The Names I Wrote Down at the Driveway
“Two dollars,” my sister said. “Any duck on the table. Two dollars.” She was saying it to a man in a seed corn cap who had one of Dad’s mallard […]
One Saturday in His Father’s Boat
The grass told me before anybody else did. I came home from work on a Monday with a sack of groceries on my hip, and there was a long yellow […]
The Recipe Cards at the Market
The shelves were bare. I stood at the bottom of Mama’s cellar steps with my hand still on the light string and looked at them, all five rows, floor to […]
The Saddle on My Brother’s Kitchen Table
The saddle rack in Dad’s shed was empty, and for a second I honestly thought I had walked into the wrong shed. I was forty-four years old, standing in the […]
The Dress Finished on Mama’s Sewing Machine
There were four dents in the carpet where the cabinet had stood. That’s what I saw first. Four little square dents, each one about the size of a postage stamp, […]
The Journal That Went With the Bees
There were forty pale rectangles in the grass where our hives had been, and I counted every one of them. I don’t know why. I could see from the lane […]
My Daughter In Law Thought I Had An Early Flight Until My Door Opened At Midnight
My name is Harleen Eekens, and I am seventy-one years old. On a Saturday night in September, I told my daughter-in-law I had an early flight, and I went to […]
Someone Kept Painting My Garage Door Black Until Security Cameras Revealed The Truth
Someone kept ruining my freshly painted garage door just days before our neighborhood’s biggest competition. When I found out who was behind it, I decided to give the judges a […]
My Son Was in the Middle of His School Performance When Police Officers Suddenly Appeared on Stage
The double doors at the back of the gym hit the wall with a bang that made half the room jump. My son was in the middle of the second […]
A Deputy Made My 71-Year-Old Mother Stand in 91-Degree Heat for 40 Minutes Then She Asked Him to Say Her Name Over the Radio
“Did you print this at the library, hon?” The deputy held my mother’s license up to the sun between two fingers, the way you would hold a twenty-dollar bill you […]