The New Leaf
Jaden Issue 2, Summer 2021
“So, your boss finding you asleep prompted this sudden drive to change?” the shrink asked, shooting a Nerf basketball into a net affixed above Larry’s head.
“Yeah,” Larry gnawed on the red licorice always in abundance on the coffee table. He didn’t even like them, a nervous habit, he couldn’t smoke at the shrink’s. “Maybe I’ll quit smoking,” he said, dreamily.
“I’d take things one small step at a time,” the shrink suggested.
Larry thought of his small bodily part and its large problem, a side effect of the meds. Mind blowing sex. That would be a cool change.
“Maybe I could just improve my attitude about work a bit?”
The shrink smiled. Larry reached for another licorice.
After leaving the shrink’s office, armed with the article they found online and printed out about how to add energy and enthusiasm to story times, Larry got a text from a workmate.
Hey. I might have a girl for you.
The romantic in Larry considered this a possible uncanny watershed moment.
The “girl,” Cheryl, lived in Philadelphia. She worked at a library once. A Catholic! Maybe she wouldn’t care about sex, Larry thought. Maybe they could read in bed, eat chocolates, watch movies, cuddle.
She already said it’s ok for you to contact her. Go for it!
The very next day, after scanning the library’s public services area from his desk, viewing no spies, and having all Cheryl’s contact information, Larry decided he would go the old- fashioned route and opened his Gmail.
Dear Cheryl, This is Larry Jones, Would you care to chat? Best regards, LJ.
He thought using his initials sounded manly. His heart raced as he clicked send.
Larry! It’s nice to “meet you”! LOL. I heard you work at a library. I loved my library job! What do you do there?
Thus began an intense email volley, full of half-truths, hyperbole, and, Larry hoped, charming self-deprecation that would go on day and night, for almost a month.
Larry’s story times went from uninspired to straight-up distracted, but he felt excited, and sometimes even, during and after the emails and texts from Cheryl, aroused. Day and night he tapped and clicked away on his keyboards, responding to Cheryl. Larry learned that Cheryl loved the color green, rode her bike to work, made really good pancakes, and talked to her sister every day. Larry told Cheryl true-enough stories about drinking with buddies in college, camping with his sister in Yosemite last summer, and his passion for fudge. Of course, he never mentioned his meds, shrink, or, God forbid, his smoking.
During the weeks of Cheryl, as he would always remember them, Larry thought constantly of skipping the shrink but feared if he did, the shrink would call his father, so he stuck to his usual appointment.
“Hey, you seem up, man, real up,” the shrink said, shaking Larry’s hand at his office door.
“I guess that article really helped my story times,” Larry said.
Cheryl said she thought it romantic that they had only written so far, and had never even talked on the phone. Larry, of course, agreed. But, she said, the time had come, it had been a whole month already. Cheryl wanted to meet. In person. No phone. No Facetime. The real deal. The excitement stirred in his lower regions, giving him hope for sustainability. He considered his problems:
1. Money (none)
2. Fears (many)
3. Erectile dysfunction (chronic)
4. Secrets (Shhhh)
5. Sleeping arrangements (see problem #3)
I’m a little short of cash this month, Larry wrote. Cheryl, also short of cash, suggested the Chinatown bus. A straight shot from DC Chinatown to Philly Chinatown for 20 bucks. She signed that email Love. Larry followed suit, almost giggling as he did so, looking up from his screen and closing his eyes, imagining taking Cheryl for dinner, making love to her.
But something about the Chinatown bus plan made Larry’s leaf turn again, his Cheryl-inspired arousal drooped to despair and lethargy. Larry’s default seemed to be autumn, despite his urge for spring. Overcome by drowsiness, those late night messages finally caught up with him. The week they were meant to meet, Larry reached for his phone, bowed his head to its small screen, and texted, simply, Goodbye, blocking Cheryl’s number, feeling the pressure building in his ears retract and fade.
Grace
Why, who makes much of a miracle? -Walt Whitman
Gazing out the window into her backyard, Abby stood at her sink washing dishes. A kind of blurry light ball emerged, pulsing in the corner of her patch of garden. It slowly grew in size, intensity. Abby dropped her sponge and went out to investigate.
***
“What’s with you?” Sadie, Abby’s sister, asked, panting the words out while walking on the treadmill.
“Nothing. Tired.”
“Tell me about it,” Sadie said, sharp bobbed hair moving in tandem with her body. “So, I said to him, ‘Why are you even here?’ I mean why do these guys even go on dates? Are you going out with anyone this week? Did Mom get that guy to call you, Ben or something?”
“Uh, no,” Abby said. Ben, the son of one of Mom’s bridge students, came through her brain fog.
“What’s with you anyway?” Sadie shut down her treadmill and headed to the locker room.
***
The light appeared weekly, sometimes daily, rain or shine, morning, noon, or night. Abby kept her glasses on, checked and rechecked, searching in the back garden for that gorgeous glow ball. When it was there, she drifted outside, got close, basked. Time passed, Abby had no idea how much.
Abby, you are enough, the light said, a woman’s voice.
Abby could not respond with words. She could only stare into it and allow hot tears run down her cheeks. She would awake from the spell shivering in the darkness, yearning for more.
***
“Everyone has baggage. First wives. Children. A drinking problem,” Sadie said, flicking her yellow Splenda bag to loosen up the sugar substance inside. “Remember the dieter?” She rolled her eyes.
Oh yeah, I know about baggage. I have a mystical visitor in my backyard, a soothing orb, Abby thought.
“The dieter?” Sadie asked.
“That guy Jon without an h. He told me I couldn’t have a waffle with ice cream on it once. That was it.”
“Seriously,” Abby sipped her coffee, noting the fading autumnal splendor, the increasing chill.
***
Google searches:
Synonyms for light: illumination, brightness, luminescence, shining, gleam, gleaming, brilliance, radiance, luster, glow, blaze, glare
Light appearing in back yard
Apparition
***
Mom had been talking about Ben for months.
“I can’t believe I’ve got a cute doctor waiting to go out with you and you haven’t called him, or texted or whatever you guys do these days.” Mom made great sweeping motions as she raked dead leaves from the beds. “Abby, are you listening? What are you dreaming about?”
***
Abby thought she was having a hot flash. Her face burned red and her armpits soaked with perspiration. Despite the cool night and even though she had a date, a first date (Ben), she could not control her desire to be with the light. Pulsing and warm, addictive.
You are loved ,it said.
Who needed Ben?
