Iron Shoes A Novel [Paperback]

Kay Sorenson is stuck. She is forty years old and still trying -- and failing -- to please her glamorous, willful, and indifferent parents. She abandoned a promising music career, settled into a loveless marriage, became a careless mother, and began to drink, smoke, and daydream too much. But when her mother dies, Kay is left without her lifelong crutch and is finally forced to take her first tentative steps toward becoming the woman she wants to be.Molly Gilesteaches creative writing at the University of Arkansas. She has won several short fiction awards, including the Flannery O'Connor Award, theBoston GlobeAward, and the Small Press Best Fiction Award.Chapter One

Kay hurried down the hospital corridor, trying to balance the bag of gifts in one arm and the bouquet of flowers in the other. Her shoulder purse banged against her hip as she half-walked, half-jogged toward her mother's room, and her hair spilled out of its pins, wispy against her flushed face. Hastily she rehearsed the rules she had set for this visit: she would be light and charming; she would not complain about her husband nor brag about her son; she would not cry -- as she had after the last operation when she saw what was left of her mother's leg -- and she would not tell a single lie unless she had to. She checked the number inked on her wrist to make sure she had the right room, tucked her bunched blouse back into her skirt, and raised a hand to knock. The bag immediately slipped, tore, and spilled out of her arms. Not fair! Kay thought. The hangover she had been fighting all day kicked in and her throat watered with savage longing for a cigarette. She gathered the things, straightened, took a deep breath, and knocked again.

Ida, propped on pillows in a gold satin bed jacket, did not turn. She was staring out the window. You took your sweet time, she said.

Sorry. Kay tried to think of an excuse that would work. There was none. I left work late. Thereló!