I’m excited to announce that my WWII, historical fiction short story “Her Watch” won Honorable Mention in the 2024 Writer’s Digest Annual Writing Competition’s Mainstream/Literary Short Story catagory. This is the second time my short story has been shortlisted. Considering the sheer amount of entries the competition receives, it’s a pretty big deal. Here is an excerpt from the story:
Margit despised breakfast. She could avoid her family at other meals, but morning was the one time of day her father insisted they be together as a family. He liked to pretend things were normal like that sometimes.
“I need you to take Klára to school this morning,” Margit’s stepmother, Éva, announced.
Margit looked up from her cup of lukewarm, weak tea. Her pale blue eyes narrowed. She glanced at her brother’s watch. The opal and gold face read ten to eight. János had given it to her the night before the Nazis hauled him away to fight in the war. Thinking of her elder brother was like getting a paper cut on her heart. She hadn’t seen him for months—since before their mother died. Was he still fighting on the German front? Was he in some horrid Soviet prison camp?
Margit pushed away thoughts of János and the war. She still had a few minutes before she had to leave, but she would never make it to her interview on time if she had to walk her stepsister to school.
“But you always take her,” Margit said.
Éva went to the sink. Her stepmother tied on a threadbare apron and pushed back the dark, frizzy hair that had escaped its usual bun. Sunlight streamed into the kitchen from two large windows. Brightly embroidered curtains with flowers of crimson, cerulean, and orange had once adorned them, but they’d caught the eye of a Nazi captain more than a year ago.
“I don’t have time today. I have to line up at the butcher’s,” the older woman replied, busy rinsing out the teapot.
Margit glanced at her father, hidden behind the folds of his newspaper.
“You will take Klára to school,” came her father’s gravelly voice.
She pursed her lips and turned towards her stepmother.
“Klára’s fourteen. She can walk herself to school just fine,” said Margit. She knew it was a lie.
“You know it’s not safe for girls to walk alone,” Éva said.
“I can’t. I have a job interview.” Margit’s words tumbled out. She rubbed her damp palms along her light blue cotton skirt and pushed away her untouched, dry toast.
Her father banged his arms down on the table. The draft of wind from his newspaper sent crumbs scurrying across the scarred wood and into her lap.
“A job? What do you need a job for?” His watery blue-grey eyes looked like a storm cloud about to burst. He had been a handsome man once, but the war had taken its toll. His cheeks were hollow divots in his sagging face. His once thick, shining hair had receded, leaving a large expanse of splotched skull.
Margit didn’t answer right away. She took a sip of tea, trying to choke down its bitter taste. The honey had run out last week, and sugar was a distant memory.
“I need money.”
He snorted. “A waste of time. You must stay home.”
Her father returned to his paper.
Margit’s mouth went dry at the idea of spending one more day in this house. She looked around at the cracked and peeling walls, stained with soot. Faded squares had replaced paintings taken by Russian soldiers to adorn some kitchen in Kursk. Margit’s hands shook slightly as she put the teacup down. Money was the only way she could leave the nightmares behind, leave Budapest behind. But first she needed to get to that interview.
“Why can’t you take Klára to school?” Margit asked her father. The old man slowly folded his paper and glared.
Recklessness seized her. “If you care for her safety, certainly a man is a better protector than an eighteen-year-old woman.”
“Margit! Don’t talk back to your father.” Her stepmother bent forward to remove her father’s teacup.
“Listen to your stepmother. I’m busy. I have things to do.” A vein pulsed over his left eye, and his hands curled into fists, crushing the communist propaganda that masqueraded as news.
“So do I,” she pressed.
“Important things.”
“But my job interview—”
Her father snorted. “Why would anyone want to hire a smart-mouthed girl like you?”
Margit opened her mouth to reply, but Klára came downstairs, radiant in a pale pink dress.
Margit’s father dropped his paper and smiled at his stepdaughter. “You look lovely, my little bird,” he crooned. “Come and give your Istvan Papa a kiss.”
Klára skipped over to the old man and pecked him on the cheek. “Thank you so much for the new dress, Papa.” Klára turned to Éva. “Can I borrow your hat, Mama?”
Éva nodded. A thin smile hung on her lips that didn’t match the weary look in her grey-green eyes.
Klára pinned the blue-ribboned straw boater atop her soft chestnut waves, admiring her reflection in the mirror. “Edna will be just green with envy at this. She hasn’t had a new dress or hat in forever!”
Margit bit her lip to hold back the torrent of caustic words she longed to throw at Klára and her father. Instead, she pushed back from the table, rising to leave.
Éva placed a hand on her arm, stopping Margit from moving towards the door. “Please, Margit. You know what could happen.”
“She shouldn’t be wearing that dress. She’s making herself a target.”
“I know, but Istvan —”
“Take her,” barked her father. “Or don’t bother coming back.”
Margit hugged her elbows. In that moment, the ache that was her brother’s absence grew large enough to engulf her. János was the only person who ever protected her from her father. She sighed. She would have loved nothing more than to leave, but she had nowhere to go. Not yet, at least. She grabbed her dull red hat off the window ledge and pinned it to her pale bouffant. What did she care if her stupid stepsister got into trouble. She thrust open the door.
“Well, are you coming?” she snapped at Klára.
The girl flounced after her, books in hand.