Fiction

It was a busy Saturday morning at the local supermarket, the one on Connecticut Avenue. Anxious, coat-clad people lined the check-out stations hugging bread and milk and toilet paper to…

My father, the Mattress King, came with offers of beds, bonds, company shares, blank checks, his Mercedes. In the ads that would soon be history, he sat on a mattress…

I keep mum when my daughter Maggie tells me that she’s baking a sugar-free birthday cake for my five-year-old granddaughter. She’s reaching out to me for the first time in…

I press the button that has Thompson, my mother’s maiden name, next to it. Over the intercom there is a humming and then my mother’s voice. “Yes . . .…

Ilona Melton inhaled the last tunnel of smoke deep into her lungs and peeled her swimsuit straps off her shoulders. She propped her feet on the plastic lawn chair opposite…

A phone call from Mother startled Ruma out of half-sleep early Saturday morning. “Can you come and help me with my garage sale?” Mother sounded loud. Ruma held the phone…

Bubbles and Doc were married for forty years before he had gone and died on her just six months ago. Doc had been delivering the mail downtown. He probably clutched…

I’m afraid you’ll wake and it’ll start over, the awful noise of you not trusting me, the mess of our small war. I’m so tired a transfusion of hot tar…

Act One Mommy has locked herself down in the basement. She is tired of the world, so she twisted the latch and stole her life back. Just for a minute.…

A week before I gave birth, the new people moved in next door. It was mid-winter. I watched from my window as a couple of burly men hoisted the furniture…

Each morning Julia arrived at work expecting positive news, but as the days lingered she heard nothing optimistic about her boss Tina’s baby, named Allie. Tina’s husband Jeremiah had started…