sig, shut up!” Frank fumbled for the insistent phone. “Yeah!”

  “I’m sorry to bother you this lovely morning …” The female dispatcher’s voice clearly belied her words.

  “Then don’t!” Frank started to drop the phone back in its cradle. His glance slid over the dirty laundry hiding floor and chair. A framed 8 × 10 photograph of Jacob hugging Sig hung lopsided on the wall above the pile of glass.

  “Frank McKenzie! Don’t you dare hang up that phone!” Her tone penetrated his fog.

  He brought the receiver back to his ear.

  “And don’t you swear at me either!” She took a deep breath. “Now. Let’s start this conversation again.” At the sound of his muttering, her voice sharpened. “I don’t care how big a hangover you have, you agreed to take those homeowners through the roadblocks up to Spirit Lake this morning at eight. You’re late!”

  Frank blinked at his watch. She was right. 8:05.

  “Tell ’em I’ll be there in half an hour.” He slammed the receiver down, cutting off her reply.

  MARCH 23, 1980

  A family that loved one another and showed it, that’s all she wanted. Katheryn Sommers glanced around the room, being careful not to catch anyone’s eye. Brian, so much younger than the others, melted into himself, watching his brother and sister carry on what they called a “discussion” but which left others feeling ready to jump in to break up a brawl.

  “But you haven’t looked at all the facts.” Kevin sent his sister a look of disgust.

  “Sometimes facts aren’t the only important criteria.” Susan’s green eyes, so like her mother’s, flashed as she tapped her younger brother on an arm, still tanned from attending college in Arizona. “You, my dear brother, forget all about intuition, gut reaction. Remember that time I—”

  “You don’t need to bring that up again. You’re just like an elephant. You never forget when someone else makes an error in judgment.” His eyebrows flattened, his tone needled.

  “Kids, let’s …” Katheryn stopped, knowing the futility of interfering.

  “Why? I don’t forget when I make a mistake either. But then, that’s not so bad because I make them so rarely.” Her teasing smile made him grate his teeth. “My intuition, you know …” She tossed her head enough to send auburn hair, usually worn in a braid, over her shoulder.

  “Yeah, right, Miss Perfect. What a pile of—”

  “Okay, time out.” Katheryn formed the universal sports T with her hands. “Kevin, you and your dad take Brian out to shoot some hoops. And no, it’s not raining. Blow off some steam.”

  Kevin rolled his eyes, started a rebuttal, but instead unfolded his six-foot-four athlete’s body. “Come on, Chip, I’ll take you two on.”

  Since Brian’s first birthday, ten years earlier, Kevin had called him Chip, as in “chip off the old block.” Katheryn was sure Kevin often referred to his father as the old block, albeit never aloud or at least not in her hearing.

  “I’ll go.” Susan stretched as she stood, her pregnancy just beginning to show. “I can still take you on the court.”

  “No, this is a guy thing. You can help me in the kitchen.”

  Katheryn turned to go but stopped short. “Honey?” She kept the sharp reproach from her voice with studied calm.

  David Sommers blinked and brought his attention back from wherever he’d been. She’d known he’d not been seeing anything out the window, but staring, his mind off somewhere else, inside himself, shoulders slumped as if the load were caving them in.

  “Go with the boys, okay? Run off some of their energy at the hoop.” She repeated the information without succumbing to sarcasm. She knew he hadn’t heard her the first time. And often he didn’t the second time either.

  He nodded as he stood. “You coming, Suz?”

  “Nope, Mom says she needs help in the kitchen.” Susan watched her father walk one beat faster than a shuffle, snag his Windbreaker off the hall tree, and go outside.

  She watched her mother as the closing of the door echoed behind him. “How long has he been like this?”

  Katheryn massaged her lower lip with the tip of her tongue. “Been coming on for some t
ime.”

  “Has he had a physical lately?” Capable Susan, who’d begun by specializing in pediatrics but switched to psychiatry instead, had just finished her residency and was starting her own practice.

  “Yes, I insisted.” Katheryn led the way to the kitchen. “The roast will be ready in about half an hour. I thought you could peel the potatoes.”

  “Of course.” Susan opened the drawer to get the peeler while her mother fetched the potatoes from the pantry. “So, have you any ideas what triggered the depression this time?”

  “The usual. Midlife crisis. Male menopause. He didn’t get promoted to dean of the English Department. All of the above and then some.”

  “Why was he passed over?”

  “I wish I knew.” I wish he would talk, tell me. She trapped another sigh. One only bred another, and she was afraid a chain reaction would lead to her sobbing. The only control was not to start.

  “Mom, you know Kevin and I don’t mean anything by our discussions. It might sound worse than it is.” Susan touched her mother’s arm and smiled when they looked into each other’s eyes. “I know about returning-home behaviors. We both do.”

  “I know, I guess.” Katheryn twisted her mouth, wishing she could believe anything of late. Other than God is in His heaven and all is right with the world; the first half believable, the second in serious question. At least in her world.

  “There are some studies, you know, on male menopause. I could look them up for you, see if they fit.”

  Katheryn turned on a burner and set the pot with water for the potatoes on to heat. Keeping her hands busy gave her mind free rein.

  “If it’s ordinary depression, one of the antidepressants might help.”

  “I’d thought of that. But you know how your father is about taking pills.”

  Susan rinsed off the peeled potatoes and took them to the stove to cut into the steaming water. “How small you want the pieces?”

  “We’ll mash them.” Like I feel, cut up small and mashed to mush. This time the sigh ambushed her.

  “Need more than this?”

  Katheryn checked and nodded. “I’ll use the leftovers for potato cakes tomorrow. Your dad loves those.” Although sometimes she wondered why she bothered, making special things to tempt his appetite, going out of her way to provoke a smile or sometimes even an argument. All to no avail. Her husband existed in some gray parallel universe. Often she speculated that he lived there by choice, making no effort to change.