It was 1962, Wichita, Kansas. My Dad surveyed the front yard—a very big front yard, a grim look on his face. "Weeds," he pronounced sullenly, as if our front yard had become the equivalent of ... [+]
Kensington Sands had big plans for Halloween. She was nine years old now, and bored with dressing up. She wanted proper thrills and frights. "Grandpa Jonas, can you come over tonight? I've ... [+]
It was a muggy morning at Cozy Cottage Nursing Home, and the arthritis was bothering me pretty bad. Hurt to move. Hurt to type. Still does, matter of fact. That's why, when they asked me for an ... [+]
The way Little Miss Perfect tells it, you'd think I was head of a gang of street thugs when I was a kid. We weren't thugs, we were twelve. All we wanted was some prize money, or at least a bit of ... [+]
The realtor moves from room to room in silence. Charlotte and I follow, anxiously awaiting his verdict. Through the kitchen, the living room, the study. Upstairs, in and out of bedrooms. He ... [+]
They always say the final sense to go is hearing, but touch lasts right 'til the end. Not over the whole body, though; I can't feel Dot's hand in mine, but this fucking diaper itches like blazes. I ... [+]
"This is the last straw," Alma said. She had just opened the mail at the kitchen table. Sitting opposite, Walter peered over the top of his newspaper. "What straw is that?" "It's anothe ... [+]
Terrydale was a hamlet much too small to be located on any map, and so war came to it as it comes to such places—not through the trampling of armies over its quaint town square, or the burning of ... [+]
Miranda and Joe met at middle school in Perkins, Oklahoma. Joe was a lumpy kid, not fat so much as unevenly proportioned. If his father hadn't been Deputy Chief of Police, Joe likely would have been ... [+]
My father died of heart failure the same Chinese New Year girls began to draw my eye over my ire. I wasn't present for his death but figured us square since he wasn't present for my life. ... [+]
I had just gotten out of the gas station and bought what I usually bought on my little Sunday night trips—a pack of reds, a water bottle (one of the purified waters. Spring water is quite gross to ... [+]
The DeliverBot drops the box at my feet and wheezes out a metallic "Happy Birthday" before flying away. At first, I think it's a mistake, because it isn't my birthday. At least, I don't think it is ... [+]
PONOS ROAD PONOS was the personified Greek spirit of hard labor and toil. The wide, gravel path snaked through a scrub meadow joining two working-class neighborhoods. Every kid in the ... [+]
I don't remember which I encountered first: Helene Hanff's book, 84 Charing Cross Road, or the Anne Bancroft / Anthony Hopkins movie of the same name. All I know is that decades later the title's ... [+]
