"Orphans," by Douglas Light

It’s a story of loss.  She’s without parents since nineteen years old and family connections .  What she has now is only the memory of an abusive uncle.  Advice was given by a neighbor’s dad, a policeman, who counseled her to get a gun. While drinking wine, she remarks about cork: “Twenty-five years it takes the tree to mature.  Then it’s stripped naked of its bark, and stripped once every nine years after that.  The thought terrifies me.”   Language moves this story forward with inevitability of character.  She is now twenty-five.  For a chilling read go here to failbetter.