***
Ben had freckles across his nose, laughed easily, and was proficient with chopsticks, three things Abby considered good traits in a man.
“You shine,” she told him three dates in, a little tipsy from too much red wine, “like a big ball of light.”
***
“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here!” Sadie said, using her best fake southern drawl, dramatic sobbing, mimicking Julia Roberts. She and Abby were watching Steel Magnolias for the twentieth time. When Sadie returned from a bathroom trip, she found Abby sobbing.
“What the--? What is it?”
Abby swung her head back and forth, back and forth.
“It won’t stop. It won’t stop. I can’t get it to stop,” she said.
Sadie’s voice lowered, “What honey? Get what to stop?”
Abby kept crying.
“Her. She keeps coming. And I love it. But I hate it, too.”
“What is it? You’re scaring me.” Sadie faced her, held onto Abby’s forearms.
***
Accustomed to Abby’s usual low self-esteem issues, Mom issues, her body confidence and self-absorption issues, Beth the therapist, legs always crossed, face serious and concerned, said she was surprised by these new apparition issues.
“Well, you said you went to see the rabbi. What did he say?”
“He said it was grace. Grace raining down on me,” Abby noticed the light in the room, how it filtered through the curtain, how it shone on the fine hairs on her wrist.
“What the hell does that mean?” Sadie, who insisted on coming, said.
“Are you having any other loss of reality?” Beth asked.
“No. I’m just worried about what it means. What people-what Ben-would think.” Abby glanced at Sadie. “I love her, the light. I don’t want her, or I guess it, to go away.”
***
Of course, Ben kept calling, kept texting. Having said the L word on their last date, without reciprocation from Abby, he obviously wanted a response.
Hey, missing you, what’s up?
Abby wondered why he liked her so much. She wasn’t a doctor or a professor type. She had an undergraduate degree in marketing but didn’t finish her MBA. She worked in the admissions office at a small college. She thought of herself as not that skinny, not that pretty, not that funny. And, she was in love with that ball of light talking to her in her backyard.
***
The next time the light appeared, Abby stopped folding laundry and opened her back door, instantly warmed by its presence. With the setting sun changing the sky orange, the gold globe appeared in all its splendor, exuding its strange peace and energy.
Do you love me?
“Yes, Yes,” Abby found words, at last, fell to her knees, muddied her jeans.
***
Ben gobbled up the carbonara and salad Abby made him, then he gobbled up her.
“So what took you so long?” he said, running a finger along the side of her face.
“With what?” she asked.
His face reddened. “With reconnecting? Were you mad at me?”
“No. I love you,“ Abby said.
Ben’s hazel eyes stared, shards of gold shot through brown.
“So why’d you disappear?” he asked.
“Do you know anything about apparitions?” Abby asked.
His eyebrows went up, clearly not what he was expecting.
She described the light, how it made her feel, how she loved it, how it frightened her. His lips made a crooked half smile.
“Show me,” he said.
Abby led him out the backdoor to the garden where she had marked the apparition site with a white stone.
***
May was the last time. Abby saw the light from the window and moved toward it with a fearless urgency. It vibrated and swirled this time, turning different shades of yellow, orange, red.
Do you believe?
Abby knelt down, forgot everything else, melted into the experience.
***
Abby and Ben sat in half darkness, drinking red wine.
“She asked me if I believed,” Abby said.
“What did you say?”
“I said I do. Absolutely. But then- I -I said goodbye.” She glanced at Ben, expecting to see relief.
He pulled her in, held her close.
She leaned in, to him, this - the love, loss, grace, all of it, whatever it was.
She let go.
The Art Farm
The End
The installations, every one of them, burned all night. No sign of Sam. Sharye pictured him driving his beat up Honda, down route 92, windows cracked to dilute the smell of gasoline, the cold air flowing through his long hair, a crack of a smile lingering around his lips.
Before
Sam appeared out of nowhere, tapping on Sharye’s window, causing her to jump as she stood at her sink.
“Morning, Mam,” he called through the glass.
Sharye opened the door to face the stranger. He was about her age, maybe a little older, she couldn’t tell.
Herb growled, unusual for the dog.
“I’m Sam. Looking for work,” he said.
She laughed. There was lots of work, just no pay. “We’re on a really tight budget.”
He scratched his beard, crouched, held his hand out for Herb.
The dog approached, changing his attitude and licking the welcoming fingers.
“Do you need anything fixed?” Sam smiled, crinkles forming around bright blue eyes.
Sharye wanted to get back to her coffee and watercolor of the robin’s nest she’d been painting.
“Ok, I get it. I was just in the area. I always liked this place,” he said, responding to the pause, Sharye’s hesitation.
Sharye forced a smile.
The draft from the cooling weather blew in around her legs, something shifted.
“Would you like a cup of coffee?” She pulled at her sweater.
“I’d appreciate it, ” Sam said, stepping forward, looking around as if to assess the space, sitting down at the table.
Sharye found a mug in the cupboard and pulled out a plate for the Pepperidge Farm cookies she always had on hand.
Sam took one mint Milano, sipped his black coffee.
“So where do you live?” Sharye asked.
“Oh, in town.” His eyes scanned past her shoulder, something her ex always did when she was in the middle of a story. Sam stood up, moved to her easel, squinted at the half-finished nest. He put his hands in the front pockets of his jeans and smiled.
“This is good. Yours?”
“Yes. It is.”
“I’m an artist, too.”
“What do you make?”
He smiled, “Whatever you need.”
***
Sam’s offer would not be acceptable by the board of the Art Farm, the struggling outdoor art park she received free housing to oversee. Sharye had no idea who he was or what his art was like. She could not Google him because she did not know his last name. He offered no photos, had not brought the sample he promised. She waited. She forgot about him, it.
One morning, on the verge of securing local artist Jose Ramirez (who made somewhat sickening giant insects and had offered one on loan), something caught Sharye’s eye. A disjointed, impossible pile of books stacked up, rising high. She wondered how could they stand there, a breath of air would topple them, or how they would fair in the rain, the wind, the snow. The next morning the books had risen even more. They bent into an arch—a mysterious, seemingly unsupported arch of books.
Sam.
Days later, she hailed him down as he bumped along the gravel road.
“Hey!” she shouted, waving arms.
“Hey, Sharye.” His slight southern twang audible in the ‘a’ of her name.
“That’s really something with the books,” she said, putting her hands on her lower back. She peered into the backseat of the car. No books, tools. Nothing.
“You like it?” he said.
“Uh yeah, but how’d you do it?”
“Magic,” he said, eyes twinkling.
