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  Winter's Regret

  Copyright 2014 Elephant's Bookshelf Press, LLC

  Published by Matt Sinclair at Smashwords

  Cover design by Charlee Hoffman

  Book design by R.C. Lewis

  All rights reserved.

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Table of Contents

  Introduction

  Second-Chance Sunday by Liz Coley

  Perfection by Mindy McGinnis

  Adrift by Matt Sinclair

  One Way Out by M. Arthur Stone

  When Stars Align by A.T. O'Connor

  An Unexpected Reunion by Jeff O'Handley

  The Rose by Amanda Hill

  Los Sufridos by P.S. Carrillo

  Do Dead Psychics Smoke Cigarettes? by Robert McCoy

  Navigator by Paul Parisi

  The Unfinished Task by Michelle Hauck

  A Life on Fire by Morgan George

  A Gift of Roses by Charlee Vale

  Rimorso by Precy Larkins

  Anguish by Kelly Heinen

  Through the Fence by Cat Woods

  Island of Blood and Horns by A.M. Supinger

  One Hundred Nights by Sakura Q. Eries

  Preview: Battery Brothers by Steven Carman

  Acknowledgements

  About the Authors

  Introduction

  If I knew then what I know now… If I could take it back… If only I had… What if?

  What if time does not heal all wounds…

  To be human is to have regrets, to question decisions, even to doubt our own abilities and capacities. For me, there are memories that still cause me to cringe. I've literally cracked my neck when reminded of a moment of stupidity or falsehood or a misspoken word. "I'm sorry" is a phrase I know so well that I've learned its many limitations

  Whether it's because of a path not taken or a decision made for selfish or—perhaps worse—unselfish reasons, we all have had moments and decisions we regret. We might regret not recognizing an opportunity. Or we chose to clutch an easy victory that left us unable to grab the better opportunity behind it. I've known folks who have later regretted making the right decision. Of course, like most things in life, the difference between a right decision and a wrong one can be a matter of perspective.

  There was a time I thought of regret as an end-point, but I see now that it can also lead to changes in how we approach our life, our family, our friends, our work. The unexamined life may not be worth living, but sometimes we can examine our past to the point of paralysis.

  It's possible some of the stories in this collection are autobiographical. It wouldn't be the first time a writer has tried to exorcise ghosts of the past by writing an alternative history. But for their sake, I hope these are stories formed in their imaginations. In our lead story, "Second Chance Sunday," Liz Coley's sheriff is painfully aware that no one is above the law. As a parent of small children, Martin Stone's "One Way Out" chilled me like an Arctic vortex. Yet, Michelle Hauck's tale, "The Unfinished Task," warmed me like dragon fire. And like a well-crafted poem Sakura Q. Eries' "One Hundred Nights" leaves me asking new questions of her characters each time I read it. It's one reason why I chose to close Winter's Regret with it.

  This anthology marks the end of the first series of anthologies from Elephant's Bookshelf Press. In the two years since Cat Woods and I bandied the idea of an anthology around, we've learned a lot. I started a company as a result and became a publisher. For me it was the right decision and I'm glad I did it, even though it exposed to me some of my shortcomings—or perhaps I'm glad because I've learned from that exposure.

  In the end, the choices we make help shape our future. Thank you for joining us in the present.

  —Matt Sinclair

  Editor, Publisher

  Elephant's Bookshelf Press

  Second-Chance Sunday by Liz Coley

  I was just polishin' off the last tasty bite of my Easter rabbit with gravy and dumplings when I saw it was time to head over to the jail. Don't you look at me that way, like you're thinkin' poor little bunny. Living out here in a lonely settlement, our customs are bound to be a bit different from yours. We ain't got lambs and cattle out here on the edge. The ground's nothin' but rocks and clay. Pastureland not worth a damn. Small and efficient has gotta be our way of life. And that suits most of us fine.

  Now we got one special Easter tradition, datin' back to the very first Eastertime, and we call it Second Chance Sunday. All of us citizens take a look at who's currently in the jail, and we vote to set one of 'em free. We tell 'em, "Go and sin no more. You got a second chance." Well, a lot of them show up again real soon, but there's a few as mend their ways and settle in to become good citizens. And we treat like it never happened.

  This particular time, however, we had what you'd call a limited choice. When I met the citizens at the jail, I could only offer them two guys. There was young Barnaby the binger, who I tossed back in for drunk and disorderly last night. He was sleeping off most of his sentence, and I didn't see much point in letting him go early. Plus he was a regular repeater. He'd had more second chances in his life than about any man I know. Every time he got clear headed, seemed something in his past caught up with him and drove him back into the bottle. The other fella under lock was more of a nasty SOB who beat up his girlfriends. I'd been hoping to keep him away long enough for the latest one to heal up and come to her senses about him.

  Well, the people spoke with almost one voice. Free Barnaby. That was okay with me, being the lesser of two evils. The one vote for the SOB came from the girlfriend. I s'pose she couldn't help herself.

