With July 4th coming up, the knot in the pit of Millie’s stomach was only growing. Pushing a strand of dirty blonde hair from her eyes, she scrubbed the glass tabletop even harder. Maybe if her house sparkled enough, she’d be forgiven. Or at least there’d be a distraction from the inevitable topic of conversation
– her. She stopped long enough to arrange the fresh flowers she’d snatched from her out-of-town neighbors’ yard in a pretty wicker basket on the patio. She returned the watermelon-scented candle to its home on the freshly-shined glass table.
It was the big annual family Independence Day cookout. And Millie had agreed to host it months ago, so there was no escaping them. It was a given that her brother and his new wife would be livid with her; she'd be lucky if *they* even showed up. But maybe they wouldn’t *all* be mad. She strung up some red-white-and-blue lights and winced, remembering that awful night four weeks ago. No one in Millie’s family had spoken to her since, and tomorrow would be her day of reckoning.
Cheryl Johnson has been writing since she was a child and just enjoys stringing words together. She lives in Winston-Salem, NC.
© 2007 Cheryl Johnson. Original for CCF (Johnson grants CCF first electronic rights for one month; CCF may archive the material indefinitely and include it in an eBook anthology).
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