***
Like Field of Dreams. Cars lined up, hands reached into pockets, stuffing the donation box with cash.
The next time Sharye spied Sam’s beat-up white Honda, she asked him to dinner. He came with a bottle of whiskey and wore what Sharye considered his version of dressy: a threadbare tweed sport jacket with a black tee underneath, jeans, and dirty white Converse. He smelled of ashes and charcoal, like a fire, like the outside.
She made him pork chops, applesauce, apple pie. This was central New York in September after all, apple season. He held up the whiskey bottle and she consented, offering a glass with some ice.
“So how’d you do it?” she asked him.
He shrugged. “I told you.”
“Magic?” She smiled, questioning him with her eyes.
“Yup.”
She felt warm and woozy. When it was time to get dinner she reached out for his knee and let her hand linger there before wobbling up from the couch.
At dinner, she pulled out a dusty bottle of red wine.
“It must be wine o’clock,” said Sam.
“You sound like my ninety-year-old father,” she replied.
They were back on the couch for the pie and Sharye felt drunk enough to lean into him and bury her face in his neck. He turned toward her, moving her hair away from her face, strand by strand, observing her, like he was going to eat, or paint, her. Then he kissed her, the taste of wine and apples suspended between them.
“Magic?” she asked.
“Yup.”
In the cold silence of the next morning, she made him coffee. He drank it too quickly and left.
***
The only thing Sharye could count on Sam for was an occasional, unpredictable show-up, holding his bottle of whiskey, engaging his deft lips, and shedding his nice embery smell.
In between the loving, book installations continued to appear. A stack of books shaped like a Sphinx. Rows of books assembled like bar graphs, reflecting some unknown data. Books arranged to create a bouquet of flowers. Always books.
Where did he get them all? What did it mean? He would never tell her.
Meanwhile, the cars kept coming, the donations started piling up, and the board had questions.
“These installations have not been approved, Sharye,” the Board Director said.
“I know. I know. He didn’t tell me he was going to do them. But people love it. And now we can afford real artists. We can have all the things we want.”
“We don’t even know who this man is.”
Sharye thought of the lovely things she knew about him. That mole under his left arm.
“The board has met. These...these, book things need to go. ASAP.”
Sharye sighed. “I think it’s a big mistake.”
“You are not in a position to think anything.”
Sharye could not disagree, but her face burned with anger, shame.
She resolved to tell Sam the next time she saw him, but since he had no phone, no address, no email, she really didn’t know when that would be. She would just have to wait.
***
The last installation, his crowning achievement, the one that brought the newspapers, the requests for school visits, and more widespread questions, an outdoor library which seemed to have grown out of dirt overnight. The whole thing, built on uneven ground with aged wood shelves, leaned and lurched though remained upright. Already-tattered books packed the swaying structure forming a kind of altar overlooking small seats made from the same greying, withering wood. Covers of books flapped in the breeze, each volume shedding its pages, molting in real time. Sharye imagined it as a library for ghosts, woodland spites, fairies. A library that, even at conception, she realized, made of paper and wood, was vanishing, melting into nature before her eyes. It was beautiful and heartbreaking and perfect.
Sharye pressed her lips, shook her head. When did he do this? Why didn’t he stop by? Why did she never see him coming and going? Maybe it was magic? She looked down and saw the book Travels with Charlie on one of the benches. She picked it up and held it close. Smelled it. Placed it in her coat pocket. Winter was coming.
***
He slipped into her bed one night, without knocking, without speaking.
Unsurprised, she turned toward him, whispered in his ear, “The library is beautiful. The best one yet.” She could see his smile by the faint light of the dying fire. “The board wants to meet you,” she said.
“Naaa.” His stubbled cheek scratched hers. Sharye left his few words hanging in space, without a response.
***
She awoke thinking he was beside her, but the smell in the air was something different. Outside the window, wafts of smoke. She stretched her arms into her robe, stuck her feet into her rubber boots and ran out the door, Herb close at her heels.
She couldn’t help but be breathless, from the frosty air pouring into her lungs, the light snow falling, all six of Sam’s installations ablaze, tongues licking the December air. She stopped and took it in - the sacred purity of flame, the fragility of life and art, smoke wafting like incense, going nowhere, or everywhere, perhaps back from wherever it came. She would never know.
Note: Sam’s final installation is inspired by “Stacks” by artist David Harper, located at the Stone Quarry Hill Art Park in Cazenovia, New York.
Martin’s House of Miniatures
Moonshine Review, Spring/Summer 2021 (Volume 17, Issue 1)
Blood & Bourbon #12: Companionship
The short, dreary-looking man walked up to the counter, introduced himself as Seth, removed a square of green velvet from a plastic shopping bag, and began unfolding and unfolding, eventually revealing a tiny group of books.
Ray, the third-generation owner of Martin’s House of Miniatures, noticed Seth’s thin hands shaking slightly.
“It’s a pristine set of Shakespeare’s sonnets, in miniature. At least one hundred years old.” Seth said, adding that they were left to him by his aunts, who owned a bookshop. He stopped talking, stared at Ray.
Ray reached for and put on his special magnifying glasses, taking the books in hand, examining each. “I have some of these, but not a whole, complete set—and not pristine, of course,” he said.
“My aunts were pristine people,” Seth said.
Ray looked around at his messy shop and snorted, not knowing what to say to that. He didn’t normally receive “donations”—as Seth called the books—so he offered fifty bucks or a percentage of whatever he got for them if they sold.
“No,” Seth responded, “I know my aunts would appreciate the idea of supporting a local, an independent business.”
“I’m independent, if that’s what you want to call it.” Ray smiled. “Sold—or not!” Feeling embarrassed by his own joke, he quickly rewrapped the books. “Well, Seth,” Ray summoned his most professional speech, “it certainly has been a pleasure.”
“Oh, one more thing,” Seth said.
“What?”
“Maybe you could try to sell them to someone nice, someone who’ll take care of them.”
“I’ll do my best.” Ray said, adding a quick “sir,” thinking that ended things well.
Yeah, the highest bidder.
The bell on the door jangled as Seth exited, leaving Ray standing at the counter, the soft sound of the oldies station playing Tears of a Clown filling the silence.
Ray wondered why. Why did he carry on this business, started by his grandfather, collecting and selling things just because they were tiny? Tiny china sets, tiny pieces of food, tiny furniture, tiny paintings, tiny animals. Ridiculous.
Little things for a guy with a big mess of a life: three ex-wives, no kids, a store full of junk.
