I knew I was condemned from the moment they took the gold candlesticks. They ripped up the carpets and tore aged curtains from their oak rails. Workers clad in grey overalls lifted every part of me away, chucking it into… Continue Reading
The heater blasted out its eighty-degree setting and I was still shivering. A record cold they say, but in Chicago, it was hard to believe that a day in history could be colder than today. Everything thermal from my socks… Continue Reading
Our Volvo SUV awaits as we butter toast, shuffle plates of eggs. I hurriedly book a massage, text my oldest daughter’s violin tutor right before the shoot begins. What the photographer sees: an impeccably dressed Japanese woman surrounded by three… Continue Reading
AYE MIO AMICO, who could say a train is not the most beautiful class of vehicle? She come this one from the mountains, where still some snow shows on her roof. Step up with me on the bell and compare… Continue Reading
“The Creekside Planning Commission is now open for public comment.” Feeling proud of my civic-mindedness, I stepped up to the microphone. While my topic wasn’t as critical as reducing taxes or preventing crime, it was something I believed deserved attention.… Continue Reading
My date is burly and gruff, a lumberjack squeezed into a French blue polo and wing-tips. He fumbles through the menu with giant hands. A white scar cuts from his left nostril down to his upper lip. He notices me… Continue Reading
It only takes seventeen minutes to realize that lifeguarding was not the career for me. Seventeen minutes. It isn’t the 5:15 AM alarm that did it. Or the gross vacuum I have to hook and drag out of the pool.… Continue Reading
Bugs and spiders scatter as he tugs open the creaking, wooden bulkhead doors and peers down into the darkness. “There’s a light at the bottom of the stairs,” she tells him. “Just feel for the string and give it a… Continue Reading
There were scales in the bathroom. Shell looked to the two blue towels already hanging with their limb-shaped patches of damp. Her dad and stepmother had had their showers already, and Shell felt two speeds in her heart. They had… Continue Reading
Friday night should have been disco night, but my footballer boyfriend decided it was break up night instead. Saturday morning Cockle picking with Joy. Head bent sifting those white shells from the mud, tears weren’t much use. It didn’t feel… Continue Reading