Latest Stories
Most recently published stories in Families.
Sunshine & Moonlight
Looking back, it was a simple action. I saw it lying there under the paint-chipped bus seat, half concealed by a plastic bag. I didn’t even think of it as an act of kindness, but more of just the right thing to do. It wasn’t old or terribly worn, but I could tell it had been around. Little did I know just how many hands it would someday touch, and how many hearts. How many tears might fall down onto its weathering cover. I turned it over in my hands, hopeful that a name might be inside. When I opened it, I saw neat cursive scrawled over the first page.
By Cherie Robidoux5 years ago in Families
Inheritance
The house of my father’s father stood at the end of a tree lined driveway, overgrown and untended. Muscular roots snaked under the road, opening gaping potholes into which the rainwater pooled, causing my old Ford to lurch alarmingly, creaking and complaining at every indignity.
By M. A. Rolli5 years ago in Families
Too Little, Too Late
Today, I sold my father’s watch. If you’d asked me last week, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you if my father was even alive, let alone that he owned a watch. I watched, detachedly, as the pawn broker rifled through the small cigar box of junk my father had left me. Aside from the watch, there were a few chains, a brooch that I hoped he hadn’t stolen, and two plain wedding bands that might have been gold, among a nest of worthless ephemera. Faded tickets to a Supertramp concert, a tiny book bound in folded interlocking gum wrappers he’d made while in prison(I’d received one just like it for my eighth birthday, along with a letter asking me to tell my mom he still loved her), three mostly used books of matches, a few faded receipts, and a molar made up the rest of the box’s contents. I’d thrown the tooth in the trash bin before walking into the shop. No reason to punish the pawn broker.
By Nadine Duke5 years ago in Families
Not waving, But drowning.
I feel like I've hit yet another painfully present rough patch. The walls are closing in and the haze of daily indifference is sucking the air out of the room. The lack of any other meaningful adult interactions is laying those needs directly and weightily on my partners shoulders. For all his many attributes, a natural flair for interaction isn't on of them. Combine that lack of fulfilment with the what seems like unending bad night sleeps, recurring nightmares and a constant sense of the unknown and I am beyond a hot mess right now. I am a slow building mass of over pressured anger and stress which I can feel creeping closer to the moment of utter explosion. One I can only imagine, based on the small but frequent eruptions of late, will be catatonic.
By Cassandra Carter5 years ago in Families
Journals
And that tiny speck there is your little baby girl’s heartbeat... The words float through my head like fluffy clouds on a warm summer day as I step into the bookstore, my legs passing in front of a sensor that lets off a pleasant ding, letting the attendant know a new customer has arrived.
By Chris Nicholas5 years ago in Families
Oak Hill
On a brisk November morning I had stood at my father’s grave for the first time in ten years. It was also the first time I stepped foot on my family’s estate, Oak Hill. My father was the only person that called me by my first name, Jessabelle, when everyone else just called me Elle. It was unseasonably cold that day, my breath wafted around me like pipe smoke. The sun shone through a lens of low clouds and occasionally bounced off the granite tombstones in a kaleidoscopic dance. It was quiet, somber, and lonely, but the way the birds sang their melancholy tune was beautiful in its own way and it helped put my mind at ease.
By Miranda Gaskin5 years ago in Families
The Bequest
The Bequest It feels heavy in my hands, this small notebook. It’s soft but it could burn me. It’s black but I close my eyes against its luminescence. It invites me to open it, but its simplicity repels me. Because I know what’s inside. As soon as I open its covers, the secrets will start spilling out, spilling over me, searing my skin and making my eyes and nose water with their acrid odour.
By Roxanne Bodsworth5 years ago in Families
Helping Hand
There is nothing worse than losing someone. Especially if that someone is part of your family. And when that family member has known you for a large chunk of your life, it makes it all that much harder. But it is nothing compared to watching that family member waste away as cancer slowly shuts them down, you almost wish for their death. That guilt after the thought is horrible. Almost as horrible as the death itself.
By Kate Moore5 years ago in Families