Late August—the dog days—the window air conditioner choked with exertion, something else Ray could not afford to replace. But the donation from Seth made him feel a little less glum, a bit lighter, even a tad celebratory. He turned the OPEN sign to CLOSED, went to the bathroom, snapped on the light, and splashed water on his face. Staring at his blood-shot eyes, missing front tooth, and five o’clock shadow, he shook his head. I am one full-sized, non-miniature, awful-looking bastard. He applied his shaving cream liberally.
His skin felt cool and tight as he walked back into the store, passing cluttered shelves of tiny trains, cars, planes, dollhouse furnishings. Surveying all the mess, he shuddered. The shop’s musty smell crawled deep under his skin, conflicting with his fresh shave.
Ray couldn’t fathom how it’d happened, how everyone had died before him.
Go figure. Family dies, wives leave, work sucks you dry.
A feeling of lethargy in his brain and body once again took over.
So much for celebration.
He’d seen photos of the shop in its heyday. Immaculate. Pristine. Ray wished he had the energy, the stamina to clean it all up, make sense, order, maybe put his stuff on the internet and sell it.
I don’t even have a computer, for god’s sake.
Restless, Ray knew he couldn’t stay at the shop, needed to go for a swim. That’s what he did on days like this. He had to store up energy for Bouckville on Saturday. So, leaving the tiny Shakespeares on the counter, covered in their green velvet, he turned off the lights and went out the door.
***
Bouckville—known as “the biggest antiques and collectibles market in the northeast, maybe the world”—dominated Ray’s entire year. Martin’s Miniatures endured as the only miniature dealer at the huge antiques market held annually in a large field about twenty miles outside of town. Ray believed the extent and history of his family’s collections ruled over Bouckville, but this had never been proven. His display drew a fair bit of attention, especially from children, even if it didn’t draw a fair bit of revenue. He needed to pick his best sampling for the show and try to display it in a neat and attractive way. His second wife, Sandy, had excelled at this particular chore. Recalling this, Ray had a stab of regret. Then he remembered her bad breath and awful sister.
Ray loaded the truck the morning before Bouckville, recollecting the many trips to the market in his youth, when his Dad and brother, Guy, had packed the truck carefully. Each box number corresponded to its placement on the display tables. Ray had no such organization.
The antique fair jumbled the rare, the beautiful, and the downright pathetic and awful. Some merchants displayed the worst junk—tangles of plastic, wood, jewelry, hair clips, stray marbles, forgotten political campaign buttons. All marked for the low, low price of sixty bucks per item, since the market persisted in notorious overpricing. These messes spilled across miles of folding tables, hovered over by quirky dealers wearing large sunglasses and even larger sunhats. Collectors, dressed basically the same, pushed grocery carts between the tables, making comments without hesitation or care of who might hear. “What a bunch of junk!” Ray often heard collectors shout as they passed the different displays. People could be so insensitive.
Ray attended Bouckville not so much for the antiques as the food. He spent the few dollars he made on Sid’s fried chicken or the Taco Taco truck’s enchiladas, and always on Lila’s pies. Once, on a buying trip in Philadelphia, Ray and his dad had a huge piece of apple pie as big as Lila’s, but not nearly as good.
Lila, a strange sort of woman, was not just overweight, as one might expect a baker to be, Lila was big in all ways—six feet tall, huge brown eyes, giant hands, feet, everything. And she favored large, psychedelic, floral prints, so much so Ray knew the other vendors cruelly referred to her as “the couch.”
Ray tried to talk to her each year, but she had little to say beyond “thank you.” Still, she always shared a reserved smile, lips painted ruby red curling in the corners, when he paid his ten dollars for a giant piece of pie and lemonade. Ray loved her lips. He sometimes thought of them smiling just for him.
***
With his display set up, Ray made his way quickly to Lila’s truck—huge in itself to accommodate its owner and her product. Lila always opened before the market to give dealers a chance to savor her sweet and savory pastries before the onslaught of customers.
Not an ordinary food truck, Lila provided an outdoor restaurant with folding tables and chairs, floral print table cloths, silverware, cloth napkins, and even servers. Antique people love anything old-fashioned, so Bouckville customers loved sitting down properly under Lila’s awning, enjoying a satisfying piece of pie, and drinking lemonade with frozen strawberries floating on top from Lila’s long, pink, Depression-era glasses. Ray heard the muttered comments about the giant woman who made it all happen.
How does she fit in the kitchen?
Does she eat all this pie herself?
Ray assumed Lila remembered him, since he came year after year. He fantasized about striking up a conversation, but just couldn’t find the guts. He wanted to tell her that he recognized her true talent and entrepreneurial spirit. Ray cowered beside Lila’s greatness, identifying himself as a grandson, a son—someone left things, someone left behind. And there was the problem of his looks. He was aware he was not easy on the eyes, while Lila shimmered. Thinking of Lila felt like remembering a really good dream, the kind that evades memory, the kind that needs to be snatched as each fleeting bit blows quickly away.
Graceful in her large body, Lila moved between her tables with deft precision. Ray had no idea what it would be like to be that busy, no idea how she did it all—baking, serving, cleaning, receiving payments, giving change. Of course, she had a few kids that served and helped clean up.
Ray noticed Lila smiled at everyone the way she smiled at him but didn’t talk much to anyone. She didn’t have time to blather on like Ray did to his passersby—he hesitated to say customers—or gossip with neighboring dealers like old Ed the Mattel toy guy. What a bore.
This year, Ray promised himself he would make friends with Lila. He would try. He would write her a note, had even stopped at Target on his way to Bouckville, buying cards he thought she would like. On one, a retro cherries print, he wrote an effusive thank you, a rambling appreciation of her pies. Not exactly an ‘A’ student in English, Ray had a penchant for run-on sentences. He told her how he came every year, gladly waiting in line for her pie. He told her about a book he remembered his mother reading to him called The Blueberry Pie Elf, about an elf who struggles to tell his human family of his obsession with blueberry pie. He asked if she knew the book, hopefully inspiring a response. He had wanted to write more about his mother, how she died too early, how much he missed her, how she understood him, but stopped himself. Too much.
He left the note on his dirtied table that first day, hoping she would find it and write back.
Returning to Lila’s the next day, Ray waited in line, watching for her anxiously. When she finally approached, she remained terse. She said nothing about the note, offering only her, “One for pie? This way, sir.” He smiled like a goon, following her silently.
