When it rains, it pours. I’m sitting in the cop car, staring out over Panther Creek on Sunday, looking at the back of the cafe, waiting for the cop to take down my statement about the body upstairs in the house where we’re parked. He’s being very kind to me. But he’s not a fast […]
Prognosis
They don’t know I’ve been crying. I give them credit for persistence. They’d shown up the first time right after we’d closed and I uncharacteristically turned them away. “Sorry, we’re closed,” I’d called out as soon as they’d walked in the door. They shrugged their shoulders, settled for a pint of ice cream as their […]
Tocqueville Meets Theater Geeks
“I’ll only do it if you’re doing it.” “I’ll only do it if you’re gonna do it.” The dialog between Saoirse and Bob has played over and over in our family for the past six weeks, like one of those Instagram boomerang videos. They’d been trying to decide whether or not to audition for the […]
Making Neighbors
Is it possible to stay neighborly if they’re detonating explosives next door? Don’t move to Upstate New York if you can’t abide the sound of gunfire. This time of year, it reverberates across every ridge top and echoes down every valley. It blasts out from the next field over, and the next porch over. I’m […]
Where does eternity go for supper?
In the death that signifies the end of the growing season, I wondered if I would ever know forever. Then I met it for dinner. Until it’s time to carve the turkeys, I work almost completely alone on the day of the community turkey supper. Bob is madly cleaning the house for some out-of-town guests […]