He was only eight at the time, but he remembered the day his father had hired Richard and Ellen to work on the farm. It was the early 70's, in Western Massachusetts, and they lived in a humid valley in the Berkshire mountains, where for a brief time in July and August the hills held onto the humidity just long enough for peaches the size of softballs to grow. "Take a bite of that 'leaner,' Poppas would say to the tourists station-wagoning down the Mohawk trail. He called them 'leaners' on account that you'd have to lean forward before biting into one, or else the syrupy juice would ruin whatever you were wearing.

The couple had come up the road on foot, which wasn't all that unusual back then. Hitchhiking, especially on the trail, was actually fairly common. But there was nothing ordinary looking about the pair. He was a tree of a man, so tall and thick, with a nest of wavy hair and sunburned muscular arms for branches. He wore a white tee shirt beneath denim overalls, with a box of cigarettes rolled up in the sleeve, cradled above his right bicep.

She was so thin you could lose her by squinting. Sarah came out of the peach house and joined Roy by his side. "That lady's dress is sparkling." Ellen's poncho was covered in tiny little mirrors that refracted the bright midday light, what seemed like a thousand twinkles with every step. Her black hair galloped down her back and completely covered her ass with a jet-black curtain. Her eyes were hidden behind the largest pair of mirrored sunglasses he had ever seen.

"Hello there critters," boomed the tree. "Your folks around."

Before Roy could answer his sister offered, "They're out pickin'." It felt like a secret she shouldn't have shared.

The shimmering woman bent down and put her face in front of Roy's, his reflection distorted and tiny in her mirrored lenses. "Can you tell them they got company?" -- JV

"I mean... is she holding up? How are you? Does the room seem okay? Is she talking, or is she just doing that silent thing she does?"
Roy words washed over Sarah. She let a long moment pass before replying. "Everything's okay. Everything's going to be okay. Mom's resting." There was silence on the other end.
"Okay," Roy managed. "Tell her I love her." His voice quavered slightly. "And I'll check on her tomorrow after work." Pause. "God, it's so fucking beautiful out here," Roy sputtered. "How could I forget that."
"You okay, Roy?"
"Yeah. Sure. I guess so."
"I need to tidy things up here. We'll talk later?"
"Right. Yeah. Talk later. Bye." Roy hung up before Sarah could say goodbye.
It's just as well, Sarah thought as she folded her phone back into her purse. He had sounded a bit drunk, morose. Sarah had never liked talking with her brother when he got in his dark little moods.
She turned to her mother, now breathing slowly with occasional sighs, and gently pushed a few stray hairs back from her forehead. Looking down on the her mother's strangely serene face, Sarah thought of the good years they had. When things were normal. When Poppas was still around. Before her mother found God. -- RJ

Roy wanted to know how things were. "How's she doing?" he slurred slightly. He sounded as though he were on the other end of the earth.
Looking over at her mother, now with her head on the bed's pillow and eyes closed, Sarah felt a strange mix of emotions. That old, recognizable migraine with all the painful memories it brought. But then, what was this? Her mother next to her, resting quietly, vulnerable, no longer in charge. She looked almost like a little girl in repose. Sarah felt an unfamiliar tenderness. -- RJ

Margaret stood at the doorway of her room with her daughter behind her. It felt like she was a blockage for her escape rather than a supportive presence. The walls were Pepto-Bismal pink and the lineolium tile was scuffed and coming up in places. The window afforded a view of the green dumpsters behind the building near where a group of nurses now exhaled cigarette smoke and steam into the frigid winter air. On the wall a yellowed, homemade greeting card adorned with crayon read, "Get well soon, Grandma." Linda, the stocky nurse, her hair straw-colored no doubt from a cheap store-bought bleach job, ripped the card down with one chubby hand.

"Now, here we are. Isn't this nice Margaret? We'll let you decorate it the way you like, dear. And I think we even have a television in storage. Mrs. Cuffey's kids never picked it up after she...left us, so you're welcome to it, dear. Easy peasy. Would that be nice?"

It was then, right then, that Margaret realized she had made a mistake by living this long. God knew it didn't have to come to this. After Sam died, exhausted from four years of not enough oxygen, pain medicine or purpose, she could have taken her own life. If only she had loved him in the end. If only she had been a woman driven mad with grief, she might have been capable of it. Several of her friends who were widowed before her died of broken hearts within months of their husbands' deaths. She had waited for a similar fate, but sweet death didn't smell any love in her heart. Like the neglected trees in the old orchards she spent 40 years tending, the loveless were left to rot.

