Fiction | …from Magical Realism | After Life | Love
I Did the Best I Could
(Prompt #345 | the word is *gloomy*)
Her dogs keep barking at the closet. They sense me inside that gloomy wardrobe. My spirit was cramped here, in a box with a photo album filled with pictures of her childhood and her mother’s youth, carefully captioned. Inside, there was also a brittle note I wrote before I passed.
I didn’t ask for forgiveness. I couldn’t. But I tried to explain, scrawling the truth in my sharp, slanted script: “I did the best I could with what I had.”
“Yap, Yap!”
“Open this door, child. Witness my love for you all your life. Forgive and set us both free.”
© Scarlet Ibis James, 2024: All Rights Reserved.
🆂🆄🅱🆂🅲🆁🅸🅱🅴 🆃🅾 🅶🅴🆃 🅼🆈
🆂🆃🅾🆁🅸🅴🆂 🅸🅽 🆈🅾🆄🆁 🅼🅰🅸🅻🅱🅾🆇
⋆𑁍༘*ੈ🌺*ੈ𑁍༘⋆
This story continues one I wrote earlier in 2024, featured in my book, Scarlet Yearnings: Stories of Love and Desire. The excerpt above will be expanded in my next book to explore the entire arc of the grandmother’s journey — her regrets, love, and transformation.
