Month: June 2025

The fluorescent lights of Catholic Charities buzzed overhead like angry wasps, their sterile glow casting harsh shadows across May’s face as she gripped the armrests of her wooden chair. Frank sat beside her, a man caught between duty and despair, while Mother Superior’s words fell like stones into the silence of her office. The clock on the wall ticked away mercilessly, each second another reminder of their impossible situation.

“Your daughter will receive the finest care here at Saint Catherine’s,” Mother Superior said, her voice carrying the practiced neutrality of someone who’d seen too much of humanity’s darker corners. She pulled out a thick manila folder, its edges worn from similar conversations with other desperate families. “We’re just minutes from Ramsay County Hospital, and our facility has handled countless cases like this.”

“Cases like this,” May repeated, her laugh brittle as winter ice. “You mean children having children? Products of—” She couldn’t finish the sentence.

“Let me be clear about the legal aspects,” Mother Superior continued, spreading documents across her desk with mechanical precision. “The child, once born, will be placed immediately with Catholic Charities’ adoption services. We have a network of pre-screened Catholic families waiting to adopt. The adoptive parents will cover all medical expenses and legal fees associated with the transfer of custody.”

May’s fingers tightened until her knuckles went white. “Since we can’t have the child aborted, we just want this situation behind us.” The words came out sharp enough to draw blood. “Will Mary have to know who takes the baby?”

“No,” Sister Margaret interjected from her corner of the room, where she’d been silently taking notes. “The adoption will be closed. All records will be sealed by the court. The child will never know their biological family, and Mary won’t know the adoptive family’s identity.” She paused, adjusting her wire-rimmed glasses. “However, when the child turns eighteen, they have the legal right to petition for their original birth certificate.”

“This child is a product of incest, Mother Superior!” May’s voice cracked like a whip in the small office. “We can’t risk them ever finding out—”

“All children are God’s children, May,” Mother Superior interrupted, though something flickered behind her eyes – perhaps judgment, perhaps pity. She pulled out another document, this one bearing the seal of the State of Minnesota. “We’ve arranged for a special provision. Given the… circumstances, the records will be permanently sealed under court order. Not even a judge can unseal them without extraordinary cause.”

The silence that followed was absolute, broken only by the muffled sounds of Mary’s sobs echoing down the corridor. Sister Ann appeared in the doorway, her starched habit crackling with each movement. “The girl is settled in her room. She doesn’t understand why she’s being abandoned.”

Frank’s shoulders hunched as if bearing an invisible cross. Through the walls, Mary’s voice carried: “Daddy, why are you doing this? What did I do wrong?” Each word was a nail driven into his heart, but he couldn’t turn back now.

Mother Superior cleared her throat. “There are other matters to discuss. Mary will need prenatal care, counseling, and education during her stay. We provide teachers who will ensure she doesn’t fall behind in her studies.” She slid another paper forward. “This details our comprehensive care program. The total cost, including delivery and aftercare, comes to twelve thousand dollars.”

May’s face twisted into a mask of horror. “Twelve thousand dollars! Are you out of your Christ-loving minds?”

“The fee covers six months of room and board, medical care, education, psychological counseling, and legal services,” Sister Margaret explained, her voice clinical. “We also provide post-delivery care and ensure all adoption paperwork is handled properly through our legal team.”

Mother Superior absorbed May’s blasphemy with the patience of a stone weathering a storm. Her hands folded on the desk like pale birds at rest, while outside, the late afternoon sun painted the stained glass windows in shades of blood and gold. “We can arrange a payment plan, or as I mentioned earlier, there is the option of making Mary a ward of the state.”

Frank stood abruptly, his chair scraping against the floor like a soul against purgatory. His jaw worked silently, muscles pulsing beneath the skin as he paced the small office. “Seven kids,” he managed finally, voice thick with unshed tears. “A large farm. Our son in Vietnam. School just started.” His words hung in the air like a prayer without answer. “We can’t afford this, May.”

“The state ward option—” Mother Superior began.

