William Edwards Leaves His Screaming Son on a Friday Afternoon in Hartford

She sat down in the wicker rocker on the porch and wrapped the pink blanket carefully around Luna, tucking the edges under her feet to keep out the evening draft. “She is almost asleep,” Martha whispered, rocking back and forth. I sat on the top step of the porch, looking out over the yard. The…

He thought about the Decatur office, and the files, and the corporate auditor who had gone back to Chicago. He knew the diner would never be a large corporation, and it would never make him a wealthy man. But as he looked at the clean glass and the warm light coming from the windows, he…

The green military seabag sat on the porch near the swing, its canvas heavy and stained from the transit from Okinawa. It was the only thing I had brought back with me, and it was the only thing that had not been touched by the transaction on Maggie Street. I walked back up the driveway,…

I walked back inside, closing the balcony doors behind me to shut out the cold wind. I walked through the empty rooms of my house, stopping by the window to watch the rain clear over the sound. The ferry was nearly across now, its shape disappearing into the shadow of the distant shore. I watched…

I stood by the woodpile and watched the red tail lights of the station wagon disappear through the dark hemlocks, the sound of the tires fading into the vast, quiet space of the forest. The silence that returned was not the heavy, suffocating silence of the house in town, but the deep, natural quiet of…

The backyard was dark, the tall pine trees along the fence line blocking out the light from the neighboring houses. The wind was low here, rustling the dry leaves of the maple tree by the garage with a sound like paper sliding across a desk. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my watch,…