"Mom, would you like that? Mom?"

"What?"

"A television. Would you like Linda to bring in a television?"

"No. I just want some paper and a pen. And a nap. I need to lie down. Now."

Sarah's cell phone began ringing from in her purse. She frantically fished around for it before finally dumping its contents out on the bed her mother now sat on, hands folded in her lap, staring out the window. Linda came back in the room with a small notepad and a pen and quickly exited.

It was Roy calling. Dammit, he would be drunk. Sarah thought about not answering it. The estrangement between them had deepened around what to do with their mother. Once she died she was certain she would probably never see Roy again, and she was resigned to this, even relieved by it.

She hadn't forgiven the old woman either. But she wasn't stuck like Roy. She was unstuck. She was moving. Forward. Thousands upon thousands of dollars of therapy had allowed her to remember and then decidedly forget. Only when the migraines came, like the one she now felt filling her head with a sickening pressure, was she back there, squinting in the August heat, skin itching from peach fuzz, afraid...--JV

Henry rolled his chair – he called it his limousine – back through the sliding glass doors. He didn’t have to look down, didn’t have to navigate really, just kept his eyes on the new woman. “Make way for the limousine,” he would often call to orderlies as he wheeled into the dull linoleum and tile lobby. Today though, he was silent. There was a new game afoot, a new story to unravel.
Ignoring Linda’s hen pecking, Henry pulled up to the side of the reception desk. He rested his arm on the low counter and looked over at the new addition. Who was this woman with the sharp, high cheekbones, the delicate, long fingers, the wrinkles like river deltas radiating from the edges of her mouth, the smoldering glow in her dark eyes? She had a strange wildness about her, Henry thought. She must have been a beauty once.
Henry didn’t try to hide his gaze. He wanted her to see him looking, wanted her to notice. This was what made living here tolerable after all. Every week or two, a new one came in. They brought their histories, lifetimes of tears and joy and anger and love and loss and dreams and nightmares. Henry always wanted in.
More often than not though, the intrigue faded quickly. The new charges were riddled with Alzheimer’s or they had stopped caring or they were lost in their own static or they were just plain dull.
She was different. No way to hide it, Henry thought. Before one of the candy striper ladies led her and her daughter away for a tour of the place, she glanced over at Henry. For the briefest of moments their eyes met. There was anger in her gaze, but something else too. Fear, Henry thought. She was scared. - RJ

"Henry! Henry! Come in here! You are going to catch a death of cold!"

Fat bitch. Who do you think you're talking to? That's what he wanted to say. Linda was his least favorite nurse after all. One of these young women who talked to all the residents in a louder than necessary voice, like provincial Americans speak to non-English speaking foreigners. We're not all deaf you dumb fucking cow!

He didn't say any thing of the sort. He just pretended not to hear her, taking the last few drags of the cigarette he was't permitted to have. That's when he noticed her.

The wind blew through her white hair like a gust through a snow drift. The younger woman with her, undeniably her daughter, kept trying to hold her arm, but the woman with the wild, snowy hair kept shrugging it off. "Sarah, if I needed a damn cane, I'd buy one!"

He admired her spunk immediately, but that admiration was bittersweet in his quick realization that the staff of Pine Grove would break her. Probably quickly. Poor old gal. His welcome to new "residents," who were lucid, contained a laundry list of survival tips, which he would surely attempt to impart to this woman, whose tall build and graceful features, whose pin-straight posture and clean lines, made her instantly out of place in the home's dreary reception area. Yes, although it probably woulnd't save her, he would share what he had learned over the last five years:

1) Never ever eat the pork chop dinner
2) Only take half of any of the pills they give you
3) Take walks when ever you find an unlocked door
4) Never play chess with Bill
5) Never sass Ms. Beth
6) 3 AM is the best time to sneak out
7) Make a copy of any keys you can lay your hands on during the weekly Wal-Mart trip
8) Don't watch television
9) Avoid Dr. Stevenson
10) Don't tell anyone they hit you.

Right now though, it all seemed distant. Pine Grove, the past might as well be tiny stars flickering in the slate sky overhead. Right now, Roy just wanted to breathe. The sharp night air felt good. The ground underfoot, hard with frost, crunched with each step. Maybe, Roy thought, he would start running through the orchards, over the sloping hills, just keep running. Never come back. -- RJ