The sound Frank made was more animal than human. His hand crashed against the chair with enough force to make the wood groan. “Like fucking hell! We’ll sell the goddamn farm!” He turned toward the door, pausing at the threshold. “The baby goes to a good Catholic family, far away from Minnesota. I want that in writing. And Mary never knows where it went.” His next words came out as both surrender and defiance: “Sign the damn papers.”

Sister Margaret quickly produced a document. “This stipulates the child must be placed with a family at least three states away. The adoptive parents must be practicing Catholics with no connections to Minnesota. They’ll sign agreements never to seek contact or return to this state while the child is a minor.”

The corridor to Mary’s room stretched before him like the path to Golgotha. He found her curled on the narrow bed, her twelve-year-old frame somehow smaller in the stark white room. The single crucifix above her bed watched with eternal sympathy as Frank gathered his daughter in his arms and began the impossible task of explaining why her world was about to change forever.

“You’ll be here until after Christmas,” he whispered, his voice rough as sandpaper. “The sisters will teach you, take care of you. And then… then you’ll come home, and we’ll never speak of this again.”

Outside, the city of St. Paul continued its relentless pace, unaware of the small tragedy unfolding within these holy walls. The sun slipped behind clouds the color of bruises, and somewhere in the distance, church bells began to toll, marking another hour in a day that would haunt three generations.

The July heat pressed down on the Minnesota farmland like a suffocating blanket, the kind that wraps around your throat and makes you wonder if winter’s bite might not be so bad after all. At 101 degrees, the air shimmered above the fields, creating mirages that danced and twisted like lost souls seeking shelter.

May sat at her office desk, the ancient fan doing little more than pushing the thick air around in lazy circles. Her mind wandered to the previous winter, to those endless nights when the cold had seemed eternal. How strange that now, in this crushing heat, she found herself longing for that bitter chill. At least then, they’d all been together, before everything changed.

Outside, Frank and the boys labored under the merciless sun, their shirts dark with sweat as they worked on the veranda and kitchen addition. The sound of hammers echoed across the property like irregular heartbeats, each strike bringing them closer to completion, though none of them could have known they were also counting down to something far more sinister.

Kathy managed the bar with the efficiency she’d learned from May, while Nana—bless her weathered soul—kept watch over the younger children. But even Nana, with all her years of experience raising hell-raisers, couldn’t have seen what was coming. Nobody could have.

The girls had scattered to their various hideaways, as children do when summer stretches endless before them. Julie and Pam lost themselves in their Barbie fantasies, while Lori, Junice, Bonnie, and Mary claimed the tree fort as their domain. The fort, with its rough-hewn planks and secrets whispered between gaps in the wood, would later become a place of memories they’d rather forget.

“Mary, you’re fat!” Junice’s words cut through the humid air with the thoughtless cruelty of youth. Mary looked down at herself, feeling the truth of those words sink into her bones. She knew she was getting bigger, but not for the reasons any of them suspected. Not yet.

The afternoon unfolded like so many others that summer—the girls splashing in the creek, mud fights and laughter, Bernice the cow joining their aquatic revelry. But beneath the surface of their play, something dark was growing, like storm clouds gathering on a distant horizon.

When the two men in uniform appeared at their door that evening, it felt like the first crack in their family’s foundation. Jim’s draft notice landed like a thunderbolt in their midst, but it wasn’t the lightning that would ultimately tear their world apart. That bolt was still building, waiting to strike from within their own walls.

The truth about Mary’s condition wouldn’t emerge until later that summer, when the heat had baked everything brittle and ready to shatter. But looking back, the signs were there, hidden in plain sight like snakes in tall grass. The way she’d avoid certain parts of the house, the way she’d flinch at sudden movements, the mysterious limp she’d explained away that February day.

Thomas lurked in the shadows of their lives, a darkness wearing familiar skin. He moved through the house like a ghost, leaving destruction in his wake that nobody could see—not until it was too late. Not until Mary’s secret became impossible to hide.

When May finally learned the truth at the doctor’s office, it felt like the world had tilted on its axis. Her baby—her little girl—carrying a child of her own. But it was the revelation of who was responsible that turned that tilt into a complete upending of their world.

