Published Fiction

The following story won an honorable mention from ByLine and has been featured at Write Advice, a publication for writing the way to success.

The Epiphany

Sharon Tabor Warren

How could I know a few minutes on this golden April day would change my life? The sun streams through new foliage of the giant oak and dapples the graveyard below. Pine-scented breezes make a pleasurable perfume. I didn't come to mourn. The setting instills renewed peace and I visit each Sunday when the weather makes the walk pleasurable.

I buried Mama two years ago in the small mausoleum she erected here for Daddy. Four drawers, half of them now occupied. Mine is earmarked, bottom left. The last is for Darla.

I recall Mama's last days. "I wish you had a family, Margaret," she held my hand as she spoke in her rasping voice. Mama no longer had a concept of time or age and didn't see me as almost fifty. Having a family was no longer one of my alternatives.

Not many days later, when she'd accepted death was no longer a distant contemplation, she'd picked up the thread of her thought. "If only Darla was here. If your sister was with you, you'd not be alone." Mama had seldom spoken of Darla in the many years she'd been gone. We'd over-indulged the golden-haired child from the day she was born, a late-in-life baby who became everyone's pet, more my child than younger sister. She'd grown into a spoiled, impetuous, man-crazy beauty who mixed with fast people. Darla's crowd had lived on a merry-go-round of drugs, alcohol, sex and other activities I never told Mama and Daddy about.

I tried reason, threats, scare stories and every other tactic I thought might nudge her from what I referred to in my mind as the "sure-fire road to hell." She laughed at me. Accused me of jealousy, scorned my piety and ridiculed my looks. I could do nothing but watch my cherished sister whirl out of control.

And then Darla was gone.

There were no clues. The police made guarded references to the company she kept; some of her friends were arrested within a month as part of a multistate drug bust. I knew they thought Darla was part of the trafficking and that she'd been silenced. The case grew cold and forgotten, a missing female held little prominence against daily rapes, murders, armed robberies and other violent crimes.

I hired an investigator. His search resulted in little information for me and large fees for him, but gave us no hard evidence that Darla was alive or dead. I recognized there'd be no closure unless, if Darla was still alive, she chose to provide the answers. The hope that this might be the case, diminished with each passing year.

We settled into a quiet life. Mama finally accepted that Darla was not likely to dance in one day to resume her place in the family.

Today I think about our family as I sit on the hard concrete bench that faces the mausoleum. I listen to the happy song of a wren and watch her as she picks up a piece of pine straw and flies to the grill of the mausoleum's door. She slips through.

"Darn, the screen wasn't torn last week, I'm sure. Vandals. Kids trying to get in the vault, or maybe they've been in." I say the words aloud to no one.

I walk toward the small structure, anticipate trouble because vandals have wreaked major damage on the cemetery this past year. The door is not locked; someone reached through the tear and opened it from inside. I don't want to enter and shade my eyes to better see into the dark interior. The drawers are closed - no damage that I can see. There's a pile of trash in one corner, I'll need to call the maintenance people tomorrow and ask them to make repairs and remove the junk.

There's slight movement and the debris unfolds itself. Two hands, feet in filthy torn sneakers, a grimy face. The body emerges. Shadows of oak leaves fall across the features and I freeze--clutch the grillwork so hard my hands ache. It is Darla with a sleeping child in her arms.

Contact Sharon.