Not Your Time
Terse. Journal/March 2023
The light must be busted, I thought. My hands reached out into the deep emptiness, floor boards creaking with reluctant steps. Murmuring voices of my elderly parents and ticking clocks echoed from downstairs. The soft-footed soldiers of memory marched through my mind: my childhood bedroom, packing clothing and coffee pots for college, returning at age 40, between marriages, my infant son, now a boisterous eight year old, sleeping on the bed. I only came up here to return a folding table to its place, lean it against a wall, and go back downstairs. Just that. I’d never been afraid here before. That night, the darkness frightened me.
In the Attic
Terse. Journal/March 2023
The winter earth here, too hard to shovel, sends corpses like mine to be placed in the attic, like all the other unused things. The fly buzzes above me. I can hear it, but cannot move my arms to swat it away. And I can smell the cold space- like apples. Now I too am an old, cold apple. In such a short time, I have turned from being one of the people making footsteps along hardwood downstairs to this frozen, yet still sensing, dead thing. I am stuck here like this, separated from my daughter whose birth put me here.
Beneath a Winter Sky
TMP Magazine, Issue 4, February 2023
The Ten of Cups card lay upright on the cold bedroom floor at her bare feet – a silvery couple, depicted naked, hands above heads, an archway made of ten cups above them. Winnie wondered how it got there, since she kept her tarot set downstairs on the desk. She wondered further about the card’s meaning: a prediction of a long-term relationship. She peaked through the blinds. Across the frost-covered patio, Lloyd’s shadow moved inside his since-summer-abode: the shoffice (shed+office). She turned away, slipping the card in her robe pocket.
Downstairs, Winnie watered her house plants while the coffee percolated in its stovetop pot. She did not miss Lloyd’s Keurig machine one bit. Since her husband moved out she relished the space, physically, yes, but also emotionally, professionally. Her phone commenced a repetitive buzz, prompting her to put down her mug on the newspaper-strewn kitchen table.
“Winnie,” her sort-of-sometimes- best -friend-Mable sobbed into the phone. “I need you to do a healing reading,” she said. “Patsy and I got into the worst, most terrible argument about Phil.”
Winnie stroked a leaf of a Belladonna plant while withholding a speech about how Mable couldn’t control with whom her children fell in love. Instead, she simply agreed to a reading time for the following day. She filled in Mable’s name on her calendar and brought her cup to the overflowing sink.
“Oh my good and gracious god!” Winnie cried out clutching her chest. Lloyd’s woolen hatted head bobbed in the window.
“Come in?” His words hung in a cloud of frigid air, barely audible.
“No!” she shouted.
He held up a pan of scrambled eggs. “Want some?”
Winnie thought Lloyd’s eggs were magic, and her stomach had just been grumbling. She opened up, snatched the pan, slammed the back door. Sharp January air snapped in her face.
***
The following week, on what would have been Winnie and Lloyd’s 25th anniversary, Winnie noted the full moon and the Four of Wands card, with its floral chuppah and castle in the distance, propped on the kitchen windowsill.
“My oh my,” Winnie said, holding it up in the weak morning light, contemplating its significance: joy, celebration, bliss.
She peered into the backyard. No sign of her soon-to-be-ex’s balding head or hunched shoulders. Probably somewhere reading an economics textbook, she thought.
Winnie ignored the incoming messages from tarot clients, sat on the living room couch, flipping her and Lloyd’s wedding album’s dusty pages. Look at us-so young-she thought, pausing at one breathtaking photo: wide-eyed, bespectacled Lloyd watching her enter the reception room, besotted. When we were both grad students, when we still dreamed, when we imagined we’d have children, she thought sadly. She closed the book.
Would it be wrong to invite Lloyd for dinner? she wondered. The sudden impulse brightened her mind. It was their anniversary after all.
Winnie shrugged on her puffy coat and rubber boots, trudging through old snow and past her dead wildflower garden as she approached the shoffice door.
She peaked into the window. Typical. Neat as a pin, she silently scoffed, slipping a scrap of paper through a crack, inviting him for a simple supper to acknowledge our past and celebrate the more positive future.
She hurried back to the house, excitement fluttering in her chest.
***
Lloyd appeared at the door that night, a spray of stars behind his head, adorning him. He held a plate of warm brie spread with fig jam (They’d had this on their Montreal honeymoon). Winnie rolled her eyes. Of course, Mr. Perfect had to upstage her simple beef stew, she thought.
Seated at the kitchen table, they spread the cheese and jam on baguette, sipped red wine.
“I do love living out there,” Lloyd said, jerking his head toward the back door, the shoffice.
Winnie felt a dagger in her heart.
“I guess it’s better than living with me,” she snipped.
“I didn’t say that.”
Winnie pushed up from her chair, deepening scratches in the well-worn floor, went to get the stew.
