The Hanging Night by Sasha Hibbs EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Sasha Hibbs
- Language: English
- Genre: Contemporary Romance
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
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It is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and
inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding
quarter of your little frame.
—Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
Josephine
You can attempt to mentally prepare yourself for something huge,
something you know is coming, something you’ve spent your entire life
trying to outrun, but when the day comes, there’s a grave reminder you
never asked for to begin with. I had spent the last two years of my life
trying to stay ahead of sadness, and I could no more outrun sadness than I
could keep my mother from dying.
At sixteen, only two days after honoring my mother with a
celebration of her life, I was going to live with my maternal aunts—twins,
Aunt Sophie and Aunt Lindsey, in West Virginia. My mother and I had
lived in Connecticut for as long as I can remember. She said she moved us
here after becoming pregnant with me, and when I asked her about her life
back in West Virginia, she always gave some clever, vague answer. I
sometimes felt as though she’d spent her whole life outrunning something
too. Some nameless thing. It hung over her, and it continued to hang over
me. But then one day, she didn’t have to run anymore. After two years of
battling breast cancer, the cancer won.
“Josephine,” Aunt Sophie called out, waking me from my quiet
reverie. “It’s time to go. We don’t want to miss our plane.”
Aunt Sophie had a gaze that could pierce right through you and a face
with equally strong angles and sharp lines. Everything about her looked
rigid. Couple that with her not-a-hair-out-of-place tight bun and plain
clothes, and she came across as unapproachable.
In reality, Aunt Sophie
was a kind woman whose heart did not match her looks. Her fraternal twin,
on the other hand, Aunt Lindsey, had long, dark, fluffy hair that whipped
around her haphazardly, and she wore long skirts and flowy tops
embroidered with intricate designs. She had a carefree, bohemian vibe,
listened to classic rock, smoked like a freight train, cussed like a sailor, and
I loved her. I couldn’t imagine Aunt Sophie ever letting loose enough to
listen to music, let alone say a curse word.
“Your aunties are going to take care of you, Josie. We won’t let any
darkness get to you.” Aunt Lindsey said, slightly pinching my chin between
her finger and thumb while laying a kiss on the top of my head. She’d
always had a quirky way of putting things.
My entire life was packed up in a bag. The aunts slid through the
doorway as I held my bag in one hand and the doorknob in the other,
pouring my eyes over the living room, which at one time seemed like the
heart of the apartment, but now was very much lifeless. It had only been the
two of us, but we were happy. As I scanned over each piece of furniture,
trying to sear every nook, cranny, and tear into my brain, I could hear the
echoes of the past life my mother and I led in that little apartment.
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