Synkroniciti is excited to welcome back writer Jamie McArdle, based in the Houston area, with “An Old House, Well Kept,” an engaging short story concerning a family mystery hiding in plain sight. Ellie’s grandmother is dying. Her last request of her granddaughter is that she say a special rosary every August 16th. Looking for answers, Ellie approaches the only person who might be able to give them to her. “Olive was my grandparents’ house help. She came on Thursdays, starting with the laundry and ending with making dinner, and even though there was no way that I was actually useful and every way that I was underfoot, she let me tag along.” The truth which Olive reveals changes the nature of the relationships in and around Ellie’s family. Jamie takes the time to build the relationships between characters–they are not stereotypes, but living, breathing people with foibles and major shortcomings, despite their relative goodness, and this keeps us invested in their story. She shows us how attitudes around women’s autonomy have changed and how much was lost in a society that prized keeping up proper appearances rather than healthy relationships. Contemporary life may be contentious and racism and sexism are far from dead, but we have come a long way in the last one hundred years. Here’s hoping we never go back.
Read “An Old House, Well Kept” in Synkroniciti’s “Family” issue, available here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Jamie McArdle, native of Wisconsin, eight-year resident of Katy, TX, learned early that stories were the real thing; the world perceptible had nothing on the world envisioned. She began writing in childhood, composing songs and what she did not know were essays, moving on to what no one then knew would one day be called “fanfic” about her favorite book characters, then original short stories and novels in genres from science fiction to the paranormal to historical fiction to romance – and has never stopped. “An Old House, Well Kept” explores the tension between family history and privacy, and between the power of the past and the freedom of the present.