Christmas References III: from Light Years by Susan Rendell
(This is the third installment in a series featuring excerpts from Rattling Books titles involving reference to Christmas.)
"That November they took Mom to St. John's, to the hospital. I wasn't around when she went, but I knew when I came in the house she was gone, I could feel it. That was the Christmas I found out there was no Santa Claus. Not how most kids finds out; you know, their Mom or Dad tells them or they hears it at school, but it's not so bad because they still get presents and everything. But when me and Brian went down over the stairs Christmas morning the year Phonse died and Mom went away, taking the stairs two at a time like we always did, pushing and shoving each other - it's a wonder we never broke our necks because there was no carpet or nothing on them stairs and they were as slippery as a gutting table - our stockings were as flat as panckes; we could see 'em laying limp over the clothesline by the stove before we were even halfways down. I couldn't believe it. The old man never said nothing to us when he got up, and we never said nothing to him. The old bastard; dead to the world on Christmas Eve on all that money, and me and Brian laying awake for the longest time, listening for the reindeer to pitch on the roof."
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Light Years is one of fourteen stories in the collection of short fiction by Susan Rendell entitled In the Chambers of the Sea. The unabridged audio edition is published by Rattling Books. The story Light Years, narrated by Joel Thomas Hynes is also available as a Digital Download Single.
