Stories

“It came out positive.” “You’re kidding!” It would seem so. The news was surprising to Ruth because Sandra was old. Not Betty White old, but easily old enough to be Ruth’s mom.

Little Mrs. Sommers one day found herself the unexpected possessor of fifteen dollars. It seemed to her a very large amount of money, and the way in which it stuffed and bulged her worn old porte-monnaie gave her a feeling of importance such as she had not enjoyed for years.

Invisible boundaries. The gum lines of aggressive brushers. Chins, if you’re a Hapsburg. The stamped fingerprints of once white shoes. Synthetic beards on aging tires

She ran away from home, and Pastor Bruce was dismayed after talking with her mother. Her mother said she’d been sullen for the last month or so, and even the school nurse called once. Her daughter wouldn’t tell her what was wrong, and she asked Pastor Bruce

The Gift of the Magi One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher

There were once five and twenty tin soldiers. They were brothers, for they had all been made out of the same old tin spoon. They all shouldered their bayonets, held themselves upright, and looked straight before

“Are you going to be my new daddy?” she asked directly.

“I don’t know,” he said, looking down at the flowery dress squirming beside him on the edge of the living room couch. “I like your mom, but to get married you have to really, really like each other.”

“Here you go Missy.” Elizabeth hears her daughter say as she enters the kitchen. Brooklyn is sitting at the table, pouring milk into the empty glass in the seat beside her.

I was born with a birthmark that looked like a bruised flower. It trailed along the left side of my face, from hairline to where neck and shoulder met. I grew accustomed to open stares, sidelong glances, and children being chastised for pointing.

Today is the worst day I have ever experienced. But it’s not over yet. It’s not going to end for thousands of seconds.  Thousands of raw, grating seconds.