Author Archives: Marilyn

This part of Kansas with its low grassy hills, ravines and gullies — whirls of wind smell like upturned earth; manure and fresh cut hay. A covered wagon lumbered down a path in this part of Kansas to bring her … Continue reading →

Sometimes she rises stiffly, as anyone would who’s been sitting for years, and other times quickly, as if the wheelchair were just another seat — like the pink recliner she had at home. My mother can drive in dreams, too. … Continue reading →

Someone should put up a plaque. “Boy crushed by train here” — a page 1 story in 1910, but today you find no proof of his death. You stand near the tracks in the railyard at the center of this … Continue reading →

Gas station lights glisten on rain-blackened pavement. Wet concrete. Gas fumes. A black crow pulls at a worm in a patch of grass. Cars and trucks glide over slick asphalt. A bus groans; stops for a woman in a wheelchair. … Continue reading →

Past midnight, just as the planet Jupiter peeked from behind the willow tree outside her window, Cassie heard Freddy stirring in the room next to hers, shifting and sighing, unable to get back to sleep. This was Cassie’s cue, and … Continue reading →

Ted checked his watch: 9:35. The meeting with the principal was at 10. Better to get there early, so he grabbed the car keys from the kitchen counter and called “Anna–time to go” but was careful not to sound impatient. … Continue reading →

David’s hand shook as he put the razor against Grandpa’s throat. “Hold still now,” he muttered, embarrassed that his words smelled like morning breath — again — and reminding himself — again — that he should always brush his teeth … Continue reading →

I never should have gone out with Gary Ricter. I told myself, after the divorce, that I was done with all that — dating men. And wearing make-up. And shaving my legs. The whole thing. Forty-eight years old, a failed … Continue reading →

The mobile made of armadillo bones rattled in the stiff cold breeze at the window. Bettina looked past it to the dirt hills dotted with sage brush, silver with frost. Cold morning outside, but hot in here, even with the … Continue reading →

To be out of the attic for just a little while. It is all you think of, each long, lonely day. Midnight is the best time for it. By then, the doctor has finished his notes, smoked his second bowl … Continue reading →