A Vintage Shorts “Short Story Month” Selection The acclaimed author gives us a mesmerizing story of a family built, not by blood, but by second and third marriages and the relationships children have to “step” fathers, mothers and siblings long after their own parents have left them behind. When Julie, an actress in her forties, receives a phone call from her one-time stepfather’s newest family asking her to come to see him once more before he dies, she agrees to make the trip. An ebook short.