***
On the third day of the market, a cooler day than usual, Ray decided to veer from his normal order—blueberry, like the elf in the book—and get a savory ham and cheese pie. As Lila took his order, his heart beat wildly in his chest. She looked him right in the eye, an extra bit of attention signaling his change in habit. He smiled weakly and shifted in his seat but felt something loosen, come apart, sway. Before he could stop it or put down his lemonade, his seat collapsed beneath him, taking the table cloth, the table, and all the china down with him. The Depression-era glass shattered on the cement. Ray lay there, the pathetic sight he always believed himself to be. Lila, silent, walked away and returned with her dustpan and brush.
The line grew as Ray stood and brushed his pants off. She looked tense, hot, maybe even angry.
“I’m so sorry, Li—mam,” Ray stammered.
She simply nodded and continued working.
He lifted the mangled chair, which a neighboring customer took from his flaccid arms. Reaching into his pocket, Ray pulled out the twenty he put aside that morning for pie and placed it on the table. As he left, he overheard a server say, “Those glasses were her mother’s!” He returned to Martin’s Miniatures display with an empty, sick belly, accepting a packet of peanut butter crackers from the kid he’d hired to cover.
***
That night, tangled in sweaty sheets, Ray’s mind lit up like an inextinguishable torch. An idea shone so brightly once it arrived that he jumped out of bed and rushed to the shop counter. He would give Lila a gift, and not just any gift but Seth’s miniature Shakespeares, wrapped in the green velvet they came in.
On the final day of the market, Ray sweated as he waited in line. When Lila saw him, her face softened a bit,
“One for pie?”
“No pie today,” Ray said. “These.”
Those behind him in line huffed in annoyance as Lila took the time, right there, to unwrap the velvet, unraveling the package delicately until the small stack of gilded treasure sat upright in her expansive palm. She held the first book up to her large brown eyes and examined it, pulling her red cat-glass readers up from their chain.
“How sweet,” she whispered. “What a sweet, tiny thing. Poetry?”
Ray nodded, smiled his toothless grin, and returned to Martin’s House of Miniatures—feeling, for once, like a success.
Roommates
Mason Street, May 2021
I should have known about Holzer right away, but his odd qualities, and my and our other college roommate, Lafferty’s, awareness of them, emerged gradually. In the beginning, he kind of cast a spell over everyone, so we didn’t think too much about any of his oddball tendencies, like obsessively locking his bedroom door…
Bad Teachers’ Camp
Funny Pearls, April 2021
I entered Bad Teachers’ Camp (BTC), the name I quickly assigned to the conference, and was immediately surprised by the wide field of allegedly bad teachers.
‘Why are you here?’ a woman whose nametag said Donna asked, quickly offering, ‘I flipped out on this kid for making a bow and arrow out of my yard stick and a rubber band.’
‘I get bullied by twelve year olds,’ said Jess, a small young woman who emerged from behind Donna…
(Read the rest at link above.)
The Bayside
Dead Fern Press, First Prize Winner, February 2021
Principles
Your family chose the bayside, not the part of town closer to the ocean where I always stayed with my friends. You liked the economy, the savings. Why buy a five dollar ice cream when you can get a half gallon for less? Only fools bought ice cream cones. Your sister told me once you and your family were highly principled people. I thought this an admirable idea, but I could not say the same about myself. I just wanted an ice cream cone, even if it cost five dollars, even if it cost ten. I wanted so much to think the house you rented nice enough, but I quietly preferred renting on the side over the bridge, by the sea.
Kept Woman
Published in Trembling With Fear, January 2021 and Metastellar, July 2021
Now, there is no Fred. Now, I am no longer obese, incontinent, hairy, stained, paralyzed, starving, thirsty, sunburned. I am no longer sleeping on the floor, my face pressed into the toilet base. Now, I am free, but I am still here…
(Read the rest at link above.)
Yellow Out There
Yellow Out There
The community garden, known as Spring Garden, dazzled Sarah with its array of flowers and green extensions, the many tentacles and bursts of color that meandered within its gate and occasionally found their way, in little bits, out beyond. The gate - dark and elaborate and spiky with metal figures of birds perching forlornly on the tips of iron bars - was in itself tantalizing. And of course, Sarah’s eye caught more and more yellow each time she stopped to contemplate the intriguing garden.
There were maybe one hundred plots, fascinating in their differences. Some had tomato plants, some raspberries, some roses, some even corn. Sarah never once thought of growing broccoli, but here she could see an elderly man snapping it from its stem and placing it in a canvas bag hanging over his shoulder. She smiled at the scarecrows and garden chairs populating the garden. Picnic tables suggested people had dinner there, parties on the fourth of July, though she had never seen such gatherings.
With each minute she spent staring inside the garden, Sarah knew she was waiting, but
she had no idea what for. And the garden became, in her mind, the image of waiting. The
seeds waiting to grow, the plants waiting to get watered, the weeds waiting to be tall enough to pull.
“It’s so alive," she said to no one, breathing into the hot air which surrounded her, permeated the neighborhood. A gray cat, also a garden regular, wore a silver heart hanging from her white neck and often wove herself between Sarah's legs, brushing into her for comfort, reminding Sarah of where she was, that time was passing. Yes, Sarah was waiting too. Was waiting a good way to spend one’s time? What did the plants and flowers have invested in the future?
Sarah loved to imagine a fantasy garden plot. If she had her way, her plot would be filled with wildflowers, daisies, tiger lilies. Maybe she would grow vegetables like broccoli, but what she dreamed of was something impractical, something wild. Something thirsty that she could water and that would drink, something beautiful and vibrant she could cut and bring to her slowly dying mother, Molly. Pushing aside these dreams, Sarah’s mind always nagged with the knowledge she must turn away, walk her bike up the street, head home.
"Hey," Celly, Molly’s home health aide, said as Sarah let herself into the stuffy house.
"It smells bad in here," Sarah said, instantly realizing how accusing she sounded. "Sorry, Celly, I'm sorry."
"No problem, sweetheart." Celly was wiping down the counter, getting ready to leave.
The silence in the house was no longer a shock. Molly hadn't spoken in months. She just looked out of scared eyes like a lonely lost child. Some in the late stages of Alzheimer's grow belligerent, angry. Molly was as docile as a pussycat, alarmingly so. Sarah missed her spitfire, well-read, fifth grade teacher mother who could answer all the questions on the evening quiz show and complete the crossword every day, her hot cup of coffee by her side.
Sitting in her usual chair next to Molly’s bed that night, Sarah thought of all of the wildflowers at Spring Garden, and wished she had time to care for other living things. She reminded herself to buy her mother flowers at the market the next day.
