After Mendel Schlossman returned from the hospital, where he’d been treated for the food poisoning he contracted at his retirement party, he and his wife invited me over for dinner. This was a very nice gesture, especially considering I’d been in charge of the party. …
On his last day of work, Ben Warner woke up early, an hour ahead of the sun. As usual, he was glad to be awake, relieved to be alive, to feel his heart beating, lungs filling and emptying, his mind gradually emerging from a dream. …
They make you believe that what you’re seeing is real. That the person you’re seeing is the person they actually are. For a performance to work, you need to feel like you’re seeing a real person experiencing real life: feeling real sensations, real emotions. Their …
This faint noise I can’t place sounds in the back yard. Chy-shyun, goes the sound. When I go out I find my son digging a hole. The sun shines down on him, his torso bare and shining with sweat. Sand caked with perspiration into mud …
He always encouraged her to take pride in their small two-bedroom apartment. He'd tell her people in mansions were in mansions because they knew how to take care of themselves and they deserved to take care of the expensive marble in their foyer. He'd say, "People in messy trailers belong there. Of course they're not successful. They can't even take care of a tiny little single-wide." She was proud of the life they made.
She scoots closer to me on the couch and puts her hand on my hand and rests her chin on my shoulder. This is new for her and it took no small amount of therapy to get her here. She knows I need it, this sort of affection, and she’s trying so hard and for that I appreciate her. There’s no way to tell her how forced it feels. I smile in her direction then lean forward to drink the rest of my wine, taking my hand away as I do it.
“Beth, that was foolish, love,” Peter said. His hands gripped her waist tightly, and she allowed him to guide her back into the carriage safely. “I was fine,” she said. “Look.” She showed him her prize, a freshly picked red apple, still wet …
I’m driving. The rain is pounding out of a black sky, hard as stones. It’s spattering on the hood, and I’m driving. All-but invisible, wisps of steam rise where the cold droplets meet the transferred heat of the engine. I hit the lip of the …
“I told you we should’ve gotten the other one,” she whispered in the dark, her voice sharp and flat. “What’s the point in saving, like what, 200 pounds, when we end up having to spend the entire holiday with this shit?” He said nothing. In …
Lizzie Barrett lost her mother when she was only sixteen. Or at least that was the way everyone told it to each other. “Poor girl,” Lizzie overheard Sister Patricia whisper to Mother Superior Catherine Boyle as she sat crying outside the principal’s office, waiting for …