Keeping What's Best Left Kept Secret

<p><strong>FINALIST Traditional Fiction Chicago Writers Association Awards (2025)</strong></p><p></p><p>An epidemic's emotional strain drives among victims a stoic resolve to conceal their disability. A mother retreats inside herself disarmed by the steps of a building she sees. A neighbor's drooping palsied cheek belies the expression on the other cheek. A father conceals that he cannot read and a son struggles with crippling guilt having been acquitted of a crime he did commit. Stirring and elegant <em>Keeping What's Best Left Kept Secret</em> probes the force of untold secrets on the daily business of making do. In these stories David Ricchiute uncovers deception teeming with self-deception and the final returns have much to do with the accidental chemistry of fate.</p>