When she returned, it seemed Lloyd’s chair had moved closer to hers. Her nostrils received wafts of his familiar smell. She enjoyed a mellowing sensation, stretching her back, uncrossing her legs. She fought the impulse to touch his hand.
As though he read her mind, he put down his fork, turned to her with that, I want you look, his eyes narrowing like he was contemplating a slice of apple pie. He obviously hadn’t had pie for a while. Neither had she.
“So-why have you never done a reading on us?” he asked, his face seeming to float in the candlelight.
“I thought you didn’t approve of my tarot business?” Winnie could feel her ire rising at the mere mention of Lloyd’s disdain for the tarot. Her hands shook as she reached for her wine glass.
“Well. I’ve reconsidered. I regret my words,” Lloyd said. She froze, caught in his grey-eyed gaze, then sighed, walked to the desk, emerging with deck in hand.
“We must set our intention,” she said.
“We’d like to know the status of our marriage,” Lloyd said firmly.
She pulled a card, placed it between them.
“The Lovers!” they said together, voice volume magnified. Lloyd’s lips upturned into his know-it-all smirk. The unclothed man and woman on the card faced them beneath a blazing sun.
Lloyd grunted as he lifted Winnie, carrying her, she presumed, upstairs.
“Your back,” she gasped.
“I am,” Lloyd said, kissing his wife’s neck.
“No, I mean don’t pull your back, remember that time at-”
Winnie’s words ceased. She pressed her cheek against Lloyd’s, fixed her eyes on Jupiter’s insistent glow through the stairway window, surrendered to the universe.
Bodies in Water
Fast Flesh Literary Journal/Issue 4 (Conscious)/February 2023
Trash Cat Lit/February 2025
Hilary entered the sparse room, her new home. At the window, fog hovered above the lake. A sailboat lingered from the faded summer, bobbing at water’s edge. A steady white light glowed above the surface, moving with insistent ripples, piercing murky air. Hilary assumed it was some kind of optical illusion, a reflection. She focused on the utter silence muzzling the replaying mind sound of gunshot, body drop. Her hands still shook. She imagined her own form transforming, shimmering, levitating, rising from the mess of remembered old blood, hovering above the scratched wooden floors of the cold room. She turned from the window, tossed her backpack on the bed. This and the clothes on her back, her only possessions…
The Estranged
Tuxtails Publishing/February 16, 2023
Avoiding the clock, Anna sat beside the window, wishing it were summer, when the roses would bloom. Finally, she rang the bell, a jarring buzz, not the tinkle she would’ve liked. She awaited the housekeeper Judy’s slow appearance, eyeing the dust thickening on her nightstand, the overflowing floral garbage pail in the corner. Her bald head itched where new hair prickled, tickling beneath her woolen cap.
“Morning, Mrs. Stern,” Judy said, setting a green smoothie on the table beside Anna. “You’re looking well,” she added, stiff grinned.
“What, is your leg broken?” Anna said.
“Broken — ?”
“I could’ve been dead.”
Judy straightened the blanket, fluffed the pillow, jerking Anna forward.
“I’ll be back at noon, unless you die before lunch.”
She closed the door, leaving Anna alone.
The Queen
Amethyst Review/January 2023
The Hive
This is her most pure sanctuary. She sits near enough to hear the throng of bees in their hives. It is honey season, and the hives are busy with their relentless productivity. She reclines on her lounge chair, her robes draping, trailing the grass, the lawns stretching out around her, acres of gardens, woods. The somber dong of the church bells. She wishes to linger here, beside this weeping willow. Hazy light filters through branches, enough to warm but not overheat. A breeze moves the trees, liberates hair from the veil. Her beauty is bone deep now, unchangeable.
She rises, pulls herself away from the ancient sound, as old as the dinosaurs, perhaps the oldest sound on earth, the droning buzz of the honeybee. She begins her slow journey to the chapel, where the brothers will be conducting their own droning buzz. She will be late, which will be noticed. They will have news for her, but it will not be new.
Two Flash Stories
Cosmic Daffodil/January 2023
“The Flawless and the Flawed”
Sydney stretched a bejeweled hand across the diner table.
“My grandmother had a ring exactly like that.” Rosamond squinted, examining the emerald ring pushed under her nose.
Sydney’s outstretched fingers recoiled.
“Lee bought it at Smithfield’s antiques. It’s flawless. It’s vintage,” she said.
“Jeez. What’s with the service here today?” Rosamond signaled for the waitress.
“There’s no other ring like it. And, if and when YOU get engaged, if we’re still friends, I’ll be happy for you.”
“I’m getting eggs, that’s what I’m getting. Do you know what you’re getting?” Rosamond said, placing her menu to the side.
“Victorious”
The light shifted, the office growing darker as afternoon progressed. I am looking for new experiences in the retail market. The sentence trailed through his mind like one of those biplane banners across the ocean at the shore. Alan conjured the sensations of summers past: the fine sand stuck to his lean body, the smell of cigarette smoke and old beer.
