Landslide Excerpts

The first grey light penetrated the darkness. I closed my eyes hoping sleep would return, but the sky was blanching quickly. Beside me, Susie murmured, rolled over. Through the half…

Who are the designs for?” I asked Mom. I had found Mom in Garden’s little Monastery. As a surprise, Jay had shipped the Monastery in pieces to Mom from Romania,…

The lights dimmed. The band washed onto the stage. Clapping was silenced before its crescendo by a vocalist with a gravelly, raw voice who sang of pain and work, reality…

Fernando’s voice soared. He had spotted me over the corn. His hand stretched out theatrically, and as his note rose, his bushy black moustache quivered. Maria scowled to chide Fernando’s…

“I am seeing in light,” Giovanni told me unexpectedly, like a confession.   I looked at him, confused.   “I always have, from when I am small.” The back of…

“One day,” my father Jay said, his eyes taking on a faraway look, “I came across this elk.”   I watched Jay’s eyes fill as if he could see the…

A high-pitched beep signaled, the sound of Susie’s pager. “That’s my photographer Bob. He says there’s action on the street. In fact, I can hear it,” she said, excitement growing in…

Garden’s Colonnade ended at the Maze. When I was little, I was terrified of the Maze, terrified that I would be lost forever inside. To make me less frightened, Mom…

From the rocks’ height, I could see a dusty trail on our drive-way, meaning cars were coming. It occurred to me that they would take John Jay. It occurred to…

Soon, though, Fernando was banging frantically on the French doors. Maria jumped up. Mom came rushing at the noise. “It’s gone,” he stammered when Mom threw open the door. “What…

“Rico is farting like a German,” said Giovanni as we walked together along the beach. “The stink of it. Even with the windows open.”   “Can’t you just put him outside?”…

Mom beaded the way grandmas knit. She could make anything – wall art, bed spreads, Halloween costumes. Some of her beads were so small that when strung, they blended like carpets,…

“I take it you have had your toy lion, Lionel,  for a while?” Charlie asked. “Jay gave him to me when I was four,” I replied. “And Jay is?” “My…

As I searched in the crannies of the earliest sunspots where the lizard first crept out of the night’s cold, I heard the throaty sound of a motor. Mom heard…

Crossing my fingers and then my toes, I counted backwards from ten. At zero, I ran. Quickly, the Garden gave way, and a sage-like, dusty smell snuffed out Garden’s green…

A quilt covered Charlie’s navy blue childhood bed. Above the bed hung a very large pin board covered with photos. I moved in to look more closely. There were images…

My animals were separated by four mending Bonsai. Most had severed branches like amputees. One had a long crack in its main trunk and was slowly dying. All its leaves…

I held Anna with one hand, while loading the dishwasher with the other. She had her bottle and was tilting her head back to suck on it.   “Took my…

I could hear Maria coming. They would make this real; if they caught me it would be true. It could not be true, not ever. Susie moved toward me, but…

Mom said what made Jay such a good photographer was that he was exceptionally patient. When he sensed a shot, he waited, some-times for days. Mom said she couldn’t count…