  Bein' what passes for a sheriff out here, I had the job of telling Barnaby about his lucky day. I brought him a mop and bucket, most politely requested that he clean up his mess before I set him loose. I looked into his bloodshot eyes, staring out of that sick-gray mornin' after face, and asked him, "Boy, what are you runnin' from?" See, I know all about runnin' from, being a sprinter myself. You can be runnin' from something, you can be runnin' from someone, or you can be runnin' from yourself.

  Me? I got a few monsters in my own closet.

  Barnaby gave a sour-smelling cough and acted like he didn't know what I was talking about. I said to him, "Come on, boy. It's time to give. You know what they say about confession bein' good for the soul." Well damn me if he wasn't a good Catholic, and I hit some button right outta his dim past. He opened up like a willin'…well, let's keep it clean and just say, he opened up like a mornin' glory in the sun. It's like no one had ever talked to him since he'd drifted out here a couple of years ago, and he'd been holding in two years worth of words.

  Seems there'd been this woman. There always is, ain't there? He'd loved her for a little while, got her in the family way, and run off in a panic. When he got his head and himself turned around and went back to face up to his responsibility as a man, she was gone. For good. Turned out she'd been a fifteen-year-old who looked to be twenty, and when he checked out, she throwed herself and her precious cargo off a bridge in despair. Every time Barnaby got sober, he told me, he saw that pretty little face so full of sweet, happy life.

  I must say, I've seen piss little of sweet, happy faces in my life. They seem to be few and far between. And I could understand how he felt at blowin' out one of life's bright candles. I could just about see the waves of
pain comin' off him, and I know what pain can drive a man to. Yes I do. I know how it builds and builds till it's gotta come out somehow.

  "I think I got a way for you to get right with yourself," I told Barnaby. "You willin' to give it a try?"

  So, he agreed, and we got him all cleaned and sobered up, and I took him over to meet the widow Amy and her little one. She called herself widow, but I think that was just for respectability. You see she never could remember from one time to the next what she told us her husband's name had been. I figured our little community here had a man with a powerful need to do the right thing and a woman with a powerful need. I told him, "You got to stay sober now. You got people counting on you."

  I guess you can see why I got good grades in calculatin' back in school, because my one plus two equation worked out to three, and eventually along came number four.

  Now, I most sorely wish I could end my tale here. But this isn't Barnaby's story. It's mine.

  Barnaby went from being our world's most miserable man to one of its happiest. A cleaner, soberer husband you couldn't ask for. Not a day went by that he didn't find me and shake my hand. For a long time, that kept me going. Every time he grabbed my hand with such warmth, well, it pushed against the door of my monster closet. Kept the door locked, so to speak.

  Please don't think I'm gonna start whining and self-justifyin' now, because that's not my way. But when I was just a kid there was a lotta ugliness in my life, and I'm not gonna get particular about who or what. You don't need to know that, and they're all dead and buried by now. But my folks got worried about a few dead animals showing up in my hide-a-way treehouse, specially worried about the way it looked like they died. They took me to a head doctor who gave them some long fancy words that basically meant he thought I had no heart and couldn't feel no pain. I don't know where he learned his head doctoring, 'cause he was about as far from the truth as he could be.

  See, I felt like I was all heart and I couldn't feel nothing but pain. I soaked it up from all around me. My Mama had pain from the way Daddy had no use for her. My sister had pain from the way Daddy did have use for her. I had the pain of being a useless, powerless David without a slingshot. And my Daddy, he was that giant Goliath. School wasn't no better than home. I felt the pain coming off every poor unhappy child, every lonely, bitter spinster teacher. Well, the pain, it builds and builds till it's gotta come out somehow. I was too cowardly to take to cuttin' on myself, so I reached for the nearest things around.

  When I was a young man, they put me in the service of my country, sent me off to crush some rebellion in a place that ain't even there anymore. Any of you who's been in war, I don't need to spell the word "pain" for you. You get it. I see it in your eyes. Maybe you've been able to shove it under the bed or lock it up in a brain room you don't use, but I wasn't blessed with that ability. My brain was screamin' for relief. I tried to put a gun to my own head, but I just didn't have the guts. So I found some nameless gal who would go with a guy for a few bits of silver and instead of showin' her love, I poured out my pain on her. I didn't dishonor her, mind you, but I cut her to pieces, all the same. When my brain quieted and I saw the fearful work of my hands, I returned her to the dust and said a few words over her resting place. I dragged myself with deep shame, yet deep relief through the last year of my service.

  I took my discharge money, hitched a ride out here with a trader, and promised myself to start over. Found a nice quiet frontier settlement, few people, simple ways. Became a model citizen, popular even. Played a Wiseman in the Christmas pageant. Got elected Sheriff second year out.

  I figured I was fixed up now. There wasn't hardly any pain out here compared to the unending clamor back East. It was sparse, thinly spread. I didn't know that I was like one of those electric things that stores up and stores up till it's full. Starts with a "C." Capacitor, that's it. And then in one big flash, it shoots out all the tension it saved up. That was like me. A pain capacitor.

