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.

After the Loss

The Bookends Review/November 2022

Morning was the better time. She lit the match, touching the flame to the small candle’s wick, and it took, wriggling with new glow. Since Max’s death last year, Sarah kept a collection of his belongings gathered around the candle - his watch, wallet, phone, the pen found in the pocket of his jeans. She added his favorite Matchbox cars, Pokemon cards, an old school pencil whose eraser was worn down to its nub. Every morning, as the grim winter sky emerged from the night’s darkness, she went to her candle, sat with her son’s things. She did not pray. She sat in silence and attempted to quiet her mind…

Small, Precious Things

Final Girl Bulletin Board, November 2022

Metastellar, May 2023

All William knew of his father was a leather box his mother kept hidden in her underwear drawer with a bunch of teeth inside. Although he never knew for certain, from its first discovery William believed this box had something to do with his father. When his mother was at work, William opened the box and lined the teeth up on her bed, sorting and counting them. Sometimes he’d arrange them largest to smallest, sometimes by depth of stain.

Whenever William asked his mother about his father he received a cold stare, sometimes tears. 

“I told you never to ask about him,” she’d whimper into a tissue…

Letter Home

Your Fire Magazine, November 2022

Dear Elizabeth,

I’m hiding, writing this under a tree, using it for cover. My mother’s calling me:  “Theresa! Thereeeesaaaaa!” Her voice is so small, but the hairs stand on my neck with just the slightest strains of her unwelcome wailing. She’s always wondering where I am. I know you will tell me to embrace God’s will, get praying, working, this too shall pass. But I’m not at the convent, I have been sent backwards, to the place I left long ago, to care for my elderly parents and my bad back. My head, so grey, cold and exposed without the veil. Is this God’s will? Will this pass?  I do not feel God here. I know, I shouldn’t say such things…

The Wileys’ Horses

Pure in Heart Stories/November 11, 2022

One day, we looked out the kitchen windows to see the Wiley’s horses standing in our backyard beside our basketball court. The smallest one, Astral, the one with the big star on her forehead, was not there. There were usually three.

The Wileys fancied themselves farmers. Along with the horses - Inky, Ruby, and Astral-they had a pack of dogs, a flock of chickens, and a hoard of cats. They had a barn tucked down below the hill where their small house stood, but the horses were often out wandering, standing solemnly in different places all over their property, and often on ours.

Getting it Straight

Apple in the Dark/Fall 2022

“Thanks a lot,” Moira said to no one, standing in the light evening rain, holding the Nice parking job, dumbass! note pulled from under the windshield wiper. She walked around the car parked in the grocery store lot,  examining it pulled halfway into the spot, end popping out on the diagonal. Her ex, Trevor, always hated how she parked, her short hair, her nail biting, how she pronounced chocolate (chawklet). What a day, she thought- getting reamed out by Dr. Springer for being two minutes late, dropping a bottle of olive oil in the grocery store, creating a slick in the path of a teetering elderly couple, saved by the mop-wielding grocery store employee just in time. Moira tensed as she turned the car’s ignition key. Backing up, she checked and rechecked the rear view mirrors. Her foot tapped the gas then the brake, while the windshield wipers made their rubbery sound - move, stop, move, stop, carefully, so carefully, so as not to offend.

Beating the Drum

Your Fire/ Issue 2, November 7, 2022

The note on the table said Much pain! and had a bloody rag beside it. Greta immediately sent a group text to her two sisters.

Something up with Mom and Dad.  

Exes

Third Wednesday/November 2022

There she was.

Patti, wearing an emerald green jumpsuit, entered the busy cafe. Grayson gasped a bit, waved a hand, faked a big smile, concealing his nerves. 

“Have a seat, “ he said before saying hello. He stood to give Patti a hug, then changed his mind halfway, offering his awkward hand across the table, backside hovering over the chair.

              Her handshake was strong, but soft.

“This is different,” Grayson said, placing a napkin on his lap. 

“Not that different,” she said, “You’re still Mr. Handsome.”

