STELLA LEFT MY BED when the first pale hint of light appeared in the window. Whenever she stopped by on her way to somewhere, we

The man beckons to the girl standing by the curb. He’s parked at a reckless angle—leaning from the passenger window. She looks past him watching

Jenny Teague carried her luggage onto the mid-row car of the southbound train and settled in a window seat. The train passed suburban houses with

‘Mind your time,’ my dad phones to warn me an hour before we leave for the airport.  ‘Bloody right-wing rioters – there’s diversions everywhere. Maybe

The ceiling fan blows a chill across me, so I turn to my right and throw my arm over my sleeping husband, Will, to snuggle

A male cardinal watched us through the bedroom window. It was a sunny late-November Tuesday, the branches of the oak outside were still, and Harve

I spent the night with Marilyn Monroe on Christmas. Since I was in labor, I didn’t enjoy it much. The house held a panoply of

My father was in a Florida hospital drugged up to mask the pain of the cancer that marched through him like Sherman through Atlanta during

The first time I saw him, he took my breath away.  He’d seemed so young. I knew that really, he couldn’t be more than five

As she sat at her desk, pondering the screen in front of her, the spreadsheet swam. Cecily knew she was distracted, not flummoxed. She could

Delicate white petals of ash rose on a stream of smoke, mingling with glowing embers, twirling in the air. They danced off over uniform rows

           “C’mon, Zachary. What else do you have going on? Relax, I’m not trying to move back in.” Amanda spoke over her shoulder while shifting

After an absence of what seemed an odd or maybe dreamy number of years an old college chum of my wife’s came circling back into

Annie Willis, an only child, lost her widowed mother, Rose, to pancreatic cancer.   Along with the natural sadness and helplessness, Annie felt furious at

It was no ordinary beanbag. Well, actually, it was quite ordinary, which was part of the problem. It was a sturdy faded blue cloth bag,