Something was wrong. I could feel it like an electric current coursing just the beneath my skin. It scared me, terrified me if I'm being honest. How could I feel something was wrong? You usually just get told that. The phone rang. I stared at it in its cradle, willing myself to get up and answer it but the current running through my body stopped and I couldn't move. I just sat there, book in my lap, cross-legged on the sofa staring at the phone. The answer machine picked it up. It was my mother, double checking plans for Connors welcome home from deployment party. Upstairs my one-month old daughter, Sophia, starts crying and her wails echoed through the baby monitor on the coffee table in front of me. I would call mum back later. Connor is due home tomorrow. The doorbell rings and I slowing get to my feet, forgetting my book and not even noticing it fall to the floor. It was as I was in a movie, walking in slow-motion towards the front door. I swear I didn't take a single breath before I opened the door. A man wearing a uniform was standing there, he took off his hat and asked me if I was Lille Hartman, wife of Major Connor Hartman, I was. He looked down briefly before looking back at me and then he told me my daughter, my daughter crying in her crib upstairs, my daughter who - I convince myself at least- knew she would never meet her father, and I collapse on the floor and the officer holds me as I break down.
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Short Story[In Edit] Summer train journey's. What better inspiration for a collection of shorts stories. The concept for this book was birthed on a train but has continued to flourish long after the train left the tracks. From April to September 2016 I had to...