Grayson blushed foolishly as Patti smiled, ordered, pushed a lock of platinum hair behind her ear. Her shimmering face contrasted with a flat red lip. His gaze moved from her face to her neck, to breasts, to hands, then back to her grey eyes. Those eyes. He repressed his bubbling questions: When did you know? Are you just on hormones?  Did you get the big snip snip? His groin throbbed in discomfort just thinking of it. 

Letters from the Void

Longlisted in Pigeon Review’s 2022 Flash Fiction Competition

The Airgonaut/November 2022

To the innocent early seventies,

You didn’t know cell phones. Or 24/7 newsfeed. Or Internet. You had this hazy, slow-moving, swirly feel. You kept us in a cloud of sitcoms, endless games of hide-n-seek. Sure, you shared some things, like the Beatles breaking up, or the invasion of Cambodia, the gas and hostage crises. Of course life was bad, like always, like now, but I was very young and I just didn’t know how, well, how horrific things could get.

Alan and I folded newspapers on the den floor watching the Six Million Dollar Man. We filled our bags and jumped on banana bikes, flinging the news onto neighbors’ lawns. We freely roamed the streets of the neighborhood, without care or concern, without telling our parents. We didn’t know about the kid in Des Moines who went out to deliver his papers and never came home, or those four children in Michigan found dead in a ditch.

You taught me that ignorance is bliss.

The Annual Halloween Progressive Dinner

Pastel Pastoral, October 30, 2022

Chosen to be read in the Harmony Selected Stories in Sackets Harbor, NY, October 19, 2023

In the bathroom of the first party, the appetizer house, an orange candle burned on the windowsill, its weak flame struggling to survive. Lori, wine-buzz settling in, faced her blurry image in the mirror, eyes obscured by smeared black liner. A green plastic cup adorned with multicolored fish sat at the sink. A child’s toothbrush poked from the top, blue toothpaste sticking to its bristles. Lori clung to the sides of the sink and sobbed.

 ***

“I was looking all over for you,” Ted lied, as they exited. He clutched her arm in his usual caring/controlling way. “Where to next?” he asked, nodding at the other couples headed out to their dinner assignments.

“Evergreen. 271.” Lori closed her eyes for a minute. She enjoyed the slap of numbing air. 

The neighborhood glowed, its sidewalk lined with beckoning luminaria. Jack-o-lanterns observed from their porch places, chuckling with toothless smiles.

“Jesus it’s cold,” Ted said through a clenched jaw, his breath hanging in a white puff. They trudged on in their standard tense silence.

“We’re here. Put your happy face on, dear,” he said, dropping her arm. They stood before an aged two story home.

How had she never noticed this house before, with its crooked shutters, peeling paint?  It seemed like the only house in the entire neighborhood in disrepair, without decoration, with only broken pots, piles of wet, dead leaves, cracked steps leading to its front door.  

“Just our luck,” Ted said, knocking. 

A gust of wind blew through, leaves rustled in its wake. Lori turned. Off in the wide side yard, a lush green tree stood in a spot of moonlight, contrasting with the deadening October trees.

“Wait. What is-” she began to say when the door creaked open. A yellow light streamed from the house, enveloping them in its tarnished gleam.  An older man with death-white skin stared solemnly at them. 

“Have you come for supper?”

“Er…yeah. It’s a dinner party,” Ted said edgily.  In an instant a younger woman with the same skin and dark clothes appeared, invited them in.

“Hattie Lane,” she said. “This is my father, Walter.” 

Lori noted the mission style furniture and matching grandfather clock. 

“This is lovely,” she said. “Just the way these houses are supposed to look.”

“Thank you,” Hattie said. “Come and sit in our living room.”

 “Who else is coming?” Ted said. 

“Others? Others are coming?” Walter looked with panicked eyes at his daughter. 

“No, no, Daddy, just this nice couple, Lori and-“ Hattie looked at Ted. 

“Ted Gravely.” 

Hattie drifted out of the room.

