My husband, Weldon, and I, now in our early 80s, moved into what would become our dream home twenty-six years ago—a downtown Seattle condominium with large windows facing bustling Elliott Bay. At any one time we can look out those …
When I started working at the US Environmental Protection Agency, people asked me how I could work in a boring bureaucracy. It even sounds boring – bureaucracy. A bureau is a drab piece of furniture. Functional, but mundane. Whose favorite …
The last guest left. Finally, as far as Miriam was concerned, though she knew she should be flattered and grateful. It was the first time in her life that friends gave her a surprise farewell party. It was the last …
At first the ability to exact revenge came as a surprise, but I was determined that she would never be completely free of me. In that I would not stand alone. Everything I had felt since Tamara had divorced me …
I never wanted to go to Nashville before. Truthfully, I rarely want to go anywhere. For one thing, I hate to fly. And also, new experiences tend to fill me with dread. But halfway through Ken Burns’ epic documentary for …
I once read that the first child in a family is either artistic or academic. The second child is the opposite of whatever the first child is. But the third child, unable to put herself in one of these two …
The vagrant on the median holds a flimsy cardboard sign, and the clunker in front of me is taking its sweet time. I goose the accelerator and narrow the gap to make my intentions clear: I’m making the green arrow, …
Inside the coroner’s office, Henry stared at the body lying on the autopsy table—the body he needed to transfer to the funeral home so he could start the undertaking process. But he couldn’t bring himself to move. It was like …
Glenn sat on the corner of his bed, staring at the squiggles on his bedroom wall. He’d never noticed the pattern. From where he sat it looked like columns of skulls being consumed by worms.
“How long have we had …
I was sick when I stole Dad’s headache medicine. I’d had the Thursday and Friday off with a fever but now it was Monday, Dad had suggested I was fine to go back to school. Mum had nodded, finishing a …