When I was a kid, nobody thought it was cool to live on a farm. I’ve heard some people think growing up on a farm is fun. At times, it could be. But it definitely had its down side --- getting up at four a.m. to feed the cows, or walking to school with the grey muck on your shoes still drying. Boys don’t care about that stuff, but when you’re a girl, like me, it can be embarrassing to show up at school smelling like a barnyard.
The iron taste of blood filled Lyndsey’s mouth. The hit to her jaw must have been harder than she thought. She couldn’t see much more than large shapes out of her right eye. It was closing fast due to the swelling. The eye throbbed and burned at the same time. She held her arm across her abdomen where her ribs stabbed with pain. It hurt to breathe. She hoped they weren’t broken. Probably just severely bruised.
Sheriff Lucy Valentine was waiting outside the hospital room when her mother Fran appeared, her cheeks rosy from the cold. Fran was a retired schoolteacher, an amateur crime solver, and to Lucy, a sometimes-pain-in-the-rear-end. Not necessarily in that order.
Jenna slid her shapely legs out of the Mercedes, admiring how elegant they looked in the five-inch Jimmy Choos. Her newly sleek body followed in an effortless, graceful movement. She smoothed the creamy silk, size-six skirt, not because there was a wrinkle in it, but to remind herself how it felt to be slender again. Forty pounds, lost in the course of a year, to gain her darling little figure back. To remind herself of what her husband had once adored.
Behind the apartment door, Eartha Kitt was singing “Santa Baby” about twenty-five decibels louder than was sexy. No wonder a neighbor had called in a complaint.
There is a fly buzzing around my nose. I twitch my mustache and it moves away, but it keeps coming back. I could catch it if I wanted to. Jump up and surprise it. But I don’t. Too tired. I just want to sleep a little longer.
The ornate iron frame encased the black and white photo like dangerous vines that snaked through a fence. The image itself was a leafless tree with branches spiraling out from its tall base like an ancient goddess. The dusty earth beneath starved for moisture. Katherine rested a confused gaze upon the relic in her hands.
On the last day of June, Roland George stood looking out his kitchen window. He and his wife Izzy had purchased their New Orleans home in October of the previous year. The Fourth of July holiday was rapidly approaching and he thought about the fence in the front yard. Izzy came into the kitchen and gave him a hug.
I keep the lights on all night now. You would too if your last Halloween was like mine. Instead of trick-or-treating that night, I went around collecting signatures for a fictitious petition as a prank. The wording was simple: "Do you agree to limit the number of Mollycoddles in town?"
I arrive at my usual time, my hand clasped around the stem a single lily. An offering, a tribute to her cherished life.
