He looked straight at Miranda. “She looked a bit like you. Course she was a lot younger than you when I last saw her. Pretty thing, prettier than you, sorry for sayin’.”
“That’s okay, I’m not all that pretty, maybe 40 years ago, but not now. Anyway, what happened to June? Where was she?”
“That’s what I keep wonderin’. I never heard nuthin’ from her after that last letter and it didn’t hold a clue. Her kin all died before we even met and it was just the 2 of us so there was no one I could ask. At first I wanted to run to the police but my landlord took me to his old garage and showed me the boxes of stuff he cleared out of that little apartment after June stopped payin’ the rent. Everything was there. Everything except my painting and June’s clothes. She’d taken my painting, packed her things and left me.
“Then, 60 years ago, this picture showed up in my mailbox. See that cabin and that stream? That’s my dream alright. See that woman holdin’ that little girl? You can’t see her face ‘cause of her hat but you can see that painting of mine leanin’ against the front door and you can see that baby smilin’ at the camera. That baby with June’s eyes. That baby with your eyes.”
About
These short stories were all written by me, mainly for a wide variety of obscure competitions and challenges. Some of these exist somewhere in cyberspace but this is my first, possibly only, anthology of my own work. They’re in some vague chronological order based more on when they saw the light of day than on when I first crafted them but at least there is some logic to the structure of this little book.
As for me, I’m Australian now, though I was raised in the US. I had a long-ish career in IT which I milked for all it was worth to travel and live in far-flung lands. Because of my job, I managed live and work in six different countries on five different continents. My roles were at some level rewarding, but weren’t how I wanted to spend my days. In 2006 I gave up that career to focus on my passion, writing.
My first published work is the first story in this collection. Suspicious move was published in a now-defunct ezine, Getting Hitched. I haven’t looked back.
In all honesty, though writing short stories is a lot of fun — and can be done in a rewardingly short span of time, it doesn’t replace my love for writing novels. I’ve been lucky enough to have three of my novels, Starting Over, Life’s Journeys and Confessions of an Aging Adulterer, published by Wings ePress. What becomes of my future books and short stories is anyone’s guess. Watch this space: www.laurarittenhouse.com
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends