Daniel was already home. “Hi,” he yelled from the kitchen as Em wrestled her overcoat onto a hanger in the overfull front closet. What the hell was he doing? Breaking rocks on the counter? “Hi,” she yelled back, unwinding her scarf. “Annie call?” Wham. Wham. Wham. “No,” Daniel called back. Wham. “What are you doing?”…
Her name was Margy, hard g, like aargh, or argonaut. Not soft g like margarine, and if someone called her that, she’d show them her disdain. Sometimes her father did it for a laugh, and she’d have to climb into his lap, press her nose to his, and stare at him until he stopped. She…
On the day before his fiftieth birthday, Bill Lander received a letter from a woman he had never heard of-Amber Harding-saying she’d be pleased to come to Wallace to meet him and be his birthday date. She noted the time she’d arrive on the train and said she’d have no trouble recognizing him. “I’ll just…
The old woman drowsed beneath an overhang of Orphan Annie hair. The blast of orange swirls and curlicues was blinding in the sun. Monsoon wondered how the old lady could sleep with all that brightness in her face. His backside was going numb against the pavement. Blinking, he scooched sideways for an up-close look at…
Elna had once said that beautifying was nothing more than grabbing Mother Nature by the throat and showing her who was boss. When Shelly arrived for her appointment, her friend was vigorously at work on an alabaster-complexioned teenager. Testimonies of terse, coiled ringlets spiraled downward at the girl’s ears and the back of her neck….
By folding his legs so that his feet touched his thighs, Matt was able to completely immerse himself in hot water-water he had paid for shilling by shilling, dropping small English coins into a rusted metal box one by one to keep the water flowing until the bathtub was full. The tiny washroom was freezing…
They grew up playing hockey on Everett Pond, long after supper, after homework and Bonanza or Laugh-In or My Three Sons, after they said good night and went to their rooms yawning as if headed to sleep. The grown-ups pretended not to know about the rendezvous at the rink, but some of the fathers had,…
June 1973 Early on the morning of Alice’s wedding, when I was nine, I woke to hear the front door slamming into the quiet, and I got out of my bed and went to the window. Standing on tiptoes, feet bare against floor planks chilled by the air conditioner, the breeze running up my…
Zip’s getting married,” Chase tells Marianne, coming into the bedroom and shutting the door behind him. “Oh. Who’s the woman?” “Her name is Flora Ritchie.” “And when is the baby due?” He narrows his eyes at her. “December.” He pulls his shirt off. “But it was still a bitchy thing to say.” “Sorry.” She watches…
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