she-nan-igans

As we walked across the parking lot I reached for Jude’s hand. I was secretly relieved when he reached out and grabbed mine back. At the ripe old age of six and a half, he did not always want to hold my hand. It was a bittersweet development when a little boy hits the stage […]

“I need more to do” the woman said to me. She stood about as tall as I was, her hair the pretty kind of silver and her blue eyes clear as a summer sky. We stood eye to eye in the kitchen of the shelter, surrounded by the mint green walls. She had just completed […]

The sound of the crickets droned on outside the window. It was completely dark in the room, just the way I liked it. I once spent several nights rearranging the modem that sat on my desk in the corner of the bedroom so that none of the blinking lights were visible from the bed. The […]

In the summer of 2018, we were headed southbound on I-40 between Conway and Little Rock, hurtling down the highway among a throng of cars crammed together. There was an awful lot of traffic headed in the same direction for this time of day. I expected most of the traffic to be headed westbound as […]

I woke up 15 minutes before my alarm was set to wake me. My body continually did that, regardless of what time I set the alarm to go off. It seemed like a bit of an injustice, to be honest. I lay there in my bed a few extra minutes, messing around on my phone […]

I walked quickly, my large bag hanging around me, crossbody style. My suitcase wheeled along behind me. I exited the cool, crisp hotel air through the doors that slid open seamlessly out into the humid Atlanta air. I walked slowly over to the bench off to the left side of the entrance as I waited […]

One of those crazy things about life is the way we carry on with it, marching forward, like meticulously dressed robots, as if it will go on forever. Day in and day out we make our plans for the day and carry them out. The one and only thing all humans know and agree on […]

Sometimes a moment carried a weight that it did not merit on its own. It fell smack dab in the middle of an ordinary day. A day on which nothing particularly good or bad happened. It coalesces in the mind to create a vivid imprint, almost emotional in its capture. Throughout the rest of one’s […]

The quiet click clack of the door knob being turned slowly woke me. I knew one of the boys was sneaking in again. The big king size bed in our room had enough space for what I like to call “creepers” to join in the night. I was so tired I didn’t even open my […]

Looking out the car window I could see a single dark gray cloud marring the intense blue of the sky. That one cloud worried me. Whatever rain it held precariously in its depths it could just keep holding as far as I was concerned. Jerry was taking us to the pool in Ft. Smith and […]