Authors Interviewing Characters: Shawn Nocher

Shawn Nocher’s compelling debut novel A HAND TO HOLD IN DEEP WATER (Blackstone; June 22, 2021; Hardcover) tells the story of Lacey and her stepfather Willy, who are deeply bruised by the mysterious disappearance of Lacey’s mother thirty years ago.  Reluctant to uncover their past that is brimming with unanswered questions, Lacey and Willy must now face a new family crisis as Lacey’s young daughter Tasha falls ill.

This emotional tale unfolds from multiple perspectives and time periods as we follow Lacey on her journey to get closer to the mother who left when she was a child.  

—

The last time I saw Tasha she was only five years old, a sick child on the path—we all hoped—to recovery. The chemo treatments she endured back in 2005 were grueling. It had taken less than three weeks for her beautiful blonde hair to fall out, to be robbed of her brows and lashes and left wearing a perpetually blank expression. Until she smiled, of course, and that smile spreading across her steroid-bloated face was a reminder of the little girl who had once been healthy. 

The last time I saw her sixteen years ago she was taking a break from the treatments with all signs pointing to long-term remission. We couldn’t have been happier. Her hair was just starting to grow back, coming in more the color of toast than truly blonde. 

I’m thrilled to be meeting with her today. She’s back in Maryland for less than a week before heading off to graduate school—Columbia, her mother’s alma mater, of all places. 

When she walks into Starbucks, I recognize her right away and I can’t help but squeal and hug her, likely scaring her half to death because she doesn’t remember me. But she relaxes and hugs me back, tells me how happy she is to be getting together with me. 

I’m waiting at a café table while she orders her coffee drink, a Venti Americano. She waves her hand nervously at me from the pick-up counter, lifting one finger to say just a minute more as she waits for her drink. No worries. It gives me a chance to watch the whole of her, see the way she pulls her long butterscotch hair through her fingers just like her mother, the way she juts her chin in the air to thank the barista before turning to make her way to the table. 

She is lovely, tall like her father, slender like her mother, the same unusually high cheekbones she had, even as a child. I have so many questions and I want to hear how everyone is, though I’m a little afraid to ask about Willy. He was nearly seventy when I last saw him.

“He’s great,” she tells me. “Still taking care of those damn chickens.” We both smile recalling the way Willy always talked of the chickens—damn chickens. And we both can’t help making note; best eggs in the county. 

“And Carlotta?” 

“Oh my gosh,” she says, smiling broadly, “I just love her. She’s sworn to fatten me up while I’m here.” 

“She’s a wonderful cook,” I say. “They’re married?”

“Willy and Carlotta? Oh, no, no.” And then she smiles conspiratorially, leans a little closer. “But rumor is Willy asked and she said no.”

I can’t imagine it. Afterall, it was Carlotta who bulldozed herself into Willy’s life, made him fall in love with her despite his best efforts to hold onto his own heart. I always imagined she would want to marry again. 

“I think Willy was relieved,” she says. “He couldn’t live with all that red—red quilts, red pillows. She even has a red sofa. The whole farmhouse would have been redecorated and you know how Willy is about letting go of his old things. Do you know most of his furniture goes all the way back to when he was a child living there?”

I knew this. The tufted chairs in the parlor, the spindly end tables, the old hutch in the kitchen. 

“They’re happy,” she says, “and I think they both like having their own place.”

She leans forward to sip her drink, uses her other hand to curl a lock of her hair behind her ear, and I can see the old wrinkle of a scar on her chest from the port. “And you?”

“I’m good, excited about Columbia.” And then she sees me looking at the scar. She waves her hand through the air, dismissing the elephant in the room. “No, really,” she says. “I’m good, great. I get checked out regularly—I’ve had enough blood drawn to feed a flock of vampires, but nothing every came back. I’m fine.” 

I am relieved. 

“Did you know I have a little brother?” A broad smile spreads across her face.

“I had no idea!” 

“William. He’s thirteen and driving Mom crazy. But he’s a good kid.” She pulls up a picture on her phone, a sweaty redheaded boy with a lacrosse stick in his one hand and his helmet tucked under the other. She’s right—he’s a gorgeous boy, looks just like Cade must have looked at that age—which answers my next question. Cade and Lacey are still together, all these years later. 

“For the most part they spend the summers at the farm. Mom loves it there and she says it’s good for William, too. He helps Willy hay the upper fields and Willy lets him drive the tractor.”

We are draining the last of our coffee and I have so many more questions, but she turns the tables. “How about you? Writing anything?”

I didn’t expect this. “Always writing,” I tell her.

“Another book?”

I nod. 

“Will it have a happy ending?” she asks earnestly.

I don’t answer her. 

“I love a good happy ending,” she says.

“Things don’t always work out that way,” I tell her. But she knows this.

“But sometimes they do.”

She is as stubborn as her mother. She looks down to her phone, checking the time. “They’re expecting me soon,” she says. “They worry when I’m late.”

“Of course.” 

I don’t want to say goodbye. It was hard sixteen years ago and it’s just as hard now. When we hug goodbye, she tells me this was fun. Let’s do it again. Watching her walk away, I can’t help but wonder if Lacey ever told her everything. I could have made it happen. I could have made Lacey tell them. But that would have been a whole different story.

—

Shawn Nocher (pronounced No Shay) is a mentee of Michael Glaser, Elise Levine, William Black, and Richard Bausch. Her compelling short stories have appeared in numerous literary magazines, including SmokeLong Quarterly, Pithead Chapel, Eunoia Review, and
MoonPark Review, and she won an Honorable Mention from both SmokeLong Quarterly and Glimmer Train. Having graduated
with an MA in writing from Johns Hopkins, Shawn is currently teaching part-time in the Graduate Program at her alma mater.

A HAND TO HOLD IN DEEP WATER is her debut novel and she is already at work on her second, THE PRECIOUS JULES

Find out more about Shawn on her website https://www.shawnnocher.com/

A HAND TO HOLD IN DEEP WATER 

Willy Cherrymill and his stepdaughter, Lacey, are deeply bruised by a past brimming with unanswered questions. It’s been thirty years since May DuBerry, Willy’s young wife and Lacey’s mother, abandoned them both leaving Willy to raise Lacey alone.

Lacey Cherrymill is smart, stubborn, and focused. She’s also single mother to a young daughter recently diagnosed with a devastating illness. The last thing she needs to think about right now is the betrayal that rocked her childhood. Reluctantly, she has returned to her rural beginnings, a former dairy farm in the Maryland countryside, and to Willy, a man steeped in his own disappointments and all the guilt that goes with them.

Together they will pool their wobbly emotional resources to take care of Lacey’s daughter, Tasha, all the while trying to skirt the issue of May’s mysterious disappearance. But try as she might, Lacey can’t leave it alone. Just where is May DuBerry Cherrymill and why did she leave them, and how is it that they have never talked about the wreckage she left behind?

A Hand to Hold in Deep Water is a deeply felt narrative about mothers and daughters, the legacy of secrets, the way we make a family, and the love of those who walk us through our deepest pain. It is about the way we are tethered to one another and how we choose to wear those bindings. These are characters you won’t soon forget and, more so, won’t want to leave behind when you turn the last page.

BUY HERE

 

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Category: Contemporary Women Writers, Interviews, On Writing