Sibling Revenge

I’d like to welcome back Mary Hamilton who has a funny family story about sibling revenge. I can certainly recall some sibling revenge in my own family, growing up with three sisters! Maybe some of you can as well. I love to hear from my readers, so feel free to open in your browser and scroll to the bottom to make a comment. I reply to all comments. Enjoy! 

Sibling Revenge

Growing up, my closest siblings were my two younger brothers. Ernie and David were near enough in age and appearance that many people thought they were twins. But David was the baby of the family, an undeniably cute little guy whose wide toothy grin attracted attention everywhere we went. All that attention convinced Ernie and me that David was spoiled. We took it upon ourselves to make certain he understood his place in the family, i.e. the bottom of the totem pole. We called him Baby Davy, or Deeb—his own pronunciation of his name when he was learning to talk.

Our favorite tease involved our school pictures that Mom displayed on the mantel over the fireplace. Back then, school pictures came in flimsy cardboard frames that were open on the bottom and sides. You slid the pictures in from the bottom until pressure between the top front and back pieces held them in place, perfectly framed.

Since David wasn’t tall enough to reach the mantel, I’d turn his picture upside down or backward so only the white back was showing. Then Ernie and I would calmly wait for him to notice. When he did, it never failed to send him crying to Mom. I’d quickly right the picture and Ernie and I would run outside to play.

We grew up and realized David was a pretty cool guy after all. Years later, we had lunch with Mom at her house, along with our three older siblings. By then, Mom had all our senior high school pictures properly framed and hanging on the wall in her small dining area. At one point, she got up from the table to retrieve something. When she returned, she gasped. “Who did that?”

We followed her gaze and discovered our sister’s picture hanging upside down on the wall. It took a while, but David finally got his revenge!

Bio: Award-winning Texas author Mary L. Hamilton writes novels that might have been taken from today’s headlines. In fact, her story ideas always start with a real-life event. They change and grow as the characters develop, but faith ripples through every novel from her series for young teens to her adult mystery/suspense novels. She is currently working on a women’s fiction story. When not writing, she enjoys reading, knitting, phone photography, and walking the neighborhood with her dog, Cinder.  To find out more about Mary, check out her website at https://maryhamiltonbooks.com/

If you love a riveting mystery, you’ll have to check out Mary’s book, Dead Air, recently awarded 2nd place in the Christian Indie Awards contest for 2024. My husband and I have both read this book, and I have to say we had a hard time putting it down. When I was toward the end of the story, I stayed up late one night to finish it! Keep reading below for the blurb.

Blurb: Jeff wasn’t the same man she had married, but was he capable of murder? A year after losing his job as a radio host, Jeff stubbornly clings to the hope of being rehired. He begs Kit to be patient for a little longer. But she can’t support the family on what she earns as a physical therapist, and their bank account is streaking toward the danger zone—much like her marriage.

Then gunshots blast across the airwaves of Jeff’s former show. And in the dead air that follows, Kit hears his troubling last words. He had no reason to be at the station. Was this why he’d asked for “just a little more time?”  Torn between believing the evidence against Jeff or trusting the integrity of the man she thought she knew, Kit’s choice puts her at odds with her son, Bryce. One of them has to be wrong and that could have fatal consequences.

Was the evidence lying or had she been fooled by Jeff all along? That’s the question Kit must answer in Dead Air: A Waco Mystery, a novel about a family in crisis and the importance of character.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BH1WX3G8/