Gary Fincke

Gary Fincke’s latest collection is The Sorrows (Stephen F. Austin, 2020). His full-length and flash fictions have appeared in The Kenyon Review, The Missouri Review, Black Warrior Review, WigLeaf, Craft, Atticus Review, Pithead Chapel, and Best Small Fictions 2020. He is co-editor of the annual anthology series Best Microfiction.

BIRTHDAY PRESENTS by Gary Fincke

Sixth: Her Reborn Baby Doll Her promised sister, it wasn’t, but her mother had selected the model featuring the optional beating heart and carried the gift-wrapped baby home bundled in a blanket as if sleet had begun to slant from a terrible sky. “What will you name her?” her mother said. “Bernadine,” the girl whispered, knowing not to say Darla, as she felt the doll’s heart pulse against her body. As soon as she kissed its face, she packed away her other dolls like winter clothes. But one morning, only four months later, when she pressed her ear on Bernadine’s…

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