A muffled sound of tires crunching over gravel. A car or a truck was moving slowly down the lane, as quietly as it could, a sleepy vehicle at daybreak. I tossed back the covers and went to the window. I found my cardigan on a chair and put it on. The floorboards were cold underneath my feet. Outs...
The house was still, sounds indistinct and muffled, as if heard through cloth. Upstairs, in the boy's room, the clock over the desk ticked away the minutes just past midnight. In the next room, where the boy's parents slept, there was the soft rattle of an old fan, moving the thick air from outsi...
Mattie, in a Red Sox jacket, runs ahead to look for crabs. The beach is flat and shallow, curved like a shell, the sand the color of weathered wood with a calligraphy of seaweed written along its crust. Behind the seawall are the summer houses, empty now. Too late, Kathryn realizes she should hav...