"Gravel Road" short story

Winding down a gravel road one woman has to tell her sister a family secret.

“Abbey.” My sister looked up at me from the porch steps of our grandmother’s empty farmhouse, then to the glass of juice I held out to her.

She took the tall slender glass half filled with ice, the diamond chip of her engagement ring sparkled in the sunlight and I smiled as she took a gulp, swallowing the vodka against an instinct to choke.

“What the Hell, Becca?” she said when she finally got it down. “It’s eleven o’clock in the morning.”

I shrugged. “We are Fletchers. We drink here.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Grandma was a Fletcher. We are Cambells.”

“No Baby.” I said. “This was Grandma’s land. We are Fletchers here.”