Bocci. Bocci ball. Bowling on a lawn. That's what I was doing in that old photo. But strange. Usually you bowl with other people. Usually there's markings on the ground, a target ball to shoot from. In the photo, I'm just standing there in the middle ...   [Read more...]

One hundred and eighty thousand pounds. Sterling. Sitting on her dresser, in tight little wads of cash. One hundred and eighty thousand pounds is a lot of money. Hell, before today, one thousand was the absolute maximum I had seen in a...   [Read more...]

100 feet away. That's where I was when the car crashed through our fence. I was watering the yard, and I thought I was watching the kids, but I had my back to them. We live on the highway. Four acres stretch out behind us. Plenty of space, I figured. But the la...   [Read more...]

My feet ached, but it was well worth it. There was blood on one of my insteps, the left one, and when I walked around the floor I tracked her blood around with me. The room, nothing more than an abattoir, had fit the bill perfectly. There was t...   [Read more...]

The wind blew across the plains, picking up clods of dirt as it ran past, and I gripped my son's shoulder, as if by some instinct. Soon the dust would blow through the cracks in our log cabin, and the kitchen -- the tiny corner we called the ki...   [Read more...]

When the truck pulled up into the yard, I looked up from breakfast. It was a large truck, sort of a cross between a utility van and an ice-cream dispensary, and its tires bobbed over the curb, causing it to lurch from side to side. It drove right o...   [Read more...]

Headphones on, gazing far out into the horizon, the tops of the Adirondacks at her feet, flowing out into the valley like waves, going for miles. He was behind her. Her father had fallen on the path up to this point. He had clutched his chest and...   [Read more...]