Patricia Kramer is a writer, gardener, and wanderer. She earned a degree in English and Psychology from Syracuse University and a Masters in Early Childhood Education from Case Western Reserve. The mother of two daughters, she’s taught middle school English, served as the Educational Director of Head Start, and was a social worker in a hospital. At 71, she is learning to make large steel sculptures. This story is an excerpt from HEARTWOOD, a novel looking for a home. She lives with her husband in the hills of Sherburne, New York and on the coast of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia where she is working on a new novel about a female hobo.