The snow fell.
Back in his Jersey days, Alan saw Karin from across a crowded room, the car dealership showroom where he worked since high school. On the test drive - a Chevrolet Malibu- he noticed her quick laugh, not to mention her bare knee that moved slightly as she pressed on and off the gas.
Karin had a plan and Alan followed it. They married, packed their suitcases, and moved here, her hometown. She’d accepted an assistant principal position for the super great school district. Returning victorious, she had a degree, a husband, and a job to boot. Of course, Alan knew there were problems. He knew she made excuses, she spun the car dealership to her family and friends so it sounded like some great entrepreneurial act. He knew her love had its limits.
But still, somehow, he didn’t expect what happened. Alan whistled, he whistled, as he came through the door that day, the day he found out. He remembered his wife’s down-turned mouth. “You can’t be surprised. Please,” she said, hands on her hips, like he should be ashamed for not guessing, for needing to be told about Phil.
Grounded
Perspectives Magazine/January 2023
Fifty years ago the boy died here within my boarded bones. Fifty years before that I was hammered together in this spot against my will.
Gill Jordan, a construction man from a construction family, one with sallow skin, sunken eyes, and a pronounced limp, built me high on this hill overlooking the Rhode Island sea-a gift for his understandably reluctant bride, Rebecca.
The summer after the marriage, she gave birth here, tended by the island midwife. But as it often happened then, Rebecca died in childbirth. Soon after, Gill drove nails into my already wind worn skin and crossed to the mainland for good.
I have never been happy here. I sense the unwelcoming soil beneath me. I wince at the relentless wind, sag beneath the snows of winter, the slanting rains of spring and summer.
Over time, a new owner came, loosening the boards nailed across my openings, adding indoor plumbing and a modern kitchen, loading me with the burden of pipe and wire. Thus began my new life as a rented vacation home. A stream of bickering couples, teething babies, and sullen teenagers pounded my floors, pushed against my walls. The dogs, tied to the tree, yelped from the side yard. The cats padded around the furniture, pressed into wooden legs, hoping for a lap, sensing my discomfort. Every kind of unhappiness flourished within me. I sighed each time the suitcases landed on my porch, followed by the skeleton key jiggling in my lock.
Ultimately, the fresh faced boy came, unrolled his kite, and sent it into the sky. The mother coated chicken in flour and salt and pepper, fried it crisp in oil. A blueberry pie, a store-bought surprise from the father, awaited them on the counter.
That last night, the mother laughed, watching the murmuring box in the corner while the fresh faced boy and the father worked a puzzle. I held their content like a foreign substance, a pocket of air tight in the cold cellar of my gut.
My spine, the woeful staircase, Gill’s folly, was too narrow, too steep, preposterous Rebecca had said.
I knew from the start things would end this way, yet grief rattled my windows, peeled and shredded my grey paint. The fresh faced boy, in socks, talking about something or other, carrying a toy boat, slipped on my preposterous steps. The mother, having heard the emergency of sounds-rumbling and bumping and a thud followed by terrible silence-dropped her kitchen scrub brush and ran to find her son broken, ended on my scarred planks.
So, I am boarded and bound again, infested and infiltrated by mice and moth. Vines grow up from the receding ground, fingers moving up to choke. The ocean rises, promising to sweep in, break me to bits, releasing me out to sea.
Those Who Occupy
Twist and Twain/January 2023
Thank goodness, almost the whole Redson family-all five of us- gathered together, preparing, all except one of course, but Bethie would arrive soon enough. Father made a quick visit to Sandy Acres and told us Bethie was resisting a bit but she wouldn’t be much longer. Beau’s transition was a real slog-Alzheimer’s-but he finally made it back. Bobby came quick with a heart attack-or was it a stroke? Never mind. I got off easy-died in childbirth-so I’ve been here alone, watching everything go to pot, for eons, even before Mother and Father. I think Father would love to have the grandmas and grandpas also with us, but Mother is not willing to share her home with the extendeds, as she calls them. Mother tends towards closing off – that’s just her way. Of course, everyone blamed me for the state of things, but what could I do, all on my own? Anyway, I was simply on pins and needles awaiting Bethie. In life, I considered her to be a bit goody-goody and spoiled, with her blonde hair and all, but I hoped things would be different, now that we’re all in the same place.
The Christmas House
Commuterlit, January 9, 2023
BETTY WISHED she had someone in the neighbourhood she could ask about the Blackwells, but no one spoke to her. She had a habit of calling the police whenever anything slightly “unneighbourly” occurred-like someone playing audible music, or someone sun bathing in a bikini, or kids talking on a stoop late at night…
The Three Sisters
Defenestrationism, Flash Suite Contest First Prize Winner, January 2023
Starry Eyed
Cassie listened to the rich old woman breathe, awaiting her call for the commode. The woman’s late husband had owned a production company of some sort. At one time Cassie would have attempted to work a connection. She used to say, “It’s all who you know out here,” but that was in the beginning. Now she just needed the rent.
