This week, the primary way I have been nurturing myself has been by focusing on my work in progress, a novel with the working title A House Divided.

Set in 1979 in a small Texas town near the Red River, the story centers on Hannah Price, a 17-year-old gifted bluegrass fiddle player and classical violinist with her sights set on the prestigious Eastman School of Music. Those dreams are suddenly overshadowed when her father goes on the lam after a sheriff’s raid at a fishing cabin finds him with Ethel Mae, a middle-aged black woman, her biracial newborn, and a table full of drugs.

Hannah, her episodic alcoholic mother, Nadine, and the rest of the local townspeople are shocked by this unexpected turn of events involving Jacob Price, a Vietnam veteran and Purple Heart recipient. The woman with him, Ethel Mae, is the long-time bookkeeper at the car dealership where Jacob works as master mechanic for his childhood friend, Luther Montgomery, who has built a Texas/Oklahoma car dealership empire. Neither Jacob nor Ethel Mae is someone anyone would normally associate with the drug world, though people gossip about their friendship, who the father of Ethel Mae’s new baby is, and why she makes frequent trips to Dallas, which is 75 miles away.

Hannah and her best friend, Jimmy, embark on a quest to discover where Jacob and Ethel Mae have fled and, more importantly, what really happened. Joining the search are Nadine and Miss Skinny, Ethel Mae’s mother, who is, coincidentally, Jacob’s nurse from the VA, who helps manage his combat injuries.

As the mystery unfolds, long-buried secrets and deceptions begin to surface—not only involving Jacob, but other members of the family and the town as well. All the while, Hannah struggles not to throw away her musical future while being swept up in her family’s unraveling.

Who is guilty? Who is innocent? Those are only two of the questions that will be answered by the end of the novel.

Spending time with these characters and their secrets has become one of the ways I am taking care of myself this summer. Entering their world for an hour or two each day reminds me that creativity itself is a form of grounding and nourishment.