Frank’s rage, when he discovered what his son had done to his daughter, was like nothing May had ever witnessed. It wasn’t the hot, explosive anger she’d seen from him before. This was something colder, deeper, more primal. The kind of fury that could freeze hell itself.

That night, as Frank drove Thomas from their property with violence born of betrayal, the summer air carried the sound of breaking—breaking bones, breaking hearts, breaking family. Thomas disappeared down that dirt road with his duffle bag, becoming nothing more than a dark figure against the setting sun, leaving behind a wake of destruction that would ripple through their lives for years to come.

May and Frank drove away from the farm that night with Mary sedated between them, the truck’s headlights cutting through the darkness like search beams seeking answers in a world that suddenly made no sense. Behind them, the farmhouse stood silent, its windows dark with secrets finally spoken, its foundations shaken by truths too heavy to bear.

The summer of 1970 would be remembered not for its oppressive heat or the war that threatened to take Jim away, but for the way it exposed the darkness that had been living under their roof all along. Sometimes the most dangerous monsters aren’t the ones that come from outside—they’re the ones that grow up right beside you, wearing a familiar face and carrying your own blood in their veins.

As they drove through the night, May couldn’t help but think about the winter that had come before, how they’d huddled together against the cold, never suspecting that the real threat to their family’s warmth had been living among them all along. The road ahead disappeared into darkness, much like their future, uncertain and foreboding, but they drove on anyway. Because that’s what the Winters family did—they endured, they survived, they pressed on, even when the path ahead seemed impossible to navigate.

The Minnesota summer night pressed in around their truck, hot and heavy with promises of storms to come. But for now, they drove in silence, each lost in their own thoughts, each carrying their own burden of guilt and grief and anger. The darkness outside was nothing compared to the shadows they carried within.

Chapter 3

The storm clouds gathered over Brainerd like a shroud, heavy with malevolent purpose. February in Minnesota wasn’t just cold—it was an arctic demon that clawed at windows and howled through pine trees with vindictive glee. Inside the farmhouse, a new Grundig transistor radio crackled to life, its orange dial glowing like a cat’s eye in the growing darkness. The newscaster’s voice cut through waves of static: wind chill plummeting to negative three, winds whipping to fifteen miles per hour. Stay inside, he warned, though only a fool would venture out on a night when even the shadows seemed to freeze.

Out on the twelve-hundred-acre farm, the cattle had found their sanctuary. They huddled together beneath an ancient oak that rose from a sunken knoll like the twisted hand of some buried giant. White pines and squat hemlocks formed a natural fortress around them, their branches interlaced like soldiers’ arms locked in protection. Here, in this circular grove, the arctic wind died to a whisper, as if even nature respected this sacred space.

The barn told its own story of winter refuge, but with darker undertones. Horses stamped restlessly in their stalls, sensing something their human masters couldn’t. Farm cats prowled the hay bales stacked halfway to the rafters, their eyes gleaming with ancient knowledge. A great horned owl—more sentinel than mascot—peered down from its perch on a wooden truss, its occasional questioning hoot carrying hints of impending doom. In the attached coop, chickens nestled beneath the harsh glare of heat lamps, their rooster strutting below like a tin-pot dictator, pecking at imagined treasures in the straw.

Inside the farmhouse, May moved with the precision of a battlefield medic, her thirty-seven years etched in the tight lines around her eyes. Nine children needed shepherding to bed, lunches needed packing, and her own preparations for the night shift loomed like a sentence. She was a master of temporal gymnastics, performing ten tasks simultaneously while time slipped through her fingers like winter wind through bare branches.

Frank’s arrival shattered the routine like a stone through glass. His chrome-trimmed sky-blue rig sat in the yard, exhaust rising like ghost breath in the frigid air, a mechanical beast finally at rest after eight days on the road. He filled the doorway like a mountain, forty years of hard living carved into his face. “You performing tonight, babe?” The question carried more weight than its simple words suggested, his eyes lighting up with a hunger that had nothing to do with food.

May nodded, adding with forced lightness, “Plus I’m tending bar—they called in. Care to help out?” But beneath her casual tone lay currents of desperation, of needs unspoken and burdens unshared.

