Aimee Dearmon's Blog

Again, beginning at midnight on Wednesday, August 20th and ending Sunday, August 24th, I will give away the last free copy of Blue Dirt on Goodreads.

This is what Amber has to say about Blue Dirt: “She captured the small town atmosphere perfectly. Funny, charming, light read! With a few shockers thrown in, too.” Read more here and here!

If you’re a reader and don’t have a Goodreads account it’s a must, especially if choosing something to read from the millions of books out there is overwhelming, or if most of the books you pick at random prove to be duds. Goodreads makes it easy to find books tailored to your interests, based on reader reviews and provides forums for readers and authors alike, to connect.

So, go now and sign up at Goodreads, and then enter to win your free, autographed copy of Blue Dirt!

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Goodreads Book Giveaway







Blue Dirt



by Aimee Dearmon

Giveaway ends August 24, 2014.

See the giveaway details

at Goodreads.

Enter to win

The post Goodreads Giveaway – Enter For Your Chance To Win A Free Copy of Blue Dirt! appeared first on Aimee Dearmon.

Originally published in Joyful!online magazine, April 2010, part of A White Rose was adapted and performed by The Evergreen Theatre Ensemble of Naperville, Illinois in celebration of local female authors.

“No! It can’t be. Are you sure?”

“Yes, ma’am, I’m sure,” said the voice on the other side of the phone.

Paul appeared from out of nowhere and mouthed a, “What?” She shushed him with a flip of her hand.

“But, I just talked to her not ten minutes ago!” said Greta, incredulous.

“Well, ma’am, I don’t know what else to say. I know this must be a terrible shock for you.”

“Please,’ she said, struggling to control a rising panic. “Humor me and check the name again. It’s Geraghty, G-E-R-A”

“G-H-T-Y, yes, ma’am, I know and I’m terribly sorry. We found her wallet and the car was registered…”

She shoved the phone at Paul and fled the room. She could still hear his responses from the patio. She covered both her ears and cried out loud, “No, no, no!”

Moments later, her husband was holding her, resting his head upon hers. She felt each wretched sob blend in harmony with her own.

“Oh, God, Paul, please tell me its not true. It’s a mistake. It has to be a mistake!”

He held her tighter. “No, honey, it’s true. Delia’s gone,” he cried. “Our baby is gone.”

Together they wailed for God only knows how long. Finally exhausted, they went inside to call the kids.

***

Greta watched the raindrops slide into one another forming tiny rivers on the outside of her kitchen window. The shock of her daughter’s death temporarily anesthetized her allowing her mind to wander back to what seemed like yesterday. Could it really have been twenty-six years ago?

Delia was a twin, a fraternal twin, and her only girl. In the beginning they looked like identicals; two mini Winston Churchills, bald and wizened. But, three months later it was easy to tell she was a pinkie without any help from the color of her clothes.

She’d sewn Daniels’s shirts to match Delia’s dresses and smiled as she recalled how they’d attracted the attention of perfect strangers. On Halloween she dressed them up in his and her costumes, a cowboy and cowgirl, a prince and princess, until they were old enough to object.

There were times though, when having twins was an extraordinary challenge. After the birth of her third child, Peter, a mere twelve months after the twins, all of them contracted an intestinal virus. Greta had to call her two sisters to bring more diapers. She’d used up all the disposables and had even gone through the brand-new cloth ones she’d kept for just in case.

When they had the chicken pox, they had broken out in itchy, blister-like bumps, but poor little Delia’s was the worst. From a distance it looked like she had sunburn. At the time Greta thought she’d have been better at juggling bowling pins for a jaded audience than she was at appeasing three squalling babies.

***

The rain, slow and steady, added to Greta’s dejection. She wondered if it would ever let up when they passed a church. The sign out in front of it read “….and it rained for forty days and forty nights….” Greta smiled in spite of her shattering sorrow.

At last, the limo pulled up in front of the funeral home. She’d rather be headed to the gallows than to go into that place.