The agency told her absolutely under no circumstances was she to fall asleep, so Cassie walked the length of the house. This place, though extremely opulent, reminded her of Grandma Southwell’s place back in Indiana. Old people’s homes, she thought, no matter what level of wealth, all seemed the same - the stuffy air, the mushy vegetables, the pervasive feeling of loss. In the hall mirror she smoothed out her long brown hair, tucked one side behind an ear, recalling the washing of Laura and Ada’s hair in the bathroom sink, drying and styling it. The old woman’s voice croaked from the bedroom. Cassie froze, listened, took one more look at her still flawless skin and wide eyes, all stuck above a lumpy body. She could never return home like this, so defeated, she thought. Silence pervaded again.
Next, she would go to the room with the safe and look at the money.
She did this every night.
***
She had a second, morning job at her apartment building, cleaning the entrance area, watering plants, bringing out the garbage. Arriving after her nightshift at the old woman’s, she went straight to work, despite the heaviness in her legs, the need to shower and lay down. Larry in 1B, stuck his head out the door.
“Bout time you got here,” he said.
His hand slithered out, releasing a leaky grocery bag to the floor. Cassie waited for his footsteps to disappear before heading to remove it. Shame pummeled her like a tidal wave. Her sister, Laura’s voice in her ear.
You can’t even pass algebra, how could you act? Please!
Cassie went to retrieve the broom, swept vigorously, imagined dust blowing from her brain, heart.
“You’re leaving. It broke Dad’s heart, you know. Good thing I stayed,” Laura had said.
Cassie wiped out the window sills, went for the vacuum.
Her phone rang. Speak of the devil. She let it go to voicemail.
“I don’t know if you’re available,” Laura said coldly. “But-uh- Ada is at the end.”
The punch in the gut pushed Cassie down into the stained orange chair beside the elevator.
***
She slept the rest of the day in dirty clothes, without brushing her teeth or a shower. She dreamt of Ada, curling her hair with the hot iron, her little face glowing more with each springy tendril.
Cassie woke with a thick taste in her mouth. She watched the ceiling fan’s slow turn. How does a 30 year old woman die of cancer? she wondered. Her mind went blank.
Perfect Ada. Ada, the worker, the one who loved to rake leaves, wash dishes, collect clothes for the homeless.
“Why don’t you just become a nun?” Cassie had once said.
Then, after Cassie moved out west, the cards with cash.
“I just want to know you’re eating something out there,” Ada had written.
Cassie spent the money on drinks, manicures, never writing to say thanks.
In the shower she spent a long time lathering, shaving her legs. Her father’s voice repeated in her head, “My beautiful daughters. My beautiful daughters.” Cassie did not feel beautiful. She took out her hair cutting scissors and carefully snipped at her bangs, a habit she swore daily to quit, but couldn’t. They were much too short.
***
At 3 AM, Cassie stood before the old woman’s safe. What a strange thing, to have this here, always unlocked, full of cash and jewelry, all this unused wealth just ripe for the taking. She reached in and picked up a large stack of bills. No one would notice if she took some. With this, she could buy a good outfit, even a fancy suitcase, things that would make her look successful. Maybe she could pay for the funeral. She remembered Ada’s hatred of wealth. The thing that divided them. Ada had been too kind to say.
“You go, Cassie, you’ll be great. I bet I’ll see ya on TV someday,” she’d said.
Cassie returned most of the money to the safe, kept just enough for a one way plane ticket, slid it in her pocket.
“Commode!” the old woman called.
Cassie entered the dark bedroom, pulled back the blanket, lifted the woman’s splotchy stick legs, pulled her up to sitting, guided her feet to the floor, positioned the walker, sat her down.
“I’m so-so lonely,” the old woman whispered, her bony shoulders hunched.
Cassie nodded, pulled up the paper brief.
***
On the bus ride home the next morning she thought of lies. She would go home, tell her family she was in between gigs, or that she had a secretarial job at a big TV show that was canceled. She’d arrive in Indiana, watch her sister’s last breaths, attend the funeral, then what? Return here, to this? She scanned the other faces on the bus, a storm of disappointment, anger, grief engulfed her as she sucked in, held back. The bus stopped, the doors opened. An old man with tattered clothes and white beard struggled on. The next stop was hers. She stood, handed the stolen wad of cash to the old man, exited. Something Ada would have done, she thought.
Early Christmas Morning
Ancient Paths, December 23, 2022
The ice crept down his glove. He cursed the wet trickle moving from wrist to hand. He took a swig of bourbon, the familiar warmth moving down his throat. He swallowed, grimaced. Sometimes the answers to life’s problems can be found in the bottom of a flask, his late brother’s words crossed his mind. As he turned toward the rectory, the Christmas tree twinkled in the living room window. He felt empty and cold, like the dark church lurking beside him, so recently ablaze in lit candles for midnight Mass.