Frank’s smile faltered, revealing the exhaustion beneath his rough exterior. “Just got off a long haul, love. Haven’t even showered yet, let alone eaten. Give me a moment to get my bearings?” His words carried an edge of pleading, a rare crack in his armor.

May’s sigh spoke volumes—of understanding, of resignation, of love tested by time and circumstance. “You betcha. There’s fried chicken in the fridge. I’ve got to run.” She watched him disappear down the hall, a ghost of his usual self, before wrapping herself in her mismatched winter armor: an oversized pink-and-black wool-lined coat, thick hand-knitted cap, and men’s mittens that swallowed her hands like hungry beasts.

Outside, the cold attacked with predatory ferocity. May wrestled with her keys, cursing as she yanked off a mitten to unlock her rusty ’67 Ford. The truck’s seat welcomed her with the familiarity of an old friend who’d seen too much. The engine protested like a cranky old goat before erupting into life with a series of backfires that echoed like gunshots in the frozen air. As she guided the truck around Frank’s rig and down the long driveway, she watched the farmhouse shrink in her rearview mirror, knowing that tonight, like every night lately, something dark and inevitable was gathering strength, waiting to strike.

Back inside, fresh from his shower, Frank retrieved his chicken and beer, his movements deliberate, almost ritualistic. An argument erupted upstairs like summer lightning. “You three little shits better simmer down and hit the lights,” he bellowed, his voice carrying the threat of thunder, “or Nana’s gonna come up and tan your hides!”

The house fell into an uneasy silence, broken only by the soft creaking of settling wood and the whispered conspiracies of children plotting in the dark. Frank settled into a sturdy wooden chair with his cold dinner just as Marc, his seventeen-year-old son, stormed in like a force of nature, complaint written in every line of his body.

“Boy,” Frank’s voice carried the weight of years and miles, “you’re old enough to get a job and move out if you can’t handle your sisters. I don’t want to hear it.”

“It ain’t about handling them, Pops!” Marc’s protest crackled with teenage fury. “It’s about not being able to give them a piece of my mind!”

Frank fixed him with a weary glare that could have frozen hell itself. “Are you a boy or a man? Get out of my face—I’ve had a long week, and you’re grating on my last nerve!”

Marc thundered upstairs like a storm front, pausing at his sisters’ doorway to deliver his parting shot. “If you three can’t shut up and let a guy sleep, go join the other animals in the barn!” The girls responded by slamming the door, their giggles floating through the wood like smoke through cracks. “Stupid bitches,” Marc muttered, retreating to his room.

Frank, overhearing, allowed himself a small smile that held more sadness than mirth. Chicken leg dangling from his mouth like a forgotten cigar, he gathered his feast—the bucket of chicken and two more beers, his armor against the night—and settled into his favorite recliner opposite the fireplace. Channel 11 flickered to life, casting shadows that danced on the walls like memories trying to escape.

Hours later, Frank dozed in his chair, his ninth beer balanced precariously like a liquid tightrope walker. Johnny Carson’s monologue provided a soundtrack to his dreams while Thomas, his hippie son and bitter high school dropout, stumbled in. The boy was stoned beyond comprehension, his eyes glazed with chemical escape. “Sorry, Pops,” he slurred, the words tumbling out like broken glass, “was out with the guys.”

Frank grunted without opening his eyes, a bear disturbed from hibernation. “Shut it, Tommy boy. I’m sleeping.”

Thomas fumbled his way to the basement door, giggling at his own numbness, a sound that carried dark undertones of despair. He crashed down the stairs with all the grace of a wounded animal, stripped, and swallowed two barbiturates before collapsing onto his decrepit couch beneath an unwashed quilt. “Hate this family,” he mumbled into the darkness, each word falling like a stone into a bottomless well. “Hate this town. Hate everything. It’s all fucked up.” His words dissolved into troubled sleep, but the darkness listened, and the darkness remembered.

At the bar, May found Doreen waiting like a harbinger of change. “That offer still on the table?” The owner’s question hung in the air like smoke, heavy with implication. May’s heart quickened, a trapped bird against her ribs. “Which offer?” she asked, though she knew—oh, how she knew.

“To buy this heap. I’m done with these townspeople!”

