Momma homeschooled. I’d kneel in the back seat of our Buick on a carpet of fast food wrappers counting the contents of the trunk. This was Momma’s version of education, having me remind her what we had in our stolen… Continue Reading
Humphrey Bogart’s life was, in all respects, banal. He was waiting for the next patient in his examination room, watching the hands of his clock parse time. Decades ago, doctors would have enjoyed this respite lounging in the facility break… Continue Reading
When Mummy visits, she lets herself in. It doesn’t matter if he’s home or not. Mummy’s got a spare key. Noel initially didn’t have one. He didn’t have one specifically so that he could say, “No, Mum, I haven’t got… Continue Reading
“They’re stealing my things, you know. Their faces are soft and smug. And they steal my things,” the old woman said. She rocked, remembering the nurses’ cool, rough hands. “You’ve seen them, Mother?” Elizabeth asked. “No, I didn’t see them,… Continue Reading
Will steered the dresser across the lawn to the curb where his BMW was waiting. He opened the back door and sighed. Despite its decade-old rust, the Beamer was still a car designed to carry laughing women, not pieces of… Continue Reading
Doug was in the living room with his mum. “Did you come in your truck?” she asked. Doug nodded. “Wasn’t that truck a gift from a friend?” “Hugh,” said Doug. “He left it to me, eight years ago, when he… Continue Reading
By mid-afternoon there is nothing left of the garage but charred wood and heat-warped tin. Three firefighters, her mother and four neighbors speak of how lucky no one is hurt and that the fire hadn’t spread and that someone spotted… Continue Reading
Mom always told me my blackberry pie tasted like hers. We’d both be bent at the waist, shoulders hunched, sturdily pushing rolling pins through flour-coated dough in the tiny kitchen. Heat would pool at the back of my neck and… Continue Reading
When Father died, Mama and I inherited a crumbling castle in a distant forest, and nothing else. But thither we went — the rest of Father’s fortune went to a male relation, who turned us out of our town house… Continue Reading
“I’m just saying, it seems fucked up to tell her, she doesn’t even know who he is anymore,” Jenny said. “It’s more fucked up not to tell her,” Susan said. The sisters were continuing the argument they’d been having via… Continue Reading