Omaha

By Susan Brown

Haunted by a tragedy more than a decade old, Joe Sullivan returns to his childhood home of Omaha on a quest to find forgiveness and to find a way to banish the past, only to discover that endings are not just endings. They also signify new beginnings...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shh Publishing
• Release date: Oct 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310869938

Susan Brown

Writer and blogger, Susan Brown, has a passion to see people walking in freedom, identity and purpose. Whether in her work as an occupational therapist, raising her four children, speaking to groups or offering learning support to children and teens, her desire has always been to help people thrive. A strong believer in the power of authenticity, Susan often shares her struggles, failures and learnings with others, offering understanding and support as they work through their own challenges. When she's not writing or working, Susan's favourite way to relax is to immerse herself in a good story, preferably while reclined in a deep, gently swaying hammock. In her more energetic moments, she plunges herself into gardening, cooking, walking local trails with her husband or playing in the waves at the nearest surf beach. After twenty-five years in Launceston, Tasmania, Susan has recently moved to Wollongong, south of Sydney, where she lives with her husband, Mark, and three of their children.

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Omaha

By: Susan Brown

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Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2014 by Susan Brown. All rights reserved.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Blurb

Haunted by a tragedy more than a decade old, Joe Sullivan returns to his childhood home of Omaha on a quest to find forgiveness and to find a way to banish the past, only to discover that endings are not just endings. They also signify new beginnings...

Table of Contents

Prologue - Some stains don't never come out...

1 Owie Dogs

2 A little scuffed, a little soggy, and a little late...

3 All part of the service, ma'am

4 The Dented Kettle

5 Ain't yer friend, Mister

6 ...dinner theater

7 Strange Gravity

8 Omaha

9 ...cane in one hand, and shotgun in the other

10 London Bridge is falling down

11 ...the sanitized version

12 Hallowed ground

Prologue

(Some stains don't never come out...)

Cold.

That was the first sensation he remembered feeling, and it took him a moment to recognize it for what it was. Had it really been that long since he'd felt anything? Anything at all?

A bitter, barking laughter inside his head which made him wince. Yes. Yes, he supposed it had, and now that he was feeling again, he found that he didn't much like it.

Got to get warmed up some way. He told himself as he swung his legs off the cheap motel bed, which actually didn't feel much like a bed at all, but rather, like a lumpy block of cold steel with a threadbare, two dollar comforter thrown over it to keep up appearances.

The darkened room swam as he gained his feet. A whole bottle of Southern Comfort for dinner tended to have that effect. He stumbled toward the wall unit under the window that was dressed with shabby curtains. If he used his imagination, he supposed they more-or-less matched the threadbare comforter he'd been using as a blanket.

Hands groping in the mostly-dark, he found the controls, squinted to make sure he wasn't turning on the AC, then cranked it all the way up, gratified when currents of warm air began blowing through his hair.

There, then...that's better.

He lingered a moment, his face scant inches from the vent, before shuffling back to bed, bundling up as best he could under the humble blanket, and waiting for the room to warm up, except that wasn't quite right, was it?

He was waiting to feel warm again, because...

Stop it.

….no, this is important, and you've got to think it out loud...

I said stop it.

….because you've kept it bottled up inside you for....

Goddammit it, STOP! He screamed inside his head, but it was already too late. The thought that was never far from the surface of his mind burst forth as the last words of the sentence tumbled into place.

...going on twelve years now.

It might as well have been yesterday, that's how clearly he saw it in his mind's eye.

His kid brother, three years his junior. Mama's favorite, and why not? He was the blue-eyed, golden child of the family, and never once, not in their entire lives together, had he envied Darryl that. Hell, he'd been proud to be the big brother to such a great kid, and he had been, too.

Great.

And you know what else? He sobbed into his pillow. He Goddamned idolized his big brother.

The sobs were uncontrollable now. Idolized me!

The last thing his mother had told him as they'd gone out that day was to be sure to watch Joe. You take care of my baby boy now.

He nodded absently and assured her that he would and they'd gone to one of their favorite fishing holes where they spent the better part of the afternoon skipping rocks across the river and waiting on something other than the mosquitoes to bite, but it wasn't meant to be.

It just wasn't meant to be.

Eventually they'd grown tired of waiting and climbed up on the old trellis bridge that used to span the Platte River.

Darryl had always been a little uneasy about heights, but with a bit (and I mean just a bit) of goading from his big brother and ever-faithful sidekick, he'd been game enough, and before long the two of them were walking out to the center of the bridge and jumping into the cool depths of the Platte, swimming to shore and doing it again, and Holy Christ what a rush!

How many times had they made the circuit that day? Ten? Maybe a dozen? God it was fabulous! Up the embankment, across the rickety span, then looking down a distance that had seemed, in those days to be thousands of feet to the slow-moving muddy waters below, and every time they'd been careful, you know?

Big brother Joe made damned sure of that, because that was Mama's baby boy, and let's face it, Joe actually kind of liked living in his kid brother's shadow. He was old enough to know by that point that he'd never amount to much on his own, but as Darryl's big brother? Hell, he was only half a step removed from greatness. He'd have done anything for that kid.

Then why didn't you!?

The accusing voice of his mother now.

Why didn't you save him?!