Her grandmother would put on her glasses to read labels when the girl went to the market with her. The grandmother would read the brand name and the price out loud to the girl. The girl could not read much herself, but sometimes she pretended she could. The grandmother would read a word, and the…
Katie had already made plans to go to Texas with the baby. Her going didn't have anything to do with Fisher hitting her. On the other hand, she wouldn't change her plans, even though her eyes were black in the morning; even though he cried and said he'd sat up all night in remorse, thinking…
The air conditioner was broken again. Cynthia unscrewed one side from the window and lost interest in fixing it. Now the celery was chopped and the lettuce, cored and cleaned, lay draining in a puddle of water on the sink. Anna hadn't moved her things out yet so Cynthia could still use the good knives….
I I was always interested in myself, but I never thought I went back so far. Joan and I talked about birth almost as soon as we met. I told her I believed in the importance of early experience. "What do you mean by early," she asked, "before puberty, before loss of innocence?" "Before age…
The smell of the hospital worked at John Latham as he rode the elevator up. Childhood fears had been implanted; the hospital air was still always hard for him to breathe. It was not easier this afternoon. The drive had been long and hot enough to steepen his hatred. He really had known better than…
Jane and I left Jack Essler’s land office determined, relieved, and grateful for our new sense of direction. We skipped across the street in the rain to the post office, where we found two letters and a small check from Miss Ellen waiting for us. From the postmaster we learned of a boat the blacksmith…
In 1939, both his parents dead and buried, in the Army Air Corps in basic training, Camel lay on his back and stared up at a wool blanket which hung down from the bunk above his and shaded him from the bright barracks light. As a boy he had lain under the low limbs of…
ONE Mary Ashlyn looked out the long narrow window and was surprised to see long narrow needles of brilliant rain falling wildly across her October garden. Brilliant long needles of flashing cruel rain, too bright, the sun was indeed still shining, and when Mary Ashlyn looked quickly at the sky, it was smooth and blue,…
From her place at the window she watched him, hatless, coatless, lead the mule to the wagon beneath an evenly gray sky. An empty pipe clamped between his teeth, he hitched the mule, and after she came out of the house, having kissed the children goodbye, he helped her up onto the wagon. She took…
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