Grief floats… — Most of the time I wake with a brutish, sudden start. If I look at my second husband’s overly complicated alarm clock, it will say 3:33. To be honest, I’ve almost quit looking at that plastic mess of dials and sliders. I live with certainty that my first husband is…

All that can be found in a four-pack of 100% cotton hankies — Paul pushed his cart through the mass of weeds that connected Pierce St. and Grove Avenue. It had once been a paved parking lot when The Luau Club was more than a dive bar. The Luau was the most popular place to take a date back in 1965. …

Of all places to find hidden talent — Frances Finnegan was born Frances Cooney in 1889. She was the oldest of twelve children. It was told that her mother had given birth to seventeen but during the Cooney’s leanest years in Ireland, five of her children died. Frances spent her childhood tending to her mother’s babies. When she…

And other things my mother refused to teach me — I got my ass pounded on my first day of public school. I was fourteen and had previously been schooled at home. This beating happened fifty-six days after my father left my mother. It was the day Mom started her new job, the first job she’d held since she was…

Aching for the sweet — “No egg white. One with a candied orange slice, the other two each with a sprig of rosemary. Yes to bitters, three drops. The only reason I come here is you don’t use a mix and you keep rosemary on hand. My candied orange too.” Max put the three drinks…

Learning the facts of life — I was eight years old when I found out the person I thought was my mother was not really my mother. Since I could talk, I’d been calling her Pinchy, like everyone else in my extended family but I thought she had given birth to me. I didn’t understand how…

Screams from the hilltop — Glen Mary stood on the high hill behind her home and screamed. It was 3 a.m. and anyone within range of her screams would probably still be sleeping. If they were awake they might assume they were hearing a wounded coyote, a lone wolf, a stray dog. Her screams were…

I got shot at while eating a sandwich with my bad boy boyfriend — I lived in New Orleans during my last two years of high school. I’d lived in Louisiana before but for the five years prior to moving to New Orleans, I’d been living in Connecticut. My Dad’s job had us moving around a lot when I was a kid. Being from…

6-word Story: Where do you want to travel… —