It was hot but August heat was different and the only thing that helped was laying by the pool. There was a pool in my mother’s apartment complex, one of those slabs with no lifeguard and green water bordered by… Continue Reading
Murph said it without thinking. “I don’t miss him.” The oven clicked. The coil glowed red. Heat filled the room, and she stood still in the center of the kitchen, a cold casserole dish in one hand and a dishrag… Continue Reading
What once looked like a baby now spewed smoke, echoing a dreadful, strangled sound through the cramped alley. Radoslava walked, filthy, bruised, one hand on her swollen stomach, the other clutching the squirming, twitchy thing in her arms. The baby’s… Continue Reading
One night, my husband slammed my body against our bed. When I woke up the next morning, I found that he’d left cocaine on the coffee table, and the door opened for a backpage Craigslist prostitute. Hours later, I was… Continue Reading
The warder and the priest come before dawn to rouse me from shivering non-sleep. Heads shaved, barefoot, we are pushed from the gaol into the shadow of the cathedral. My fellow murderers are both men. The thin grey one rubs… Continue Reading
Posted on December 5, 2023 by Wife of Devoted Packer Fan / 3 Comments I’ve been making sugar cookies for my husband Bob since I was a seventeen-year-old blushing bride, pregnant with what would have been our first child. I… Continue Reading
Shelly loved Mama’s garden. It didn’t have as many pretty flowers as Gramma’s, but it also didn’t have so many thorns. Shelly hated thorns. Their vindictive little spikes would scrape her arms and legs whenever she tried to explore, patterning… Continue Reading
In her English class, Gillian was assigned an ode. She wrote to the jagged Zorro scar above her knee from the August night she taught Benny to surf in the rickety trailer camper their father towed. They’d been banished from… Continue Reading
Charlie’s never seen me burn lamb chops, but he’s grown outraged over less, and over nothing at all. “Budweiser!” he screams into the phone. “What do you mean I can’t cancel the dispatch? That’s my code word! … I don’t… Continue Reading
Andrew timed it perfect: he opened the front door just at the moment Mama’s thrown picture frame hit the wall right behind Daddy. Neither of them heard him leave. He learned early to get out unnoticed when he wasn’t the… Continue Reading