I had the pleasure of beta reading this short story and it is one you wont want to miss out on reading! Rebecca does a fantastic job immersing the reader into the story with her descriptions and dialogue.
Check out a excerpt below & follow Rebecca on her social media for more updates on this beautifully written short story.
I was hesitant to open the letter. I hadn’t seen my mama since I left home when I was sixteen. We’d write here and there but, something about this letter felt different. In some way I knew what it had to do with. It had been twenty years since that night on the dock. Twenty years since pretty much everyone but my family shunned me. Twenty years of images and sounds that still haunted me to this day. I turned the envelope over and opened it carefully. I unfolded the paper that was torn at the edges and read Mama’s words.
Lu,
Marvin Sinclair is ded. You need to come home. There is sumthing you need to no. I under stand that its dificult for you but you have to come home. Please, baby. I love you.
Your Mama.
As I folded the letter back up I was torn between two things—tearing it up and forgetting I ever saw it—or holding close to my chest as tightly as I could imagining that I was hugging Mama herself. I blinked back tears as I held it close. Marvin Sinclair is dead. The word dead flashed into my mind as I conjured up a million scenarios as to how that son of a bitch could have croaked. I tucked the letter under my pillow. Lying in my bed, I listened to the sounds of Atlanta hum outside my open window as the sweat from the heat rolled down my neck. Despite the fact that I missed my mama terribly, there was no way in hell I was going back home. I couldn’t go back knowing very well that if I did, everyone would just send me running again. I rolled over, my body facing the open window so I could let the light, stifled breeze billow on my face. I closed my eyes, trying to fall asleep. But every time I did, I saw Mama’s letter, beckoning, as if she could reach to me from hundreds of miles away.
- An excerpt from Down by the Bay
COMING SPRING 2020
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Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19766561.Rebecca_Amiss