Four years.  Actually, more like four-and-a-half years.  That's how long I've been working on my manuscript. 

I'm going to include the first page below.  Any comments? Tough criticism, pet peeves, stylistic issues....Please pass 'em along.




    My mother’s last word was the one she wept silently for years; only as she died was she able to say it aloud, to me, again. 
    “Jonny.”  My dead brother’s name but a benediction, really.  Her green eyes – eyes I’d inherited from her and she from her mother – disappeared behind thin, hairless eyelids. She sighed past chalky, cracked lips and I watched her face relax.  Finally, after nearly thirty years, she looked calm.  And I thought was this woman didn’t really look like my mother.   Perhaps it was the ovarian cancer.
    Not an hour before, she turned to look at me.  Those high, elegant cheekbones protruded from pallid skin.  I wished yet again I’d inherited the daintiness of face as well as eye color.  My mother had once been a very beautiful woman. I knew this from the pictures my grandmother used to show me as we sat on the edge of her bed.  I’d drag the heavy, embellished leather album up on to my lap and moon over the bright promise in that fresh gorgeousness.
    “The murderer knew he’d be there.” Her words were clipped. Never one to waste time with talking, Mom spoke in an easy voice without nuance or innuendo. Until now.
    “We made so many mistakes. Michael. My mother.  Me. Most of all me. The foundation was never about saving children.” I patted her hand as her eyes glared beyond the smooth white of the room’s ceiling. She inhaled deeply and said, “Jonny.” Then my mother was gone.
    Her funeral service was spare, the four of us standing at the graveside with its single oversized flower wreath, Gary’s family moving, relieved, toward their cars.  Me not able to leave.  A parody of the last few months.  Actually, shackles of duty had bound me for years.  Shouldn’t I, then, feel some relief?
    Instead I felt a hollowness that would expand and try to consume me over the next five weeks.