Sarah closed the door, passed through the hallway and down the stairs, warmed by all the yellow, everything painted yellow, Molly’s favorite color. In the living room she looked for a book bought years before, Container Gardens by Number, something that Reader’s Digest had published, a cheap soft-covered thing. Molly had used this book to learn how to make beautiful arrangements in anything that would hold dirt outside their house. Visitors would always comment on her adept abilities with a box of mud and a few plants. Molly shrugged off the compliments. “I'm just a recipe follower," she said.
Her mother’s handwritten Post-it notes were stuck throughout the book. Sarah felt the usual stab of pain when confronted with a remnant of "before." She listened to the tall hall clock tick as she moved her head back to rest against the couch. Sarah let all of Molly’s containers wither up and die. Everything besides work and Molly seemed so overwhelming.
#
They had lived in this house together for Sarah's whole life.
"I’m lucky to have this house, honestly I am, but I swear if only I could paint it yellow. I have dreamed my whole life of a yellow house, really." Molly reminded Sarah of Anne of Green Gables, how Anne was constantly dreaming of hair another color besides red. Nevertheless, they compensated for the brownstone exterior by painting every room inside a different shade of yellow. Molly's bedroom was a butter yellow.
"It's almost not yellow, almost cream, but at the same time it's a perfect yellow!" Molly said, satisfied, on the day they painted it. Sarah's room was what they both called lemonade. "What would you say Sarah? A brighter butter? A butter turned up a notch?"
They called it the yellow project. Sarah could still picture her mother with paint all over her jeans and sweatshirt and old white canvas sneakers, her short hair covered up in a bandana, hands on her hips. Sarah liked to find different shades of yellow to add to the list they kept on a bulletin board in the kitchen. They perused the many catalogues that dropped through their door mail slot, noting the numerous nuances of yellow, recording colors like burnt sunrise and honeyed umber.
"It gives you hope, doesn't it?" Molly said, flipping the pages, "All that yellow out there?"
#
One day, gazing into Spring Garden, Sarah heard an older man's voice shouting over the corn stalks. "What’re you doin’ over there?"
Sarah jumped, then froze. "Um-I.." she began to say.
He laughed, "I knew I'd scare ya!!"
She smiled weakly and remained frozen in her place, staring at the green pumpkins connected to their vines.
The sight of the pumpkins provoked a dark shade across Sarah’s mind. The doctor said Molly would not see another fall.
"What, don't you like pumpkins?" he said, coming over and taking out a cooler from underneath his workbench. He produced a little paper cup out of nowhere, filled it with a purple drink. "Take this," he said, reaching his hand out through the bars of the fence.
Sarah felt shy but predicted this man would not take no for an answer. She gulped it down, finding she was really very thirsty. She stared at him for a second as she finished her drink, looking into his face in the late afternoon sun, the comers of his eyes revealing deep wrinkles. His skin was a kind of intense earth with hints of orange.
"I'm Vince," he said, sort of gasping after his drink. "I work around here."
Sarah didn't know if he meant in the garden or the neighborhood. "What do you do?" she said.
He left the pumpkins and started furiously digging up a rose bush. "Landscape, plumbing, moving, pool maintenance, you name it. Need something done?"
"Wow! No, I was just curious. I'm surprised you have time to have a garden."
"Always time. You should come and garden. You look like you could use some sun," he stopped what he was doing and squinted at her.
Sarah noticed the stain of sweat lining the bandana wrapped around his head. "I have too much to take care of already," she said, looking down, then away, becoming self-conscious by the familiarity of the phrase.
"Ha! Get busy livin’ or get busy dyin’! Where’d I get that?" he asked, pushing his worn boot on the top of a spade. Then he stopped, and reached in his pocket. "See these keys? One's for the gate, one's for the shed. You can have them. You can come in and work in my plot, whenever you want. Weed, water, cut some flowers from over there," he pointed to a bank of wildflowers and wiped his grimy face on his shoulder.
"I have work -" Sarah said.
“Ha!" he repeated in reply.
#
It felt strange to Sarah, to enter the garden for the first time as she did the following Monday. She looked at her watch as she entered, knowing she only had about twenty minutes. The gate opened easily, no sign of Vince, so she walked slowly toward his shed, unlocking that door next. She surveyed the darkness and immediately noticed a bench with a collection of garden tools thrown across it. Underneath a dirt-encrusted spade, lay a sprawled handwritten note on which she deciphered the words, It's about time!
On her next visit, she made sure she left work a little earlier, making an excuse about her mother and feeling guilty for doing so, but getting out the door at four just the same. This time she took the red-handled shears that were on Vince's potting bench and began dead-heading. She loved the catharsis of removing the dead ends of things. His basil looks dry. She looked around for a hose, seeing one nestled between rows of com. She approached the green snake, feeling by its coldness and wetness that it had been used, and recently. She pressed the spray gun and saw an arc of water shoot forth. Dragging the weighty green coil over to the desired destination, she drenched Vince's herbs. When she was done, she went to drop the hose back where it was, but instead she followed its trail through the garden, wishing to see where it began, what different living things were in its charge.
Another time, down on all fours with her hands stuck straight into the mud, she dug deeper and deeper, and, moving further down she detected the earth getting richer and darker. She felt worms and small rocks. It was not until she stood up and mopped her forehead and took a sip of water, that she realized tears were mingled with the salty streaks of sweat on her face.
#
Always, she snipped the yellowest wildflowers from the garden and, after returning home, put them in a tall glass vase beside her mother's bed, softly recounting for Molly the sunshine yellow, the honey yellow, the shady yellow. Sarah looked down at the dirt in her short nails and then around the still room. She knew there was no point in reading, Molly didn’t seem to notice anymore. The flowers do brighten this room the tiniest bit. She listened to the air conditioner humming softly. Sarah sat quietly, thinking, always to herself.
Sarah regarded her mother's withered bird-like face, then stared at her own in the bathroom mirror. Is Molly busy living or dying? What about me? She was already thirty-five, she knew she didn’t have much to show for it. Some of her co-workers made small comments about “keeping her mother alive,” not-so-subtly questioning Sarah’s choices. All she knew for sure was that she needed to be right where she was, now. Everything outside of that, she didn't, couldn’t know. Would Molly see another fall? Sarah chose not to picture the winter months when Spring Garden would be devoid of color, the dried corn stalks blowing in the winter wind, just as she chose not to envision this room empty of her mother, the bed stripped, the door closed.
Sarah remembered a quote, "God gave us memories so we could have roses in winter and mothers forever." She didn't know who said this, but thought if she had her own plot in the garden she would put that quote on a stake and keep it there.
