Fiction
Date Published: May 2013
Yvette is a forty-one year old woman struggling to cope with losing both parents during her twenties—one to terminal disease and the other to life’s complications. Over the years, she learned to repress the pain of watching her mother die and the resentment of having her father casually walk out of her life. Now as she packs her bags to return to her Georgia hometown and the house where final goodbyes were never spoken, a growing sense of uneasiness intensifies.
Vera is the kind-hearted stepsister Yvette never imagined nor wanted. She was an innocent teenager in search of answers when Yvette’s father, the Pastor, entered her life. Although broken from the loss of his beloved wife and daughters, he gave Vera the love and affection she so desperately needed. However, a childhood secret threatens to compromise everything Vera holds dear.
When the Pastor’s health takes a turn for the worse, both daughters must decide if they have the strength and courage to no longer be confined to burdens of the past. Will Yvette overcome feelings of abandonment and forgive her father before it’s too late? Does Vera’s childhood secret hold the key to mending this family’s broken relationship?
Yesterday Mourning is a heartfelt and poignant novella about two women learning invaluable lessons of forgiveness, love, loss and ultimately—peace. It is an impressive debut from an author with an authentic voice and a love for storytelling.
Excerpt
I didn’t know what to say.
While I wanted to hear his
answers, my heart recognized that simple words wouldn’t make our truth any less
real. Our perspectives had changed because our lives had changed. Our
interactions had transformed into something entirely different than the
possibilities we would have imagined a few years ago.
A part of me wanted to run away
in hopes of avoiding both him and the complexity of this moment—a moment built
on the promise of closure. However, running away stopped being an option a long
time ago, and as such, I got the privilege of sitting on a concrete step under
an August Georgia sun waiting for my father to turn the corner into our
cul-de-sac. I got to wonder whether he would try to hug me or engage in small
talk—or do the unexpected and admit fault for the current state of our
situation.
I wish things had been different.
I wish he had made a different choice—one that involved me, or at least
considered me. I replayed our conversations often, wondering whether I was too
sensitive or whether he really was as heartless and selfish as I perceived him
to be.
We were both mourning a loss—a
wife, a mother. He yearned to feel her touch just as I longed to see her smile.
Her voice had coached us both through the funeral, the holidays, and the random
moments such as being in the grocery store and seeing a grapefruit and
remembering how much she loved them. Both of us had changed hospital bed
sheets, paged nurses, and authorized procedures while feeling her slip away
from our hopeful grasps. The sting of tears on wishful cheeks was no less
painful for either of us. Our tears just fell in two different states and for
two very different reasons. The reasons were what hindered me from knowing what
I should say to him.
Renita Bryant, a native of Fort Valley, Georgia, had visions of being a writer from an early age. "There's something magical about using words on a page to emotionally propel someone into another time and place."
Since obtaining her BS & MBA, Renita has worked for some of the world's largest companies on many of their most recognizable household brands. Although she finds the work rewarding, her passion for writing pushed her to complete and publish her first novella, Yesterday Mourning, in May 2013.
Renita currently resides in Ohio and stays actively involved in social media with her blog, Renita’s Mynd Matters, Twitter (@Mynd_Matters), Facebook (YesterdayMourningBook), and Goodreads pages! She's currently working on multiple projects including book #2 and a collection of poetry.
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