The Relics
Fahmidan Journal, Issue 14, December 2022
Nominated, 2023
All Existing/October 2023
The swing creaked in the hot summer breeze, metal chain scraping against the bar supporting it. Dust kicked up, carrying garbage from one pointless place to another. Eight-year-old Paul stood alone in the middle of the empty playground, wishing for a friend. His mismatched legs lurched awkwardly to a sandy area beside the swings. He squatted and began drawing a map in the dirt. What’ll it be today, Paulie? he asked himself, finger hovering, a bird soaring above. Buried treasure, always a good choice. His finger pressed, drew a straight line to the right where he made an x. He imagined an island, a palm tree, a cool breeze, the sound of sea birds. He had never been to the ocean so he could imagine no further than those wind-carried squawks, no salty sea smells or thunderous waves. His finger traced upwards, perhaps to a rocky hill. A story began to take shape-a boy had been marooned here-but the idea withered when his finger caught on something hard. He picked at its edges, blew the dust away, wedged it out, shocked by his discovery.
***
On Paul’s tenth birthday, his mother, Bea, carried a chocolate cake with white icing. He sat at their kitchen table, his stomach full of his favorite meal (meatloaf) but with still enough room for cake. “Happy birthday to you,” Bea and his other mother, Judy, sang and clapped brightly, Judy’s hand reaching out for his. Since his adoption, he had slowly acclimated to affection, good food, his fluffy little dog, Lucky. Tears crowded Paul’s eyes as he listened to his mothers’ heartfelt words, “Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you!”- all for him. He blew out the ten candles, extinguishing them in one breath.
“Yay!” they shouted.
“Did you make a wish?” Bea asked, slicing into the cake with her sharp kitchen knife.
“Oh, I forgot!” Paul said, looking down. He didn’t want to sound stupid, but he had nothing more to wish for. All his wishes had come true. He hugged his mothers tightly before he went upstairs to bed that night. In his room, he pulled back the rug, lifted the floorboards, surveying his good luck charms, the bones he discovered two years before.
***
Paul was in middle school now, had a best friend (Cam), and played on the chess team. He didn’t need good luck anymore. He didn’t like keeping the secret bones from Bea and Judy. Paul hesitated, then reached for the garbage bag he’d brought upstairs, the dustpan and brush. He wanted to dispose of the boy-sized skeleton he called Joey who lived in the shallow grave in his bedroom floor. Joey’s weird, disjointed expression seemed to say, “No, Paulie, no.” Dismissing him, Paul swept his friend into the garbage bag and heaved it into the dumpster behind the grocery store. He went home to Bea’s meatloaf and homemade applesauce. It was October. School had been in session for a month. Paul smiled at his doting parents. He basked in freedom and strength.
***
Everything seemed to suck in, recoil, turn backwards. Two weeks after the disposal of Joey, Paul came home to find Bea, standing there in the kitchen beside the table. Her face looked twisted, sour, so different from usual he at first thought she might be sick. “I know your secrets, you liar. After all we’ve done for you!” Judy stood behind her, wagging her head in agreement, arms folded. They had both suddenly morphed into totally different people than the mothers he had grown to trust and love. Things went downhill from there.
***
Paul had never been to this bar before, so was not recognized as a freeloader. He considered ordering some food, eating a good meal before disappearing. He noticed meatloaf on the menu. Pain stabbed at his wounded heart. He ate, then slipped out the door without paying. Illuminated by the full moon above, he limped along the empty streets to the old orphanage, walking behind to the playground. He knelt down on the ground as he did most nights, began tracing in the dirt, hoping he’d once again uncover some luck.
All for Mother
Last Line Journal, Issue 8, Winter 2022
Her mother, sitting at the table in her wheel chair awaiting her breakfast, didn’t know it, but the first letter sat on the desk in the furthest bedroom at the end of the long back hallway.When the phone in the front hall rang, Harriet stood at the stove scrambling eggs, her middle-aged back aching.
“You going to get it?” her mother said, her hunched back facing Harriet.
Harriet would not get it. She knew exactly how her mother liked her eggs. They had to be just so. The phone could wait.
“Probably just spam, Mother,” she said. She lifted the pan at an angle and gently nudged the eggs onto a floral china plate. She layered two slices of extra buttery toast (also just how her mother liked) on the side. She placed the plate down for her mother and went to the phone.
Holding the receiver to her ear, she pressed delete at the first sound of the familiar voice.
Back in the kitchen, she enjoyed the shiny, well-polished table, the squeaky clean countertops. She derived satisfaction from the juice glass, the coffee cup, the pill plate, all lined up in front of her mother. Harriet had done it all, all by herself. Sun trickled in through the clean, clear windows. She switched on the favorite news show.
