Unexpected Family

By Annie Reed

From an orphan who discovers she's not all alone in this world after all, to a young woman whose sudden compulsion reveals relatives she never dreamed she had…

From a grieving father unable to let go of the memory of his son, to a woman with unreliable memories of her life…

What do they all have in common? Family. Unconventional family. Unexpected family.

A master of fiction that packs an emotional punch, multi-genre writer Annie Reed writes stories that pull at your heartstrings in the best possible way. The six stories in this collection are some of her finest.

 

"One of the best writers I've come across in years."

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

 

"Annie Reed writes powerful stories about strong women."

Dean Wesley Smith, editor of Pulphouse Fiction Magazine

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thunder Valley Ink
• Release date: Jul 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201090715

Annie Reed

Award-winning author and editor Kristine Kathryn Rusch calls Annie Reed “one of the best writers I’ve come across in years.”Annie’s won recognition for her stellar writing across multiple genres. Her story “The Color of Guilt” originally published in Fiction River: Hidden in Crime, was selected as one of The Best Crime and Mystery Stories 2016. Her story “One Sun, No Waiting” was one of the first science fiction stories honored with a literary fellowship award by the Nevada Arts Foundation, and her novel PRETTY LITTLE HORSES was among the finalists in the Best First Private Eye Novel sponsored by St. Martin’s Press and the Private Eye Writers of America.A frequent contributor to the Fiction River anthologies and Pulphouse Fiction Magazine, Annie’s recent work includes the superhero origin novel FASTER, the near-future science fiction short novel IN DREAMS, and UNBROKEN FAMILIAR, a gritty urban fantasy mystery short novel. Annie’s also one of the founding members of the innovative Uncollected Anthology, a quarterly series of themed urban fantasy stories written by some of the best writers working today.Annie’s mystery novels include the Abby Maxon private investigator novels PRETTY LITTLE HORSES and PAPER BULLETS, the Jill Jordan mystery A DEATH IN CUMBERLAND, and the suspense novel SHADOW LIFE, written under the name Kris Sparks, as well as numerous other projects she can’t wait to get to. For more information about Annie, including news about upcoming bundles and publications, go to www.annie-reed.com.

Book preview

From an orphan who discovers she’s not all alone in this world after all, to a young woman whose sudden compulsion reveals relatives she never dreamed she had…

From a grieving father unable to let go of the memory of his son, to a woman with unreliable memories of her life…

What do they all have in common? Family. Unconventional family. Unexpected family.

A master of fiction that packs an emotional punch, multi-genre writer Annie Reed writes stories that pull at your heartstrings in the best possible way. The six stories in this collection are some of her finest.

One of the best writers I’ve come across in years.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Annie Reed writes powerful stories about strong women.

Dean Wesley Smith, editor of Pulphouse Fiction Magazine

Introduction

My Father, the Popsicle

Reunion

The Last Julian

Dawn Heard a Rumor

Ties That Bind

Every Day New, Bright and Beautiful

Copyright Information

About the Author

Introduction

Family.

Boy, does that one word pack an emotional punch.

When people talk about family, they might mean blood relations, or they might mean step-parents or siblings. They might even mean friends who’ve become their chosen family.

Family can have good or bad connotations. Parents who’d charge into a burning building to rescue their children, or parents who walked out on their children and never gave them a second thought. Siblings who argued non-stop as kids but who’d cross a continent to help each other out in a heartbeat. Aunts and uncles who might as well be surrogate parents to their nieces and nephews, and grandparents who raised a second generation of kids when circumstances dictated.

Family.

When I thought about putting together a collection of stories about families, I wanted to take things one step further. I wanted to collect stories about unexpected families. Relationships that for one reason or another aren’t what people might think of when they use the word family.

Most—but not quite all—of the stories in this collection have a fantastic element to them. Magic, science fiction, even myth. There’s even a story that puts an unexpected a twist on an all-too-common situation for those of us whose parents have grown old and whose minds aren’t quite what they used to be.

I’ll warn you up front. Some of the stories might cause you to reach for a tissue or handkerchief. From my perspective stories about families—even unexpected families—are all about deep emotions, and even happy tears require a tissue or two. But like the majority of my fiction, most of these stories end well, I think, for the people involved.

Readers can become a writer’s family, too. I hope my family of readers enjoy this collection.

—Annie Reed

July, 2021

My Father, the Popsicle

Jodi thought she was an orphan until one sweltering Thursday night in late June when she received The Letter from Billingsly, Wendham & Owens, Attorneys at Law.

That’s how she always thought of it after that. The Letter. Wasn’t that how you were supposed to think about things that changed your life? Capitalized and important?

