They tried not to notice my voice was too loud at the funeral. I’m the quiet one.My skirt was too short. I’m the modest one. They admonished me quietly when I got detention but I saw the panic in their… Continue Reading
As I walk the boundary of my property after dusk, I don’t trust my eyes. I’m trying to make sense of various shapes around me. Shadows lurking behind trees are like people hiding from me. Bushes, jutting out from the… Continue Reading
I took up smoking at fifteen, and quit at twenty, thirty-two, and, finally, again at forty-one. A week after that, I bought a dog from a guy living illegally in a run-down house over the interstate. I’d gone over there… Continue Reading
The smoke from mortar fire mixed with fog hung low over the trenches. Heinrich trod the planks over the mud, hands wrapped in rags, rifle slung over one shoulder. Night was falling on the broken and burnt field between him… Continue Reading
Annalise (avoids her problems and) is perfectly fine. She has a(n un)fulfilling job (that doesn’t use her degree). She works hard (because she can’t make it more than two weeks without a paycheck), arrives early (because her anxiety wakes her… Continue Reading
When I got home from the quarry that night, Nanna had wandered off again. I could see the cottage from a ways down the path. She’d left the door open. It started before Christmas, her forgetting stuff, but she could… Continue Reading
When we go to sleep, everything is normal. When I wake up, my husband is a frog. I know it’s him by his little froggy eyes, which look at me just the way my husband’s did. “Did” or “do”? Do… Continue Reading
We gently pushed the glider back and forth with our feet, mine in sandals, hers in Velcro sneakers. Crickets began chirping as the light faded. Out of fierce sunlight, the Shasta Daisies and Hyperion Daylilies my mother had dug from… Continue Reading
The woman limped in on two canes, sat down, sighed, and folded in on herself. We all gave her the once-over, some of us surreptitious, others not. The woman had high cheekbones in a square face. Around her mouth she… Continue Reading
After breakfast on a Saturday morning, his mother said, “I’m going to teach you something new today. Go pick a rose from the garden.” So he went out behind the house and selected a bright red rose from thousands of… Continue Reading