“You’re such a good daughter,” her mother said, putting her wrinkled hand on top of her daughter’s matching one.
Harriet went back to the sink to wash the egg pan.
The morning progressed as it did every day. The grandfather clock held court in the front hallway, standing at attention while Harriet’s mother pushed her walker back and forth, back and forth, trudging from one end of the house to the other.
Harriet vacuumed and dusted, snapped clean sheets over the beds, emptied the commode and wiped down every surface of all three bathrooms.
Soon, it was time for lunch, so Harriet cut the crusts off her mother’s preferred bakery bread, shaping the slices with a knife into triangles on which she spread homemade tuna fish, Grandmother Sharp’s recipe (with pickles). Harriet arranged the sections on a plate warm from the dishwasher. Her mother held a shaking cup of milk to her lips. Harriet covered her mother’s silk blouse with a light blue towel to capture any drips.
All of this, and then the mail fell through the slot in the door to the smooth tile entryway floor. Harriet caught the sound, went to the spot to retrieve.
Amidst the catalogues and political adverts and restaurant menus, an envelope-another letter. Harriet slipped it in her apron pocket, gathered the rest of the mail and brought it to the kitchen. Her mother took pleasure in sorting through it while she ate her lunch.
At one o’clock Harriet’s mother went down for her nap. Harriet stood beside the large bedroom window, glancing at the tiny frail form curled like a small letter c in the bed. Harriet adjusted the shade, transforming the bright sunlit room to a hazy muted one.
“Have a nice rest,” Harriet said, feeling a little like a mother saying goodnight to her child. A little.
Harriet moved down the hall, past the childhood sketches of her sister and her done at some long-ago fair. Passing the room that was now a sewing room, Harriet shivered with emptiness. She had not spoken to her sister in ten years.
Her own room smelled as it had since childhood-like pine and mothballs mixed together. She could never seem to change that. She looked around at the bed, closet, dresser, desk - comfort, despair, loneliness, anger - all mixing in her chest. Her friends, the books, lined the shelves. She’d been a teacher once, but that had to stop, what with Mother and all. Harriet repeated her favorite mantras- Home is best. The best place is home. Home is the place to be. Home. Home. Home.
It was time. She approached the desk, removed the letter from her pocket, lined it up with the first. She sat down, slit them open with her father’s gold letter opener. She scanned the pages - the familiar, looping cursive in blue ink, the strings of I’m sorrys and May I come for a visits begging her, poking at her heart.
Harriet looked at the letters for a time, then tightened her lips together, shook her head slightly. She put the pages in a pile with their envelopes, straightened and positioned the first piece for insertion. She pressed the nearby button.
The shredder roared to life, grinding the letter into tiny pieces of confetti.
Three Women, One Key
The Rush/Winter Issue 12, December 2022
Lily unlocked the back door of the thrift store using a key that didn’t belong to her. Just an hour before, she’d scooped the key from the street, dangling it from its chain in the blurry early morning light. Thrift on Smith.
She’d been zigzagging, her feet clunky, aimless, from Mulroney’s to her crooked Cooper Mini. (Mulroney’s because she’d needed a drink after the lawyer’s letter came and she’d consumed all the alcohol left in the house.)
“What the hell,” she slurred, about-facing to the shop.
Inside, she inhaled the repellent “other people’s things” smell, flipped on the lights.
The gowns hung along the wall, sparkling from their hangers, heavy and impractical -prom and wedding in pastel blues and greens and pinks and blacks and of course whites. Lily pushed them along the rack, pulling them down, allowing them to fall, like fainting ladies, onto the floor.
She reached for the most beautiful dress, an off the shoulder number with floral inlay. She wiggled out of her skirt and silk blouse, poked her arms through the sleeves and fumbled with the side zipper, constricting her loose belly. Draped in the weighted fabric, she zombie-walked herself to the full length mirror, holding up the skirt’s peaks of meringue.
“Jesus.”
She deeply regretted the artificial red hue of her hair, jutting in ragged spikes. Shuffling closer to her reflection, she examined pores, smoothed wayward eyebrows, ran a finger across her lips, containing a bleeding pink stain.
“Get. This thing. Off,” she said, stripping down to her loose white panties and pilly bra. She hiccupped, her chest popping as she staggered back to her own clothing left crushed on the floor, like the Wicked Witch post-melting.
Lily exited the way she came, slamming the door behind her, pushing back on the knob to feel the lock, firmly in place.
***
Mae hoisted herself into the shop window, falling to the floor, thankful for her stretch slacks. She stood up, ungracefully, the glimmer of pride at having achieved access to her shop without a key fading at the sight of the mess before her. Ruby, the mannequin, eyed her, plastic head cocked to the left, hand jauntily on hip.