The moment stretched between them like a wire about to snap. May secured her truck before responding, each word carefully chosen. “Doreen, I made that offer two years ago. Why now?”

“My office. We need to talk.” They weaved through the crowd of regulars, one calling out like a lost soul: “Hurry up, May! We want music!”

May turned back, forcing a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Just a few minutes, I promise.” The office door closed behind them with the finality of a coffin lid, shutting out the bar’s chaos. The small room, once a keg storage space, now housed a metal desk crowned with a garish cowboy-and-Indian lampshade that cast shadows like war dancers on the walls. A pine-and-leather couch exhaled decades of cigarette smoke and spilled beer, while in the corner, a black-and-copper Gary Safe Co. vault stood sentinel, “Doreen Heifferman” and “Buffalo N.Y.” emblazoned across its face like a challenge.

They settled on opposite ends of the couch, two women on the edge of destiny. “Drink?” Doreen offered, but May shook her head, clinging to her principles like a lifeline. “You know my rules about mixing work and spirits.”

“That’s exactly why you’d be perfect for this place.” Doreen reached for May’s hand, but May pulled back, sensing the weight of what was coming. “Cut the sweet talk, Dor. Why sell now?”

“I’m tired. Family’s gone, husband’s dead, and this place has lost its meaning. Time to live a little before I can’t.” The words fell between them like autumn leaves, each one carrying its own shade of sadness.

May absorbed this in silence, feeling the threads of fate weaving tighter around her. “I’ll need to discuss it with Frank. Things have changed since I made that offer.”

“Take your time,” Doreen said, rising with the effort of ages. She opened the safe with practiced movements: left, right, left, like a dance she’d performed too many times. “Here’s your band earnings from last week. Better get ready—you’re on in forty.”

May headed for the stage while Doreen lingered, drinking in her office one last time before securing the safe and sinking onto the couch, surrounded by the ghosts of decisions past and futures yet to come.

The night unfolded like a dark flower, each petal revealing new secrets, new sorrows. At the bar, May leaned toward Henry, the heavily tattooed fifty-six-year-old bartender, his long beard a silver cascade in the dim light. “Mind staying late? Jen called in sick.”

Henry stroked his beard thoughtfully, lining up shots with his free hand like a general positioning troops. “For you, May, I’d move the moon itself.” The words carried more truth than either of them wanted to acknowledge.

May took the stage, her presence electric, a force that commanded attention. “Hey boys and girls, time for some harmony!” The sixty-three regulars erupted in cheers, their voices rising like a tide. “Sing it, May!”

She caught the drummer’s eye, a silent communication born of countless nights. “Dizzy, baby… One… Two… Three…” The opening beats of Tommy Roe’s “Dizzy” filled the air like smoke, but beneath the music, beneath the laughter and the calls for more, something darker stirred, waiting for its moment to emerge from the shadows of this long winter night.

Meanwhile, in the basement, Thomas jerked awake, executing an unintentional cartwheel into the coffee table that sent him sprawling like a broken marionette. Blood gushed from a gash running from below his eye to his jawline, a crimson ribbon in the dim light. “Fuck my life,” he whimpered, stumbling to the bathroom like a wounded animal. His solution—a bottle of superglue—spoke volumes about his desperation. He squeezed the adhesive into the wound before pressing the edges together with trembling hands, sealing more than just flesh with his actions.

Back on his couch, he took a deep hit from his bong, exhaling slowly between coughs that sounded like sobs. After thirty minutes of ceiling-staring, the munchies drove him upstairs like a puppet on invisible strings. He raided the fridge for a beer, drumstick, and potato salad, consuming his midnight feast at the kitchen table like a condemned man’s last meal.

Standing at the bottom of the stairs, one hand on the banister, he paused, as if sensing the weight of all his bad decisions pressing down from above. The darkness seemed to pulse around him, whispering secrets only he could hear, promises that would soon turn to nightmares in the cold Minnesota night.

The house held its breath, waiting for what would come next, knowing that some sins can never be washed away, some wounds never heal, and some winter nights stretch on forever, their darkness reaching far beyond the dawn.

Chapter 2