It was ninety-four degrees the day we buried my father. The air conditioning at St. Mary’s had broken down that morning. Of course it had. It was the second week […]
Nobody at my mother’s funeral was dressed in white. Except Dolores. She came in ten minutes late. The organist had already started “Abide with Me,” and Pastor Lindqvist was standing […]
“What the hell!” Nora’s voice cracked across the cemetery parking lot like a gunshot. A few people standing by their cars turned around to look. An older man in a […]
The laughter wasn’t the sound that stayed with me. What stayed with me was the silence. The silence after Dr. Morrison, our principal, stood up on that stage with a […]
My mother didn’t take her coat off. That was the first thing I noticed. She sat down at my kitchen table on a Tuesday night in March with her purse […]
The House on Larkspur Court The phone call had barely ended when George realized what he had just heard. His daughter’s voice, calm and practical, sliced through the silence of […]
Way Out Part 1: The Locked Door Five days after my husband left me to die, I watched him mourn beside my empty casket. I was sitting up in a […]
I was standing in the produce aisle at the Kroger on Princeton Road on December 21, holding two packages of fresh thyme and trying to decide which one looked less […]
The Cousin From Out of Town The fairy lights were already glowing when I pulled into Meadow Creek Barn outside Cedar Bluff, Tennessee. They were strung through the old oak […]
“Ruth, I’m going to ask you to go around to the service entrance. By the kitchen.” Celeste Whitmore said it with a bright, practiced smile. Like she was offering my […]