My my. What was I up to yesterday? Mae thought hard for a moment but came up with only mind dust, nothing, the usual. Familiar handwriting-her own-in small yellow squares floated at eye level around the room. Post-its. Some said Thrift on Smith, the name of the shop, her shop, of course this shop. Some said Mae Sanford, 73, 555-1264, 217 Rambly Ridge Way. One said, I, Mae Sandford, am the owner of Thrift on Smith.
“Dust myself, off and..” Mae sat heavily in her rolling desk chair, patted her ample thighs.
The clock sounded its opening alarm, slapping Mae to attention.
“Oh, sugar. Time flies.”
She wobbled across mounds of clothing to get to the door, turned the lock and flipped the closed sign to open.
“Now where…” she muttered, fighting the way back to her desk, command central, holding all the things needed to get by: calendar, post-its, pens and pencils, price tags, cashbox. Cashbox! Mae whipped open the desk drawer only to find it sitting there, peacefully in place. The post-it on its cover said, Your necklace. Mae reached inside her shirt, finding a small key around a chain. She placed it inside the lock and opened the tin box, counted the bills.
She sat quietly, her mind drifting to its status quo, an erased blackboard. She touched Cam’s picture. The key, he reminded her. Mae looked down, found it stupidly sitting on the blotter. Eureka! She relaxed into the chair, a hand on her round belly.
The door opened, producing a teenager with a blast of autumn air.
“Good morning,” Mae said.
“Hey,” the thin girl said, chin out, hands in dark pockets. “You got a backpack?”
Mae had no idea, but she was happy to help, would enjoy the distraction.
***
Sadie only had so long. As soon as her father left, she fled the sink, ran out of the house, jumped on her bike, shot down the hill, no brakes. Earlier, he gripped her upper arm, “You’ll get these dishes done in no time,” he’d said.
She opened the first shop door she saw, finding herself in the middle of a mess of clothing, pots and pans, picture frames.
“I need a backpack,” all she could think to say. The disorder of the place wracked her nerves. Her father could not handle a speck of dust, a drop of water on the floor.
A fat little woman-maybe an angel?- appeared, a halo of grey curls rising up in a bush around her head.
“Sure thing! My shop is a treasure trove of - ”
“Okay,” Sadie said, turning away. Not an angel.
The woman pointed her to a blue ink-stained backpack. Sadie unzipped it, began tossing things inside. She scanned a wall of paperbacks. Flowers in the Attic, took it, threw in a hairbrush, a bathing suit, some underwear. What else would she need? Anything. A sleeping bag? Sheets? Post-it notes? Wait.
“You run this place?” she faced the dumpy woman.
“Yes. Yes. My husband and I. My late husband. I almost forget he’s-“
The lady spoke from a tippy toe stance, like she was trying to put a star on top of a Christmas tree, attempting to rehang a fancy dress.
“Can I help you?”
Sadie dropped the backpack. She had no money anyway. No time. No nothin.
The dresses rehung, she excused herself to the barf-smelling bathroom, where she noticed a hot plate, a microwave, even a tub and shower. Soap.
She turned out the light, the post-it beside the switch reminding her to do so.
“What a lovely young lady you are-“ the woman called out as Sadie slipped the key on the desk to her jeans pocket.
“Thank you, mam. I’ve got to go. My father-” she began.
“Good girl,” the woman said, a bright smile clinging to her lips.
Pink Sneakers
The Metaworker/December 16, 2022
The woman passes every day with her pink sneakers and floral running pants and cute son in a navy uniform. The son talks a blue streak while the woman nods, her head down, repeating, “Uh-huh.” Sometimes they notice me, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes the woman in the pink sneakers smiles a straight, close-lipped, no teeth smile. Sometimes she just nods…
The Midwife
Diet Milk Magazine/December 4, 2022
Even before Clara entered the house, she sought the smell of death. Her midwife’s nose was attuned to it, honed over ten years of guiding struggling life into the harsh light of the world.
The housemaid, Susie, sat in the late night shadows, holding a flickering candle, her face blank and pale.
“Any news?” Clara asked breathlessly, removing her shawl and muddied boots.
“The tonic did its work. He passed just one half hour ago, mam. I washed and dressed him. The birth?” she whispered, handing a lit candle to Clara.
“Troublesome, but the child lives. Tonight of all nights.”
“We’ve done some good this night,” Susie said, patting Clara’s back. The two women trudged upstairs.
Dream Song
Heart Balm Literary/Issue 2/December 1. 2022
Dream Song
Miranda’s disappearance really began that early June day, the day the book she held in her hands at the library’s circulation desk fell open on the ground. The poem on the page demanded to be read.
Sunlight, moonlight,
Twilight, starlight.
Gloaming at the close of day,
And an owl calling,
Cool dews falling
In a wood of oak and may.
She drank the words down, absorbing their rhythm into her bloodstream, her heartbeat, her footsteps. For the rest of that day, she floated above the stacks and desks, softly singing the dream song.
