Short Story Spotlight: "Visitation Rights"

"Visitation Rights" by Kealan Patrick Burke

Holiday blues shade off into the black in this bleak tale by the terrific prose stylist Kealan Patrick Burke.  An alcoholic father desperately tries to arrange some quality family time with his estranged pair of young daughters on Christmas Eve, but only manages to stoke the heart-scorching fires of anguish ("We are a tableau of pain and misery and fear," the father narrates as his hopes for a cheerful reconciliation are dashed).  The story's title proves a bit of a misnomer, because dad doesn't exactly have visitation rights with his daughters.  As the twist ending reveals, though, abduction doesn't even begin to account for this man's transgressions.  This is the type of short fiction that is appreciated even more upon a second reading, as you realize just how carefully the author has prepared for the shocking conclusion (starting with the opening paragraph), and as an even darker shadow is cast over the events leading up to the climax.  By no means is this a feel-good story, but it's an undeniably well-crafted one.

"Visitation Rights" can be found in Burke's short collection of Christmas/snow-season pieces, Dead of Winter, which is available in e-book format from Smashwords.  The settings here are quite stark (as suggested by the book's cover image), but these moving narratives will have you trembling from more than just the chill.