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NORTH CAROLINA L I T E R A R Y RE V I E W
Winter 2024
H ONORA B LE MENT ION, 2023 AL EX ALBRIGHT C REATIV E NONFICTIO N PRIZE
MY REMBRANDT
W E E K E N D BY ASHLEY HARRIS “What did you say?” I asked J.P. His forehead glistened with sweat, from both heat and excitement. Given his state, I might have misunderstood him. It was Friday, also April Fool’s Day. “1656.” “You’re kidding!” I peered closer at the painting he held. At the bottom were the initials H.R. and, in the same slanted hand, the year 1656. No joke.
My collector husband was just home from an estate sale at the house of our friend Lenton, a watercolorist and former interior design instructor who had recently moved to Brookdale, an assisted living facility. Like us, Lenton adored antiques, and his former home, a few miles from our house in rural Randolph County, North Carolina, nearly swayed with bric-a-brac through the ages. J.P. planned to rescue a clock that had been tagged
ASHLEY HARRIS lives on the outskirts of Asheboro, NC, near the Uwharrie National Forest. She is the author of a novel, Naked and Hungry (Ingalls Publishing Group, 2011), and a poetry collection, Waiting for the Wood Thrush (Finishing Line Press, 2019). A Pushcart Prize nominee, she has written for numerous
publications, including Poets & Writers and Real Simple, among others. Her essay “A Private History of Deviled Eggs” received Honorable Mention in the 2022 Alex Albright Creative Nonfiction Prize competition and appeared in the NCLR Online Winter 2023 issue. Read another 2023 finalist by her in the 2024 print issue.