  It took me more'n ten years to get full again, and I stood against the nightmares and the pounding sick headaches just as long as I could. One mornin' I killed a rabbit, and when I was done with it, there weren't enough left to eat. I heard a click, like a rusty door-latch opening deep in my head.

  Real soon after that, one Saturday, (in fact, it was the day before Easter as chance would have it) the no-longer-a-widow Amy burst into my office all in tears. Sadness was pourin' off her like the water off of Angel Falls.

  "Sheriff. You're our best friend in the world," she sobbed. "Please, I don't know what to do."

  Through her choked words, I got to understand that the doctor had told Barnaby that his bellyaches of late weren't Amy's cooking. They were the cancer, and a bad case too. Doc said he hadn't long for this world and he and Amy had better make plans.

  I walked Amy home, tellin' her lies, like the Doc had been wrong before. Like I knew plenty of men as had beat the cancer. Inside I was feeling like my best deed ever in this world was bein' cancelled out and taken away. She was going to be the widow Amy again and Barnaby was going to die a terrible screaming with pain kind of death that no man deserved. I'd seen it before.

  We got to her house, kids at the school and Barnaby at the store. She invited me in for coffee and she got busy making it. But somethin' about the idea of making coffee for a man got her going again. Facing away and fillin' the pot at the sink, her shoulders started to shake. As she carefully counted out scoops of coffee, her voice broke with grief. I said, "Amy, please don't cry so. It'll work out somehow."

  But I felt her sorrow washin' over me like real high waves, the kind that drag you under till you're drowned for sure. She turned to me with tears pourin' down from grey eyes, deep and faraway as a storm sky. There was no comfort I could offer. None at all. She collapsed to her knees with a wail that pierced me twice, through the heart and between the eyes.

  Then her pain and my pain, and my pain over her pain got goin' around like a hurricane building on its own energy till my head was filled with one loud roaring scream and my eyes were filled with salt water and my hands were filled with knives and my senses were filled with the red, coppery smell of Amy's blood.

  I was all wrung out and my brain was full of silence as I stumbled away from the house. Four hours later, they brought Barnaby in to the jail, stinkin' drunk. "We'll string him up tomorrow," the posse leader said.

  "You cain't hang a man on the Lord's day," I said.

  The posse leader gave Barnaby a look like he was all rattlesnake and said, "This one, we can. You go take a look at what he did to sweet Amy." Course I didn't need to. But I did go over to the house and gather clothes for his children. Then I went over to the school teacher's house where they were keeping and told her, "I'll take care of 'em for now."

  In the morning, I met the citizens at the jail. "Second Chance Sunday," I said to them. "Who'll it be?" I asked, knowin' full well that Barnaby was the only man there and they'd have no choice. But the mob shook their heads.

  "Not this time, Sheriff. You just hand him over to us, and we'll take care of it."

  When I went in to Barnaby, he was sober, and he knew what the mob wanted. I had no words to say, none at all. I was, at heart, still the most cowardly man alive, and I damned myself for it.

  Barnaby had no words neither. But I didn't feel the pain coming off him, just a quietness I didn't understand.

  "You got nothin' to say?" I asked him as I brought him out.

  He shook his head from side to side, looking at every one of us in turn and saying no at the same time. When he got to me, his eyes said, I know you. They said, I know what you did. They said, go and sin no more. And then the mob took him away.

  * * *

  I went back to my house and I loved his children like they were my very own. Every day I get to look into their sweet, happy faces, bright as candles. It's almost more beauty than a man can bear.

  Perfection by Mindy McGinnis

  In the early years, perfection and reality didn't al
ign. Her kitchen never quite matched the pictures in the glossy overpriced magazines from the grocery store. They were carted in along with the more mundane things like bar soap and diapers—the cheap kind, because single moms can afford nothing else. The magazines she set on the counter to be glanced through only as a reward once the work was done, everything in its place. Later on, the magazines came sooner, two pair of capable little hands handling the groceries, their repayment a quick TV show while she remained at the table, planning, plotting, sketching.

  Those little hands graduated to holding nails, handing over hammers, and switching out screwdrivers as she became more confident in her abilities. The kitchen having met her expectations, she turned a critical eye to the bathroom and the walls came down. Plaster dust landed on white-blonde hairs, invisible enough there that they could be sent to school the next morning without the time-consuming effort involved in baths.

  The dining room was an undertaking, one that required renting a Dumpster to throw old ceiling tiles into. Little hands were stronger by then, able to grasp and lift, returning empty only to be filled with trash again. Their reward was pizza night for a week since the dining room was unusable. Having food delivered saved time, and the doorbell continued ringing at supper even once the dining room was complete and spotless. Unused, it remained so.

  The living room was next. Stripped to the studs, it meant that Friday movie night was an impossibility and so little hands now handling personal electronics retreated to their separate rooms to stream their favorite shows while she worked downstairs. Covered first in filth, then in paint speckles, she worked until the early morning hours, allowing little hands to stay up as late as they wanted and skipping story time so the living room could be finished more quickly. Little hands discovered that their electronics could read to them, and it freed up more time for her to work.