***
Miranda sat with her sister Sam on their bench by the pond, eating sandwiches and watching two brilliant white swans hooking their question mark heads.
“I need to tell you some news,” Sam said, breaking the peace.
A siren wailed in the distance, cars honked. She moved straighter in her position on the bench.
“I’m pregnant,” she said, looking expectantly at her sister. Miranda stopped chewing, her mind paused over her sister’s words. She wiped newly formed sweat off her brow and swatted at a fly.
“That’s what you wanted, right?”
“Right,” Sam said.
***
Lantern-light, taper-light,
Torchlight, no-light:
Darkness at the shut of day,
And lions roaring,
Their wrath pouring
In wild waste places far away.
The day of Sam’s news, Miranda breathed deeply as she entered the Green Lakes trails, feeling the acceptance of the trees, her trusted friends. She ran, slowly at first, shaking off her disturbance, whispering the words of the dream song, steadying her mind. She moved away from the lake’s beach area, away from the sunshine, into shade. The voices of children playing and adults talking and laughing fell away like an old heavy coat. She felt lighter, knowing there would be no indecipherable discussions here, no awkward conversations, no bad thoughts of intrusion, jealousy.
A strange, sharpening of senses overcame. She stopped abruptly, like a squirrel on its hind legs, alert, sniffing, eyes shifting, checking. Nature pulsed around her--smells, textures, forms, colors, light, shade. Her body, alive with the energy of the run, her mind, heart receptive, prickly with input.
In this state, she imagined all kinds of lost things found, fixed: speckled blue bird eggs whole and perfect, schools of fish rising to the surface of water, iridescent fins flashing like rainbows, billowed lips catching worms held out on hooks, a long lost wedding band shining in the sunlight. The invading image of her sister’s baby, pink and fat, brought a coldness over her, like a slap of ice water.
The anxiety was eased by her dead father’s appearance on the trail, vivid before her, his long, lined face emerged, appearing in not just one tree but all trees, so that as she ran, his face met her, from tree to tree to tree. Each time, she met his smiling eyes. She could not speak to him, she knew. It was clear to her he existed just for her sight, her own comfort. She gulped it all down, allowing his peace to tingle through her body, from her beating heart down to her fingers and toes.
In the wind, her mother, too, emerged. In life, she had been a woman of inexplicable, extreme emotions. Here, she blew sweet air in gentle waves, ruffling Miranda’s hair off her sweaty forehead. Miranda continued to run, soothed, unafraid of her parents’ apparitions.
Elf-light, bat-light,
Touchwood-light and toad-light,
And the sea a shimmering gloom of grey,
And a small face smiling
In a dream's beguiling
In a world of wonders far away
Now the dream song called her to the lake. The bright green presence of water asserted itself just beyond the edge of the woods. She stopped at its tip, got closer, stared down through the emerald surface. She searched for life in the water, seeing only weeds, roots, petrified wood protruding from prehistoric layers.
Finally, the wind shifted. Miranda’s breath drew short. A small nose and rosebud lips poked through the surface of the lake. A baby, gasping and crying out, just born. As if being pulled by a hand somewhere below, the baby jerked from exposure, receding into the water. Miranda’s hands reached out. Her chest heaved up and down and her nostrils flared. She turned to look for someone behind her, help. Nothing. No one. She ran back into the woods, back onto the trail, seeking her mother, father, Sam, someone.
She stopped in her tracks, the wood chips of the trail flying. Miranda thought of Sam’s baby, her niece, and ran back to the water, where the rings from the infant’s appearance still reverberated. She summoned her last bits of dizzy energy. She dove, the shock of the icy water a surprising relief.
***
“Are you sure your sister wasn’t meetin’ someone? Someone you don’t know?”
The officer who arrived to investigate removed his cap and wiped his brow,
“She’s not social,” Sam said.
The officer stared blankly.
Sam stood on the beach, next to a smoldering bonfire from the night before, the wood cooling, growing whiter each second. Another officer approached.
“No luck, mam,” he said, “We think we need to call in the divers.”
Sam doubled over in despair, cradled her belly with one hand, touched her chest with the other.
“She couldn’t swim!” she yelled, voice echoing across the lake.
***
Sunlight, moonlight,
Twilight, starlight.
Gloaming at the close of day,
And an owl calling,
Cool dews falling
In a wood of oak and may.
The words of the dream song formed in her mind naturally, as though Sam had always known them. She hummed softly as she went to work and home, as she stood and pressed the pretty clothes collected for her baby.
She felt distanced from everyone - underwater, unable to hear or be heard.
The world became muffled, blurry.
Her baby girl remained present inside her, pulsing, crystal clear, growing bigger every day, stretching skin.
Sam’s baby kicked with life, waiting to emerge out of her darkness, pushing up out of the deep water, into the light.