READ THE STORIES
This was the distinction that our family’s ethics hinged upon. My mother never lied to the woman. She allowed the woman to make her own associations. Our family code was very clear about this: a lie of omission is not a lie. A secret is not a lie. If you were confronted with a direct question, you were obligated to tell the truth. Sometimes this did not require the whole truth. The quest for answers depended upon asking the right question.
They disappeared together one day. My mother’s father, my Pop, who lived next door, saw them pull away in my Daddy’s diesel truck, which growled down the highway. No one knew where they went. They were gone for two days. We couldn’t call the cops because they were two grown men who left of their own volition. When they came back, they never admitted where they went. They only said that they had 'gone for a ride.'
[Millie] thought she’d imagined it until she heard it again and sat up quickly on the mattress. After she flipped on the lamp, she gasped at the sight of it sitting in the blue chair. It looked like a blob of flesh like someone dumped a mound of clay onto a wheel. It was Jabba the Hut with boobs and a bob haircut, draped in red in what looked like an old nylon nightgown.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MEET BRANDI BRADLEY
Brandi Bradley is a writer and teacher who lives in the great city of Atlanta.
She writes stories about crime, family drama, flea markets, cowboys, rowdy girls, and gossip.
She teaches writing to STEM majors at Kennesaw State University.