Sick, But Sociable
What I Thought of Ain’t Funny, Malarkey Press, November 2020
Every priest has something, that one thing that is theirs outside of the religion. Some priests have pets, some priests love sports, some priests make their own beer. Greg’s thing was smoking, and Greg thought his best friend, Lou’s, was the jokes….
Libby in Four Seasons
Woman’s Way (Ireland), October 2020
Winter
I shave Jim’s face slowly each morning, savoring every second. I smooth the Barbasol onto his stubbly beard, grateful for the new growth, even though his body is slowly giving in. The stabs of manliness are miraculously still there, still sharp as I move the razor across his slack jaw. I revel in the rejuvenation of his skin, the smoothness he shouldn’t have, considering his condition, but still does. Harold climbs up on the bed, licks Jim’s fresh face. I lean down to sniff my husband and whisper our secret words (bear, pebble, cheesecake), kiss the last dollop of cream off his right ear.
Today, as I stare out of my house on the lake, I watch the snow falling down, breaking the grey screen of sky into swirling white specks. I am aware of the shift in the weather, and know my husband, my oldest friend, my first love, my second chance, will be gone by nightfall; his spirit sliding out, trading places with the whiteness, becoming part of its beauty, its resolve. It’s okay. We have had so much.
Spring
I don’t bake at Christmas like everyone else. I bake in the spring. April is technically spring but in these parts it feels like February. In April, I make my special cinnamon roll that looks like a lady’s long braid bent into a circle. I make eight total, one for Harold and me and one for each of the seven houses around the lake.
At each house people are surprised, stare at my frail stoop, my gnarled hand grasping a floral cane. They look a little scared, or maybe guilty. They ask me if I’m warm enough, if I want to sit, need a coffee, tea. They don’t want my cinnamon roll, but pretend they are delighted, touched. No one mentions Jim. I don’t mind, but I notice. Between Jones and Egans my foot goes into an unexpected hole and I lose my balance and fall, cutting my finger somehow on the way. It’s not a big spill, although Harold is beside himself, shaking in distress. He’s no spring chicken either. A slight, dull pain tiptoes down my spine. Is this how I will die? For so many of us old people, death begins with a fall.
“Oh for pity’s sake,” I protest as Harold barks and Jean Egan fusses.
“We really could pick up the danish, Libby, really.” It’s not a danish. I listen to her talking, but I really am just waiting, waiting to leave, to move on. Younger people often think they know everything, can fix everything.
Summer
Of course, August will always be for Craig. We are 25, newlyweds. We love the dry, hot air of Central New York summers, the cold nights, wrapping ourselves in blankets after night swimming. Unlike my serious young husband, I have no intention of working across the summer, and plan on dragging my paint into school in September and figuring everything out then. This house I grew up in and will spend my life needs work. The buttery walls beg for clean corners, throw pillows, painted tables. I work hard moving, sorting, scraping, painting, sweeping, piling up.
I start to feel hot and dirty and go upstairs to put on my purple swimsuit. I think better of it and peel off my sweaty clothes, pull on my robe, and run down the path. Shooting for the end of the dock, I let the robe fall to the wooden slats and without thought or hesitation, dive hard and fast into the green blackness. The smell of sulphury water is like entering the center of the Earth, and the sky seen from floating on my back feels like power and its opposite, smallness, loss. I shiver and flip.
At the house, police lights, alive with bad news, twirl and swirl in our driveway, but my eyes are busy staring down through the murkiness, observing the darkness and light.
Fall
Everything is quieter after a gunshot blast, even one I really never heard, experienced only in my imagination. Often, after Craig, I sit and listen in the silence.
I expect him. It is the year we turn 30 and Jim comes through the silence and knocks on my door. A funny look on his face and a daisy in his lapel, he trudges slowly on account of his health (He has already had one small heart “event”) up the path that leads to the house. I stare at him through the fantastic golds and oranges of autumn.
“What?” I feign annoyance, glance down at my long men’s shirt, one of Craig’s, green paint smeared on my cheek.
“Libby,” he says, huffing a bit. His dog, Patrick, paces behind him, his squishy brown nose sniffing the dirt, following my trail of memories, history, searching.
Bake Off
Beans and Rice, Issue 15, February 2021
Sex is calming, too. I’m pretty good looking, not bad, and, I discovered as I grew up that men other than my father like to hear about me baking. In high school, I would tell a lie to my male teachers about how I baked, even though I didn’t anymore. Cupcakes really turned them on. Perhaps they pictured my ass cheeks as cupcakes, tight little circles, covered in cream. Yes, please! Later, in college, I kept telling the lie about baking. Guys I met down at the bars licked their lips when I told them how I liked mixing and stirring, spreading and frosting. “Do you lick the bowl?” They ALWAYS asked that. Many still do. So predictable…
Gus
It all begins with an idea.
Gus was an orange tabby cat, like Morris from the Cat Chow commercials, the ones where the cat put his foot forward and back in a cute little cha cha cha dance move. He wore a big metal heart around his neck that said GUS, which he found really embarrassing and uncomfortable. Mary and Tom went overboard, Gus often thought to himself, too much food in his bowl, that crazy refilling water thing, and this heart with their names and address on the back. He knew it was because they felt guilty. They were always away somewhere, somewhere where there were lots of fish; Gus could smell it on them when they returned. They cut that flap in the kitchen door so Gus could come and go as he pleased, but it was more so they could come and go as they pleased, that was the truth of it.
He knew not all the other pet owners were like Tom and Mary. Gus had spoken to Fluffy two doors down, and she bragged about all the petting and snuggling she received. Gus was not the receiver of much petting. He wasn’t sure why Tom and Mary wanted him. They didn’t even have a mouse problem, which, according to Shivers on Gaberdine St., was the reason most humans got cats. Gus didn’t like mice; they were so defenseless. He got down just thinking maybe Tom and Mary could send him to the animal shelter. Gus’ friend Sassy went to the animal shelter.
The neighborhood, called Hamletshire, was nice enough. Lots of sidewalks and small houses in different colors. Lots of people walked their dogs on ropes. Gus was glad he did not require such restraint, but he did envy the attention the dogs got out on the sidewalk. He always saw humans stop to talk to the dogs, kneel down and let them lick their outstretched hands. He wondered why his nice, neat, sandy little tongue would not be more preferable, but, to each his own, that’s what Tom always muttered when Mary said something weird, which she often did. “Tom, I am going out to buy yoga pants at the studio sale!” She’d said things like that.
