Samuel watched as Carol set up the laptop for him. He leafed through the user’s manual, before putting it in a drawer. The laptop was a retirement gift, after forty years in the civil service. Not an end but the beginning of a new chapter, or so he was told at his retirement party. …

  The berries tasted best after midnight. Something about how their sun-warmed skins cooled under the dew and darkness made them juicier, sweeter. Of course if you picked them and tried to take them home and put them on your cereal or pancakes for breakfast, they were even worse than if you’d picked them at …

  I’d lost track of how I was related to Iris. I just took people’s word for it that I was. We had lived in Singapore eight years, and I hadn’t seen her, or even thought about her all that time. As Mom was driving the two of us over to her house, I tried …

  It’s March, and the sea air sparkles. On Thursday afternoons at four we meet at Ruth’s, but first we have our errands and chores. The lucky bimbo who lives long enough becomes, in the eyes of others, just an old lady, but we old Florida broads know who we are. Our ankles may be …

  Ruth likes slightly overcast weather and the smell of public libraries. Ruth likes the color mauve. She bakes cinnamon raisin bread in the winter, and she wears orthopedic shoes on her nightly walks. Ruth dislikes it when the person in front of her in line gets chatty with the cashier. It’s inconsiderate, she thinks, …

  “Right now, it is 44 degrees Fahrenheit. Tonight, you can expect a low of 37 degrees.” “Thank you, Alexa,” I say, because I’m polite, even when it’s a machine offering me the things that I need, like accurate forecasts, spell-checks on problem words (broccoli, zucchini, accommodations), and the time, which I ask for again …

    The thing about being the murdered chanteuse is you set the plot in motion. They’ll set up a shrine for you near the piano; you always touched the piano when you sang, ran fingertip along its wood, leaned against it backwards, bent over it, stretched both arms long, curled song out of your …