IT ALL BEGAN, as Ken perceived it, with a sudden fit of precognition, and he knew instantly that the mooring lines that stabilized his life were about to show the first signs of major slippage. He had been observing this couple just coming out of the slanting April rain all aflutter and out of breath […]
Good Neighbors “Hi, I’m Caroline Kramer,” she said to the older woman in the elevator of their West Side apartment building. “Sandra Siegel,” the woman replied, nodding, somewhat taken aback by the introduction. She held a little white-haired dog in her arms. Caroline petted it and exclaimed how beautiful it was. “Her name is Betsy,” […]
YOU’D BE SURPRISED HOW WE’RE RELATED “Cousin Irma,” Sarah whispered, as she looked again at the signature below the message on the New Year’s card, tapping her finger on the edge of her coffee cup. “Who is Cousin Irma?” She studied the card, the postmark, “New York City” in the center of the canceled imprint […]
EVEN BEFORE GEORGE realized that the beige Ford van was following them, he had felt a sense of growing anxiety. He did not like to drive in the dark, especially along strange roads. His calculations had not allowed for the fact that the sun would dip behind the high Western peaks at least an hour […]
“But I can still see the wrinkles,” the woman said. Grace studied the woman’s face, the dry, aged-parchment skin tight over the bone structure, pulled back taut like a slingshot. A broad smile, she speculated, would detach it from the skull and shoot it like a Halloween mask over the makeup counter. Grace bit her […]
It was the last sentence the woman uttered before she left the beauty shop. “Don’t worry. He’ll come home.” Virginia Sargent looked at the fragile Vietnamese girl sitting across from her at the manicure table. Intense in her concentration as she put the finishing bright cherry glaze on Virginia’s right-hand nails, the girl hadn’t moved […]
Fiona awoke, her senses alert to instant reality. She did not grope for recognition of sounds, shapes and texture. She knew at once what had awakened her. Oak leaves from the twin oaks in the garden, showing their first spring growth, rustling, making sounds like beans shifting in a bean bag. Then she felt the […]
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