HiddenPainStories.com

Part 1 The barn behind the Dobbs place outside Haddon, Kansas, smelled of linseed oil, old grease, and the sweet dust of straw that had been stored there since the …

The Water Wagon Read More

Part 1 The pegboard hangs on the wall between the parts counter and the restroom door at Cortez Auto Body on Sycamore Road in Tillman, Ohio, where it has hung …

Keys Come Back With Stories Read More

Part 1 The Tarrant County Historical Society keeps its reading room on the second floor of a former creamery, above a bank that has changed names three times. The radiator …

The Thistle Print Read More

Part 1 The line sat at the bottom of every Hartwell Grain Co-op invoice, below the totals, in a small, square, slightly uneven typeface that looked like it had been …

Your Word Read More

Part 1 My 14-year-old son grew out his hair to make a wig for his classmate who lost hers because of cancer — the next day, I was called to …

He Grew His Hair and Then He Lied Read More

Part 1 My college sweetheart, a Vietnam war pilot, disappeared 55 years ago—on my annual flight to his memorial, a voice from the cockpit said my name. I was twenty-one …

The Man in the Door Had Thomas’s Face Read More

Part 1 The first time Yolanda Ruiz walked my mother to the end of Maple Street, she came back up our driveway twenty minutes later with her phone in one …

The Porch Post on Maple Read More

Part 1 For thirty-one years, my mother-in-law’s second oven came on at hours that no holiday could explain. Ten o’clock on Tuesday nights. Six o’clock on Friday mornings. I learned …

The Second Oven Read More

Part 1 The first Sunday in September, I found the gap in row six, and for the first time in my life I was told by a grown man not …

The Names Inside Read More

On the first morning my mother lived in the memory wing, a day aide named Bea Holt came down the corridor with a folding chair under one arm and a …

The Empty Chair in the Memory Wing Read More