Lori enjoyed the ticking clock and the soft cushion against her back. She breathed in deeply, relaxed her shoulders. Was she a child again? Was she home in Ohio? She felt the soft length of a purring cat against her leg, reached down to stroke it, but her hand was only suspended in air, petting emptiness.

Ted and Walter sat facing one another. 

“How long have you guys lived here?” Ted asked. 

Hattie drifted back to the sitting room. She carried a tray holding a steaming pot and china cups. 

Lori straightened up in her chair. “Tea’s just the thing on a cold night like this.”

“I’ll pass,” Ted crossed his legs. “How long did you say?”

“Say what?” Walter asked.

“How long have you lived here.”

“We’ve always lived here,” Hattie said, handing a floral china cup to Lori, “I was born in

this house.”

At that, Walter’s face changed and he became agitated.

“Agnes!” he whispered urgently, clenching his right fist in his lap. Ted’s knee bounced in discomfort. 

“Mommy is still at the nursing home. We expect her to come home soon though. Daddy is anxious.”

 Hattie invited them into the dining room. The table was laid with white china plates laced with gold leaves and fall flowers. Silver serving bowls and platters carried roast chicken, vegetables, and potatoes. Lori spooned gravy over her dinner and tucked in, eating until she found a perfect fullness. Ted’s eyes glistened, glazed with gluttonous joy.

“Now, before we have dessert,” Hattie said, “do you think your son would like to join us?”

 “Our son-” Ted began.

“Our Robby- died- leukemia- last year,” Lori said matter-of-factly, feeling a rush of relief.

“Would he like to ride his bike along our dark aisle?” Walter said. 

“Yes, we’d love to have him here, if you’ll allow him to join us. And you can come too, when you’re ready,”

Hattie said. She reached a cold hand across the table to touch Lori’s.

“Isn’t it too-” Lori was going to say too cold, or was she going to say too late?

 “We need to head to the dessert house. Now,” Ted said, pushing his chair out to stand. “That was delicious and all, but-” 

Lori turned back to say thank you and goodbye one last time.

“Goodbye! Goodbye!” Hattie and Walter waved as the door closed behind Lori and Ted. The lights blinked out. The broken shutters clanked in the autumn wind. 

***

 “I need a drink after that--“ Ted said, rushing into the dessert house. Lori followed him inside, where once again the neighborhood crowd gathered, louder, drunker than before. 

“Where were you two? You were assigned to our house for the dinner,” Sally Slocum scolded. Ted rushed to the bar. A circle of men opened to receive him.  

At the window, Lori pressed her forehead to the cold panes. How nice it must be, to live somewhere so long - like Hattie and Walter-to live with your mother’s plates and recipes. How comforting, knowing for sure she will come back, soon. 

The fleeting shadow of a moving bicycle cruised by in the darkness. Lori watched as long as she could, then moved toward the door.

She left quietly, without saying goodbye.

The Book of Spells

Manawaker Studio’s Flash Fiction Podcast/October 2022

and

Haunted Words Press/Issue 4/Resolutions/Spring 2023

The laughter rang in my ears constantly.

They called themselves the Witches of Wharton Street. It had been a joke before, the three friends assuming that nickname, but after Vera died the three haggard women met each night in the cold, laughing echoey, murmury cackles around a roaring fire pit in front of Corrie Beecher’s house.

Mom knew them all from high school. She greeted them politely at neighborhood events, but said they were “not the brightest bulbs,” which was about the meanest thing Mom ever said about anyone.

Now, all they did was laugh…

Breakfast, like Before

Bright Flash Literary Review, October 3, 2022

A quiet Tuesday morning at Buzzy’s. The owner, Merv, looked up as James entered. His face paused at first, clearly not recognizing the gaunt, hairless replacement for the once-familiar regular. His expression cleared in what James interpreted as recognition.

James imagined the conversations of everyone he encountered, Did you hear James Schmidt got a really bad diagnosis? Those poor kids. Poor Rebecca.