The Cave House Stories, a novel, is available on amazon. It begins,
When Ollie first saw the Cave House he wanted to move in, keeping its two shy occupants, a field mouse and a woman with waves of auburn hair falling down her back like the pelt of a red squirrel. A streak of white flowed from her widow’s peak over her right shoulder, the squirrel’s tender belly.
He didn’t know what part of the house captivated him the most, the weathered vertical wood siding, the large front windows that looked out like kind eyes, or the way the house backed into the hillside as if there must be secret passageways deep within. Maybe it was the simple beauty of a roof decorated with moss and ferns.
He saw the Cave House only after he’d won the shy woman’s trust in a most unusual way, by telling her a story he’d never dared tell anyone. Even after that first story he knew, with a Zen-like acceptance, that neither the dwelling nor the woman would ever be his, any more than he could possess the wild mouse.
And then, winging acceptance back at whoever had decided Zen living meant passive living, he vowed they would all be his, the mouse that crept in from the meadow, the cardinal that sang in the lilacs, the squirrel that chattered from the trees above the Cave House, and the woman who wanted nothing to do with love.
Gifts from Away 