She pressed her face into Paul’s chest feeling his grief intertwine with hers the same way as their love had the night their precious daughter was conceived. They collected themselves for a few minutes, and then faced the unavoidable and stepped from the car.

They arrived before the guests and were met by their two sons. It was hard to tell who was more distraught, Daniel, Delia’s twin, or Peter, he little brother. In spite of the fact that Delia was silent, she was still physically among them. It gave Greta the sense that her family was still complete. She clung to the feeling knowing that tomorrow a crucial piece of the completeness would be gone forever like so many tiles from a perfect mosaic.

They agreed to close the casket. Delia looked beautiful enough, like she was asleep, but the mark on her forehead, still visible in spite of the meticulous cover-up, was a reminder of the fatal impact that stole her from them. In the end, a small photograph of her smiling, porcelain face beneath a thick mane of auburn hair adorned the top of the mahogany casket.

***

The long night drew to a close and the trail of family and friends said their final goodbyes as they passed the casket. On their way out, each of them expressed a condolence and imparted a grain of strength Greta knew she could never have understood until now.

The funeral director came back to the parlor to instruct the family on the next day’s proceeding when someone knocked on the front doors he’d just locked. Finally, giving in to the relentless banging, he excused himself and returned a few moments later.

“Mr. and Mrs. Geraghty, it’s someone for you.”

Greta looked at Paul. The look on his face reflected her confusion.

“I tried to explain that visitation had ended, but she is so insistent. If you’d like me to, I can tell her…”

Paul broke in, “No, it’s okay.” He turned to Greta.

“Yes, we’ll see her,” Greta concurred and mentally started to check off the guest list as she and Paul followed the director to the door.

He pulled it open, and as gracious as ever, said, “This is Mr. and Mrs. Geraghty ma’am. And, now you see why I believe you are mistaken.”

In a voice that threatened to erupt, the slight, elderly, African-American woman raised her head and enunciated each word slowly. “No, sir, I am not!” She leaned over and called to Greta. “I know your daughter, Mrs. Geraghty!”

Greta side-stepped the funeral director and searched beneath the snow-speckled, black scarf and dark, wool coat buttoned to the neck. She was struck by the old woman’s eyes. They weren’t opaque or faded like many of the elderly. Hers were the color of amber with the fiery brilliance of topaz and held a sincerity that was inescapably compelling.

Then, she spied it. It nearly screamed at her in contrast to the dark figure holding it.

“Mrs. Geraghty, I tried to get here sooner,” she said. “My heart broke for you when I found out about the accident. I just wanted to give you this with my sincerest sympathy. The world lost a good soul, ma’am, but she’s in a better place, now. I’m sure of it.” She gently placed a single white rose into Greta’s hand. “God bless you, ma’am.” And then, she was gone.

Greta felt her senses begin to fade. She could feel her husband’s hands steady her and just as she was about to give in to the darkness, her consciousness returned.

Her mind reeled back to a conversation she’d held with her daughter a long time ago.

***

“Mama, what dress should I wear at my funeral?”

“Oh, you’re much too little to worry about that,” said Greta, unnerved by the strange question.

“You mean little girls don’t die?”

“No, they don’t. Not usually.”

“Well, how about Mrs. Whitaker’s little girl?”

“What do you mean?”

“You and Mrs. Barry were talking about it.”

“You shouldn’t be listening to adult conversation.”

“What did her little girl wear?”

Greta stopped folding clothes and faced her daughter who was holding a photograph. “Give that to me,” she barked. She knew without looking it was that morbid photo of Paul’s grandmother in her casket, one that Delia had become fascinated with.

The little girl handed it over. “I think I want to wear the blue one with the ruffles and bow in the back. That’s a pretty one,” she said, and abruptly, turned to give chase to her kitten who’d whisked through the room and around a corner.

Rattled, Greta slipped the macabre print into her pocket, and then into the garbage on pick-up day. She took the cans to the curb herself. But, that wasn’t the end of Delia’s preoccupation. Within days, the six-year-old brought the subject up again.

“Mama, I think I want to wear the dress with the red bird on the front of it.”

“What?”