Gus was hungry. Hungry for food, attention, love. He remembered his mother, who called him a beautiful cat name that cannot be spelled and sounded like some far- off purring, her warm belly and comforting smell. He knew he was with her once, and then he woke up to the cold world of Tom and Mary and the door flap. Perhaps it was this hunger that led him to the yards of families. He tended to get more attention in the yards than on the sidewalks. The ladies, Janet and Beth, put out bowls of milk for him, which gave him diarrhea, but he loved to drink anyway, kind of like the chili Tom was always making and getting sick from. “It’s so good it’s worth it,” Tom often said when he left the bathroom. Gus got that. Janet and Beth talked to Gus like he was a baby, “Ohhh we wish we could keep you.” When they were inside, their seven-year-old son, Max, chased Gus with a baseball bat. This is why Gus generally did not like children. The little ones were sometimes scared of him and ran away. Two brothers named J.J. and A.J. ran screaming from Gus every single time they saw him. Gus often rolled onto his back and stretched out on the grass to show he meant no harm, but those two always went running and screaming no matter what. That’s why Gus started hissing at them. He reasoned, well if this is what they think I am then this is what I’ll be. The horrified look on the parents’ faces made Gus feel a little nervous; what if they told Mary and Tom? But some things were worth it.
Only the strange, lonely children or the confined old people were gentle with Gus. Maddy, a teenager in a wheelchair, Alex a girl who kept bats in cages behind her house , and Mr. Giardano who walked in his driveway in circles with his walker, they always received Gus with warm hands, soft strokes, kind words. Mr. Giardano even brought canned cat food and soft treats just for Gus. But Gus knew he could not count on them consistently.
Gus was not so sure about humans. He wanted one to love him, but he knew there were so many kinds of humans and so many ways they could act. Mr. Holstein slapped his wife across the face in front of their kitchen window and the wife cried. Mrs. Williams shook her tiny baby and then she cried too. She looked so scared and lonely. As he prowled from backyard to backyard, he heard many people fighting and yelling.
Gus decided to stop taking their treats of milk and soft food, returning to his empty house to eat his kibble and drink the water, sleeping in his basket by the door. He began to think he was lucky to be on his own, with a roof over his head, food in his bowl, and no one bothering him. He stopped going into the backyards, learning to steer clear of outstretched hands, not looking up at the windows. He didn’t want to see inside the other houses anymore.
Proxy
Re:Fiction, September 2019 Writing Contest, Honorable Mention
Proxy
She’s probably about twenty. Stein scratched his chin, relieved to see the woman outside his window pull out a book and not a phone from her backpack as she settled on a bench in the park across the street. His head ached from holding things in. Distracted by the jangle of keys, he heard one of his tenants entering the decrepit building, trudging up the dark stairwell.
The Stein’s shop window remained empty; he hadn’t sold jewelry in years. His mother’s ghost appeared before him, standing as she used to before his father, in this very office. Then, the business thrived; the building, their home, glistened, smelled of cooking onions.
Harry, that can wait. Come to the table. His father emerged and faded as Stein’s
mind wandered back to his last conversation with Sylvie, just on Wednesday.
Busy? He jibed at her, purposely sarcastic, pretending to fix a pipe and passively criticize Sylvie for her horrific apartment packed with stacks of newspapers, books, piles of clothes. Checking on her.
What do you care? She sniffed, shoving twisted fingers deep inside pockets in her stained pink robe.
Stein remembered a different Sylvie, young, and, at least to him, pretty. Back then, her apartment shone, neat as a pin. Her hair fell in brown curls to her shoulders. Stein sometimes asked her out for a drink, a show, a cup of coffee.
Gerry, you will not believe this.
Her South Philly accent. Touching his arm and laughing. She could do impressions of anyone she met, twisting her face into an old man’s grimace or sour Mrs. Sherwin who owned the dry cleaner around the corner.
There were other tenants, of course. People on the fringe. His rent was cheap. It had to be. The place deteriorated to dump status. He barely knew who lived there. They were all just monthly checks, hunched shoulders carrying paper bags scurrying in and out. But he put Sylvie in a different category. For one, she was his longest tenant; for another, she hadn’t paid rent in years; for another, he loved her.
He’s after me. He’s been chasing me for blocks, Gerry. We need to call the cops.
But Stein also hated the newer Sylvie. His face reddened thinking of how she often answered the door naked. She wasn’t funny anymore, no more stories.
Sylvie! Back! He screamed at her when she wandered out in the hall, half dressed, screaming herself.
You get back! She shouted at him like a stranger.
Sometimes her door wouldn’t open because of all the newspapers. He’d have to push with all his might to move it. The couch and bed and table were all hidden under piles of junk. The refrigerator door opened to a persistent science experiment, full of moldy blobs. And that smell that permeated the place. He knew Sylvie couldn’t clean herself anymore.
Oh Gerry, I’ll miss you when I am gone. That last time. He didn’t know if she was being mean or not.
Where are you going? That’ll be something. How’d we get you out of here?
Heavy with Sylvie’s absence, he observed the woman in the park. She bit her fingernails as she read.
Doctors. You’re prolonging the inevitable. She’s not even breathing well on the ventilator.
Stein stood stiffly and reached for his wrinkly trench coat on the hook behind his office door. He crossed the street and approached the young woman, wondering what he would say. She looked up with a start; annoyance darkened her face. Stein felt worse for a second, desperate, fearful she would run away.
“Can you help me?” he said. The woman moved one hand on her backpack. “My Sylvie. She’s in the hospital on life support,” embarrassed, relieved, he began to speak, at last, “I don’t want to kill her.”
The woman swallowed. “Oh. I’m…”
At the sound of her voice, Stein broke down, hacking and slobbering. The woman put an arm around the old man, stiffly at first, then more softly. Minutes later, she pulled away, and stood. Stein walked slowly beside her in silence, relieved.
Puppets
On the Edge of Tomorrow, BHC Press December 2017
I can’t focus. I lay on my bed, literally fuming. I am listening to old Pearl Jam. My feet are sticking out, Converse sneakers still on. My hands, with bitten nails, are clenching and unclenching. I just want to be left alone. That's what my life is- being alone. It works for me. Our cat, Oreo, struggles onto my bed and nuzzles my face. My mood is even too dark for Oreo. I pull away, and with that physical gesture, drag myself up and off the bed. I walk straight out the door to the long corridor, down the white carpeted staircase, through the sterile kitchen and out the front door. I know where I am going.
(Excerpted from “Puppets”)