One More Shot

By Martin Penn-Woods

Every Sunday morning in the small, dark hours, Kara’s father came home reeking of bottom-shelf bourbon, knocked her mother to the linoleum floor, and beat her ’til she was too bruised to go to Mass.

Kara’s father died on the day she turned twelve. Wrapped his Chevy around a pole, doing a drunken ninety on a lonely country curve with yet another last-call skank in the passenger seat.

Happy birthday.

Her mother’s bliss was short-lived. Six months later, the doctors said she had lung cancer. She didn’t even smoke. A month after that, she was gone.

Cop. Cook. Shoot. Forget.

Remember.