“When I die I want to wear the dress with the red bird on it.”

“Delia, that’s enough. You’re a little girl and little girls almost never die and I don’t want to talk about this again. Okay?”

“Okay,” replied Delia. Then, a few seconds later, “Mama, how will I let you know I got to heaven?’

“Delia, I said enough!” snapped Greta.

Delia shrank from her mother’s disapproving glare as tears filled her eyes. “But, Mommy, how will you know? I don’t want you to worry,” she whined.

Greta felt like she’d just kicked the family dog. Sighing, she drew her child into her arms.

“Just send me an angel or a white rose or something, okay?” She put a finger to her daughter’s small face and wiped away a tear.

“But, will you know it’s from me?” Delia sniffed.

“I’ll know, honey.”

***

The white rose was resilient. Greta handled it throughout the funeral. She held it as the cortege made its way out to the cemetery where Delia was laid to rest. It lay in Greta’s lap on the long ride home and not a curve of a petal had darkened.

The still white flower is now centered in a silver frame amidst the family photos on a large wall in her living room. Greta has never had the slightest doubt as to where her daughter is. After all, she’d been sent both an angel and a white rose.

The post Short Story – A White Rose appeared first on Aimee Dearmon.

Dave Neesley-Dk Digital Photography

She turned her face toward her lover’s. He stared back, but his dark eyes appeared blank. With effort, she rolled her head back and gazed downward at a thick, crimson liquid that spread slowly, like spilled red paint, outward from a writhing, bloody mass in her center.

Josie Crane arrived in Chicago four days shy of her sixteenth birthday to escape her drunken step-father’s sexual advances. He’d never succeeded in getting anything from her, but after she kicked him in the crotch and ran the sharp edge of a blade across his back, she knew it was time to blow.

She stripped for cash tips and helped “Big” Bill Sullivan, a North Side Irish gangster, unload stolen jewelry, dresses and furs to make ends meet. While working at a dance hall as an “instructor”, she was approached by a scout for Chicago’s premier madame, Minnie Beaulieu. Madame Beaulieu had at least nine houses across the city. She offered Josie free room and board in return for six twelve-hour shifts with five days off per month—on the days of her period—and twenty-five percent of her take. After facing dispossession week after week and occasionally, having to steal groceries to keep the gnawing in her belly at bay, the proposal seemed like a ticket to Easy Street. She took the job.

One evening, Madame Beaulieu came to her room with a rather short, dark man in tow. Dressed in a heavy wool overcoat, white scarf and large gray fedora, he had the distinct, cocky swagger of a mobster.

“Josie, this is Salvatore Gandolfo. Mr. Gandolfo, Josie.”

She was familiar with Salvatore “The Grinder” Gandolfo. She’d seen his thick, dark features in the newspaper often enough. A member of the Southside Chicago Outfit headed by Capone, he was “Bloody” Angelo Genna’s bodyguard.

“Well, hello, Mr. Gandolfo,” purred Josie, dressed in a filmy, peach wrapper with nothing underneath. He pulled off a glove and reached out his hand. She took it, slowly pulled him inside and shut the door behind him.

Although he was a stranger to her, the first-time sex was curiously passionate. As they lay in the sweat-soaked sheets catching their breath, the door crashed open.

Suddenly, a hoarse scream fill the room. Was it her own? There was no time to decide, because in the same instant, she heard a loud burst of staccato gunfire. Shocked into silence by the sudden burning in her belly, she watched the man lower the rifle, walk around the end of the bed and place a card on Gandolfo’s chest. When he reached the door, he turned to her.

“Sorry, baby. Nothing personal,” said Big Bill. He gave her a wink, and then stepped through the open door not bothering to close it.

She lifted the card from the dead man’s chest. On it was stamped a four-leaf clover. She lay her head back down on the pillow. Her eyes widened as a blinding white light shimmered, then dimmed into darkness along with her life.

The post Short Story-Nothing Personal appeared first on Aimee Dearmon.

Blue Dirt is now available on Kindle! Order your copy now!

What some people are saying about BLUE DIRT!

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