{"id":354,"date":"2014-11-11T02:35:14","date_gmt":"2014-11-11T02:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elsawinckler.com\/?p=354"},"modified":"2014-11-10T11:16:51","modified_gmt":"2014-11-10T11:16:51","slug":"written-fireside-i-looked-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elsawinckler.com\/?p=354","title":{"rendered":"Written Fireside: I looked away"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/elsawinckler.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/LookedAway500.jpg\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-357\" src=\"http:\/\/elsawinckler.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/LookedAway500-177x300.jpg\" alt=\"LookedAway500\" width=\"177\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/elsawinckler.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/LookedAway500-177x300.jpg 177w, https:\/\/elsawinckler.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/LookedAway500.jpg 295w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 177px) 100vw, 177px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>This is my bit of Lori Connelly&#8217;s Written Fireside story with the title <em>I looked away<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Garrett froze. Ice cold fingers closed around his trachea, making breathing difficult. Those words again. Swallowing a swear word, he jumped up and walked towards the river, trying to calm himself.<\/p>\n<p>Madeline was a beautiful woman, even while crying. For a minute there, that was all he was able to see. Until she\u2019d uttered those dreaded words. Why did people have children if they didn\u2019t want to look after them? The little girl was five years old, damn it to hell!<\/p>\n<p>He knew he had to go back to ask the mother more questions but he needed another minute.<\/p>\n<p>Confused, bewildered, Madeline stared at the game ranger\u2019s back. He wanted an explanation and now that she was trying to tell him what had happened, he was walking away? They had to find Megan, what was he doing?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat did you tell him?\u201d a voice asked behind her and Madeline turned around. Judy was standing behind her.<\/p>\n<p>Madeline got up and gestured wildly. \u201cJust that I looked away, but only for a minute, I just went back to fetch our jackets, it had started to rain \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Judy drew in her breath sharply and Madeline stopped talking.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe found the little boy last year,\u201d Judy said, staring at Garrett\u2019s back.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat little boy?\u201d Madeline asked, exasperated. She wasn\u2019t sure what was happening, all she was interested in was finding Megan.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne whose parents used the same words,\u201d Gareth said in a clipped voice behind her.<\/p>\n<p>Madeline turned and looked at him. And it finally dawned on her what he was thinking.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou think I wasn\u2019t looking after her?\u201d she whispered dumb struck.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhere exactly did you see her last?\u201d Garrett asked, ignoring her question.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Don&#8217;t forget to read the next installment by Aileen Harkwood:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/www.google.com\/url?<a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Faileenharkwood.blogspot.com%2F&amp;sa=D&amp;sntz=1&amp;usg=AFQjCNH-d1VEhg91XwpNfwOw9zux-mjSqw\">q=http%3A%2F%2Faileenharkwood.blogspot.com%2F&amp;sa=D&amp;sntz=1&amp;usg=AFQjCNH-d1VEhg91XwpNfwOw9zux-mjSqw<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is my bit of Lori Connelly&#8217;s Written Fireside story with the title I looked away Garrett froze. Ice cold fingers closed around his trachea, making breathing difficult. Those words again. Swallowing a swear word, he jumped up and walked<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,6,1,4],"tags":[16],"class_list":["post-354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other-blogging","category-books","category-uncategorized","category-writing","tag-written-fireside"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elsawinckler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elsawinckler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elsawinckler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elsawinckler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elsawinckler.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=354"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/elsawinckler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":358,"href":"https:\/\/elsawinckler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354\/revisions\/358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elsawinckler.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elsawinckler.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elsawinckler.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}