Grafton

Written for Fandango’s Story Starter #237.
The image I used is courtesy of  Brian Dodd at
Bushboys World. Please check out his amazing
site. Here’s my story with Fan’s prompt line.

The Clarence River moved slow and brown in the afternoon heat, indifferent to everything.

Harper hadn’t been back to Grafton in eleven years …. not since her uncle’s funeral, not since the argument, not since she’d torn up his letter without reading it. When the solicitor rang last week, his voice careful and measured, she’d almost hung up.

Go to the river park. The old gazebo. You’ll know which bench.

She did know. She and her uncle sat there together many times when she was a young girl, eating meat pies and watching pelicans drift past. He’d told her that rivers remember everyone who stands beside them. She’d thought him eccentric then; now she understood he was truly on to something.

The green paint was newer, but the bones of the bench were the same. She crouched, gravel pressing into her knees, river smell thick in her nostrils.

She ran her hand beneath the park bench and sure enough, just as he said, she felt the envelope secured there by tape.

Her name in his handwriting. Nothing else.

She sat at the table where they’d shared those pies, the river sliding past, and finally …. a decade too late …. she read what he’d written.

And her heart split in two.

NAR©2026
#FSS

This is  “Mighty Clarence River” by Archie Roach

Fandango’s Story Starter #237

Eating out (park seats #4)

^{Everything on The Elephant’s Trunk was created by me, unless otherwise indicated. Thanks for your consideration. NAR©2017-present.}