Story Dose

The brass padlock hanging from my refrigerator stopped me cold when I came home after a 14-hour shift. Lorraine, my mother-in-law, stood behind me and announced that I would need permission to eat in…

The football landed directly in eight-year-old Kelly’s arms, and for one breathless second, she could not make a sound. Then she hugged it to her chest and screamed, “Mom, Daddy would’ve gone crazy!” Her…

Three months after burying my fiancé, I saw his mother slipping down a hallway at a wedding where I was arranging flowers. Colleen noticed me near the reception entrance, and instead of offering a…

The enormous box sat in Alice’s living room while her husband, David, stood behind the couch looking terrified. Written across the cardboard was Alice’s name in the familiar handwriting of Chloe, the stepdaughter she…

  At 2:13 a.m., a metallic crash pulled me from bed, and I looked outside just in time to see my neighbor Linda running across my lawn. Bright yellow paint covered the hood, windshield,…