I Took Care of It
2 MINEpilogue: I found the grinder and I took care of it. Chapter Eight: So…after thirty years of marriage, we separated. Although it was probably brain damage that caused him to say the breaking words, I…
Flash Non-Fiction
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Broken
2 MINBroken In the five star restaurant I drank a strong cocktail, sipped at a second. I pretended the modern chair was comfortable, our silence was companionable, and smiled when the server set the platter between…
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I Don’t Like Roses
2 MINThe thorn drew blood before I saw the flowers. “Open it from the top,” the delivery man had said, handing me the long rectangular box. I slit the tape and reached in. A sharp sting…
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Mom’s Mysterious Blue Pumps
2 MINSupple navy blue leather, rounded toe, two-inch heels, jaunty little notched cutout at the top of the foot. Fashionable 1940’s women’s pumps, which somehow made their way across an ocean from post-war Germany to our humble…
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Sustenance
2 MIN(April 24, 2026) It chilled the warmth around my beating heart. A “memory,” Facebook calls it, although it is my memory and only their algorithm. I had not forgotten; it was only that it was…
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Bloodlines
2 MINMy children do not look like me. Our complexions do not match. The bathroom cabinet is filled with gels, creams, and brushes meant for an array of hair textures. Our eyes are all different shades,…
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Rolling in the Mud
2 MINI was ten when Suzanne moved into the house down the block. She had four young children, a warm laugh, and a way of listening that made you feel like you had said something important….
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Giving Credit
2 MINI found a small disk in my mother’s jewelry drawer. It rested in a velvet-lined box as if it were a gem. I knew it was special. I just didn’t know why. Without my mother—or…
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Never Too Late
2 MINI knew the moment I fell that I had broken something. Stuck in the corner of the room I stared at the cracks in the ceiling. By the time an ambulance arrived, I had decided…
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Disarming
2 MINIn 1966 I was a newly minted teacher at a high school in a small Oregon logging town, my first full-time, adult job. I was 22. One morning in early October, a plainclothes sheriff’s deputy came…
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The Archaeology of Silence
2 MIN“It is just so unfair.” That is what my daughter said this weekend, looking at the man my husband has become. She’s right. The grief of missing someone sitting right in front of you is…
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Love From a Transplanted Heart
< 1 Sharing the beauty of the Grand Canyon dusted with sugary snow, he asked if I could accept him on an uncertain basis. His charm broke through the dismal clutter of cyberdating, writing that the intensity…