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    The Mistress
    The Mistress
    The Mistress
    Ebook68 pages38 minutes

    The Mistress

    By Kali Amanda Browne

    ()

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    About this ebook

    *** Josie had experienced many loses, but none as painful as this last one. She was hurting and she felt herself literally shattering. As part of her ongoing therapy, Josie began to reconstruct the story of the most traumatic day of her life, the origin story of her torment: the day she discovered her father had a mistress. ***

    These words begin The Mistress, a series of fractured stories put together by a heartbroken and seriously conflicted woman journaling about the origin of her inner torment. In an effort to better understand her pain, she began writing her memories. But soon she realized memories lie. So she started gathering the stories of those who’d witnessed that day and its aftermath, from police reports, court records, articles written.

    The Mistress chronicles a tale of betrayal and its repercussions. It’s messy, sometimes contradictory and as chaotic as Josie’s own feelings about it―because so much of it reflects the perspective of the witnesses, but it all still leads to the same tragic end. Meant as a healing tool, it remains incomplete because Josie lost her journal. We may never know the revelations or epiphanies Josie may have gained from the experience, but we can bear witness―from a safe distance...

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherKali Amanda Browne
    Release dateMay 3, 2019
    ISBN9780463361320
    The Mistress
    Author

    Kali Amanda Browne

    Kali Amanda Browne was born in New York City; grew up in Puerto Rico; and she came of age and currently resides in Brooklyn, NY. Above all, she tries to laugh even at adversity. She is a writer, food enthusiast, devoted daughter, nerd, pagan, wild woman...

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      Book preview

      The Mistress - Kali Amanda Browne

      DEDICATION

      Happy Valentine’s Day!

      The Mistress chronicles a tale of betrayal and its repercussions. It is messy, sometimes contradictory, and as chaotic as Josie’s own feelings about it―because so much of it reflects the perspective of the witnesses, but it all still leads to the same tragic end.

      Meant as a healing tool, it remains incomplete because Josie lost her journal. We may never know the revelations or epiphanies she may have gained from the experience, but we can bear witness―from a safe distance...

      Introduction

      JOSIE HAD EXPERIENCED many loses, but none as devastating as the latest one. She was hurting and she felt herself literally shattering. As part of her ongoing therapy, she began to reconstruct the story of the most traumatic day of her life, the origin story of her anguish: the day she discovered her father had a mistress.

      Journal your memories and your thoughts, her therapist told her. She furiously wrote to cleanse the growing angst in her mind and soul.

      While she remembered some details clearly, she learned soon that memories lie. The truth is that she ultimately had put most of the narrative together like a jigsaw puzzle, and most pages were stories she gathered from others who’d witnessed it all, court records, and magazine and newspaper articles about the incident and its repercussions. In the telling, some of it was as chaotic as the emotional turmoil she’d carried with her for years. This is because she never had the opportunity to sit calmly and objectively review it all to arrive at some truth she could recognize...

      And that is exactly what Josie was doing until, absentmindedly; she left her journal at a coffee shop in the Upper East Side. A hipster picked it up, scanned its pages, and published the work as a piece of found art. This is that journal.

      As for Josie, we know she was conflicted as of her last entry, but she never claimed the notebook back; still, those who remembered the very public details realized almost instantly it was hers.

      Josie is living in seclusion, trying to make peace with the past.

      1

      FOR THE LAST 30 YEARS, on Valentine’s Day, Momma tried to redirect my attention.

      She wanted to make sure I did not define myself by my memories.

      I was 12, and witnessed part of it; but most of what I know of that day was a narrative I put together from police reports, testimony, news reports, and some interviews (I never told her I had been piecing these together by tracking down the people who had been there).

      Last night, Momma called me to her deathbed and asked me, for the first time in the 30 years since it happened, How much do you remember about the incident?

      What follows is what I remembered plus what others remembered and lent to my understanding of it.

      The way I remember it, things changed for

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