At first she thought the whole thing was a joke. She’d just worked a double shift at Hot Dog on a Stick in the new mall south of town. She was dead tired and sick of the smell of lemons, corn dog batter, and hot grease. Her head hurt from pulling up her hair under that stupid striped hat, her shoulders ached from all the fresh lemonade she had to mix, and to top it all off, the air conditioning had been out on the bus ride home. To say the bus had been fragrant was the understatement of the century. She was in no mood for jokes. Her roommate Harry had a pretty twisted sense of humor. A fake letter from an attorney was just his style, but tonight the joke wasn’t funny.

I ought to rip him a new one, Jodi muttered as she opened her front door. Hear that, Harry? she said to her empty apartment. I ought to rip you a new one.

Not that Harry would be home yet. Harry worked as a bartender at the only gay club in town. Tonight he was on swing shift. Whether he could hear her or not, after a day spent swallowing the snappy comebacks she wanted to make to clueless customers whose IQ wasn’t much higher than the hotdogs they ate, muttering about Harry’s lack of humor sure as hell made her feel better.

Still, the envelope did look kind of authentic.

Jodi dropped her keys and the rest of the mail on the coffee table. It was all junk mail flyers and offers for credit cards neither one of them could afford, so it didn’t much matter where she left it. She plopped down on the couch she’d rescued from a second-hand store, slipped off her sensible, style-free shoes so she could stretch her toes into the carpet, and ripped open the envelope.

She skimmed through the introductory stuff. Dear Ms. blah-blah-blah I represent more blah-blah-blah bankrupt estate. The word assets caught Jodi’s eye, but the word that brought her up short was father.

What?

If this was Harry’s idea of a joke, it definitely wasn’t funny. He knew she had no sense of humor when it came to her family, or lack thereof.

She ended up reading The Letter three times in a row, each time with an ever-increasing shakiness in the pit of her stomach, not to mention a growing sense of unreality.

The Letter wasn’t the easiest thing to understand. Jodi had managed to finish high school—barely—but there’d been no money left for college after her mother died. She made enough to pay rent and keep herself fed, but higher education was out of the question. The guy who wrote The Letter sounded like he had degrees up the wahzoo and wrote to impress. Way out of Harry’s league. But Jodi did understand enough of the letter to realize that she’d been wrong. She wasn’t an orphan after all.

She did have a father.

He was just frozen solid.

Billingsly, Wendham & Owens, Attorneys at Law, occupied the twelfth floor of a fourteen-story office building of gleaming chrome and glass. It took Jodi three buses and nearly an hour to get there, and if it hadn’t been for The Letter in her purse, she would have turned around and gone home without even stepping inside.

Jodi didn’t know what was more intimidating—the building, or the idea of meeting with an attorney. Even when her mother had died, there’d been no attorneys involved. Jodi’s mother hadn’t owned much of anything. Jodi just kept paying the rent on their small apartment until the memories became too much and she realized she could move somewhere else if she wanted to. She had no one left to tell her she couldn’t.

She rode the elevator to the twelfth floor with three other women, all dressed far better than Jodi could afford. She’d worn her best pair of jeans and the only semi-dressy blouse she owned. She clutched her small purse as if it might fly away and leave her any minute.

The elevator ride was swift and quiet. No one in the elevator looked at anyone else, even covertly in the mirrored walls. The doors opened directly onto a reception area with a black marbled floor and indirect lighting. Jodi had to concentrate to keep her voice from shaking as she gave the receptionist, a girl probably no older than Jodi, the name of the letter writer—Artemus Owens. Junior. Esq., whatever that meant.

The receptionist took Jodi into a conference room with dark walls, thick burgundy pile carpet, and the same indirect lighting. A huge, dark wood table with a top so polished it looked like the mirrored walls in the elevator dominated the room. High-back, black leather chairs surrounded the table. Jodi felt like she was sinking in black tar when she sat down.

The room was probably meant to soothe clients with an impression of old money, like in some of the movies Jodi had seen, but all it did was remind her of the little chapel in the hospital where her mother had died. Only here the room smelled like stale coffee instead of burning candles.

Mr. Owens didn’t keep her waiting long. Jodi had been expecting someone old. Weren’t old guys the only ones who got their names on the letterhead and sat around in offices like this? Artemus Owens, Jr., looked like he was thirty—maybe—and he wasn’t even wearing a tie. He had dark hair and kind eyes and looked like he could have been a manager at one of the stores in the mall, only nicer. He even shook her hand like she was a grownup.

I understand you’re here about the Cryonomics bankruptcy, he said as he sat down. What can I do for you?

About this letter. Jodi pushed The Letter toward him across the glassy surface