The Monitored Pin
Part 1 On the night of the October windstorm, the dispatch room at Sable Lake Rural Electric Cooperative looked like the bridge of a ship in a fog. Twelve screens …
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The Gates on the North Fence
The north side of the Mathisen rock pile was still open to the wind. I stood there on the last Saturday in October with my clipboard under one arm and …
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The Promise at Mercer Performance
Part 1 The intake desk at Mercer Performance had been built out of a single slab of oak salvaged from a bowling alley in Canton, and it still bore the …
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Someone Will See This
Part 1 The night deposit slot at Hartwell Feed & Grain sat in the cinderblock wall beside the side door, a brass-rimmed mouth about the width of a hand, with …
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He Served Her the Spoon She Called Harmless
My MIL kept licking the serving spoon and putting it back in our food—the day she did it while sick, my husband finally taught her a lesson I didn’t see …
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He Borrowed His Sister’s Dress for Our Son
My late son’s best friend turned up at his funeral in a dress — my husband was already on his feet to walk him out, but then the boy got …
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The Night Is for the House That Watches
The card lived in the supply bin under the folding chairs, wedged between a box of marshmallow forks and a coil of orange extension cord, and nobody on Linden Street …
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The House Account at Bellamy Road
On Monday mornings at Bellamy Road Auto Service, the first bay to get light was bay three, and nobody ever parked in it. I noticed that my first week. The …
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The Second Book at Union Chapel
By ten past eleven on the fifty-first-anniversary Sunday of Union Chapel, the line stretched from the narthex table all the way back through the double doors and into the vestibule, …
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The Keeper of Hours
The reading room of the Hartwell County Library smelled of radiator dust, floor wax, and old paper warmed by a century of lamps. It was a long, high-ceilinged room on …
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