Cecil Freeman was born that way, which is to say a free man; his father Jack was not, but had taken ‘Freeman’ on the day of his emancipation, the same way one might grasp a peach tree branch, and bending it down low, pluck a ripened globe from it. Freeman was a familiar surname for … Continue reading Morning Miniature 11.2.19

It had taken the contractors no fewer than two months to yank down the false ceiling in the Philco-Your-Better-Buy building, remove the dingy sheetrock still clinging to its walls, and render the space ‘broom clean’ as they liked to say in the industry. It wasn’t saying much in this case, but the message Lucy had … Continue reading Morning Miniature 10.21.19

Cessily had spent the better part of the sunny afternoon pestering her mother like a bothersome gnat, in spite of Claudia’s urging the child to go outside and help her father with chores, or to entertain her brother with a game. But she had a cast-iron will and was not easily dissuaded from this stubborn … Continue reading Morning Miniature 10.11.19

Lucy whipped her VW into a parallel space and killed the engine, but left the radio on to hear the last of a Mamas and Papas standard she loved; she didn’t see the realtor anywhere and the building was still dark inside, so she unbuckled herself, and wrapping her arms around the steering wheel, craned … Continue reading Morning Miniature 9.27.19

Lucy Ratcliffe could read by age four, and by six had ripped through all the books that interested her in the children’s corner at the neighborhood public library, even some that did not, and a great many of them time and again. At eight she consumed any piece of literature that crossed her path, and … Continue reading Morning Miniature 9.20.19

Claudia Freeman married young and resigned herself to a life of child rearing and servitude. She was a buxom woman by her late thirties, not at all corpulent, and her hands by then already betrayed expertise in occupations domestic and horticultural. She could remove a sheet pan from a hot oven with a threadbare mitt … Continue reading Morning Miniature 9.13.19

At the same moment summer dug in its heels in earnest, Lucy’s running water was restored, and that is to say, not a moment too soon. The massive hardwoods towering over Bran’s little cottage overflowed with mid-season foliage in a lush and shadowy green, but elsewhere a few dogwoods disclosed the slightest blush of color … Continue reading Morning Miniature 8.30.19

Susanna deftly moved the dog leash from her right hand to her left so she could hook her elbow inside Lucy’s and walk two abreast with her down the city sidewalk; at the other end of the leash was Zippy, a plucky little Jack Russell named in homage to Dave Barry’s dog, as immortalized in … Continue reading Morning Miniature 8.21.19

Cessily noticed the shiny grommets around the window first, and then grew interested in her own reflection, even more than she was in the passing scenery. She could see her head bobbing in tandem with every bump in the road, listened intently to the bus axles grinding beneath her. The air smelled of starched and … Continue reading Morning Miniature 7.25.19

She stood there peering out over the river through Bran’s plate glass windows at all the nests, arms folded defensively across her chest, wondering what kind of perils an average osprey must navigate on an average day. They seemed reasonably clever, building them the way they did on top of the channel markers, right in … Continue reading Morning Miniature 7.17.19