However, as a coroner in Wichita said, “Was no rhyme or reason for all of it. Makes for the worst kind of criminal to investigate because there was no recognizable pattern or motive, unless you limit yourself to extreme psychosis. The only people we know of about your aunt was that there is no record of her ever having killed a child. Still, we only know what we know and there may be other victims out there that will never be claimed.”

Shadows grew longer until the final hours of daylight when she got in the mask and flippers to watch the other world again. Rocks glowed orange at dusk and she supposed his aura of self-importance was insignificant. She definitely didn’t need him and his stupid ego.

I think it’s sweet the way he’s dancing tonight. I’ve been standing at the ‘bar’, which is just a guy sitting on a cooler, ‘getting us a beer’ for the last 10 minutes watching him. Part of the appeal is doing the same thing over and over again for hours, very slowly. He and I are going to breakup, I know that, but that’s neither here nor there I don’t think.

As usual, he closed the kitchen door behind him in the morning light. But he didn’t slip into his rumpled sedan to go to work. Rather, he hurried round the block, his signature cap almost leaping from his head. He never runs, she thought, ever, and this titillated her. For a moment she forgot her annoyance and shared his excitement.

If Mitch had a dollar for every time a troubled kid had said they were okay, he could have gotten a jump on retirement like Roxanne. “Open the door and let me see you, Kelli. To make sure everything is cool,” says Mitch, backing away from the door.

Her family, those she loves, expect no less of her, she thinks, now. They knew- no, expected, she would be there, day in and day out. Like the sun, she had always risen to the occasion, shining brightly on those around her, while those she shone upon lounged beside the pool of life, slugging down margaritas and splashing joyfully, soaking it all in.

He used to bring me flowers whose petals had not opened; we spend long afternoons together, the flowers have time to open and show their centre. Our love-making scene could be like this: He the bee and me the flower. I open my petals and he comes to gather his pollen. Happy. But then he has to take the pollen elsewhere. He cannot stay. Sad.

I seem to have lost myself, I tell my mom as she finds me laying on the couch one dreary afternoon. I confess I don’t believe in fairy tales anymore, or happy endings. And I cry. Not just at night, before I fall asleep on silk pillowcases, but openly now, because my family knows my dilemma and I don’t have to conceal my emotions.

Before the therapist arrives, she whispers words that could grind my bones to dust. Before she walked away from this “relationship”, she whispered the same words into my suffering Labyrinthitis, admitting she had given our love away almost a decade ago. Now she is digging our graves while I stand there watching.

Sam holds down his hat with his right hand as he tramples through the snow. “Sorry, Del, let me do that for you.” He bends down to give the cord a hard pull, and as he does, his back freezes and spasms and Sam lets out a most unmanly yelp.

Boarding a near-empty Greyhound I bump my head and the Fedora falls to the deck. I stoop and pick it up, sit down and pull out a near empty pack of coffin-nails, and snap it on the armrest. A butt pops high. I catch and flip it off my thumb into my mouth. Please close cover before striking.

I put up my hands like I’d seen in movies and spoke pseudo-Latin like I’d seen in movies: many words and many waves. I knew I wasn’t breaking a curse so much as a code. I knew if I said the right made up things, he would let a real doctor help.

But wait a hot minute here... If she stuck to her guns, which she prided herself on, then that last one should have been the next to last one. Which meant, tragedy of all tragedies, that the one in her shaking hand would be THE LAST ONE...EVER!

Sippy stares up at Sarah. Right now, they’re the best of friends. Unlike the rest of us, there’s no chance Sippy will break. Well, that’s what she thinks. I don’t mention what happened to Sippy One. And we never refer to this one as Sippy Two. She looks down at the counter.

‘Yeah, I know that love. I’m so happy you’re here and I wouldn’t mess that up. I promise, on my oath, no drinking. Never again.’

She stuck her nose in the air and sniffed.

‘I can smell something,’ she said.

Xander wasted no time...just as Rachel had expected. Everything about him she took back with her from that void, the knowledge absorbing itself by the same unexplainable communication through which she had learned everything else. Xander got into his BMW, and Rachel, having been in wait in her own car, followed.

As I cleaned up after the breakfast I made you, you told me you had another lover. He was coming to Mexico City, the place where I thought we were falling in love. It was Christmas.