Under the Wedding Dress
When Richard was nine, he discovered in the basement storeroom his mother naked with a stranger under her hanging wedding gown. Thereafter Richard and his mother had an uncomfortable relationship, involving even Richard’s wife Edith, whom his mother disliked for what she claimed were Edith’s flirtatious ways and revealing clothes.
Edith never revealed the mother’s secret, but after Richard died, at a large family gathering, when Richard’s mother publicly accused Edith of infidelity with Tom, the neighbor next door, Edith not only exposed the matriarch’s storeroom affair, but, after the old lady died, married Tom in the mother’s wedding dress.
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D. D. Renforth was born and grew up in Rochester, New York. He graduated from Syracuse University, Duke University, and the University of Toronto (Ph.D.). Since 2016, he has published many stories, poetry, and one act plays. His work has recently appeared in Burningword Literary, Ocotillo Review, Straylight Literary, and The Woven Tale Press, among others.
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