Ernest was a Dancer
(about 7,700 words)
My friends laugh at me. They say my children are taking advantage. ‘A free 80 year old babysitter, that's all you are, a silly, old grandma being used as a babysitter.’ But they don't know. They've become bitter in their old age. They have forgotten that baby smell. They have forgotten the feel of baby skin, the way it yields so gently to the touch, the way it blanches then springs back to pink when you release it. That resiliency, yes, resiliency, what she will need most in her life.
The Pinochle Players
(about 3,000 words)
"Frank," called Elisa. "It's Sal on the phone. He has one more baby to deliver; he said that you should start without him. He'll be here as soon as he’s done."
"If Sal would just learn to sew up a little faster, he wouldn't hold up our pinochle game," said Charlie, grinning. “That’s why I like Peds – no long deliveries.”
"Elisa, is my car going to be OK out there? I mean the kids aren't going to scratch it, are they?" said Chinny, looking out at his shiny new black Continental parked in front of the house. “I should have gone on to a specialty,” he said to no one in particular. “This family doctor stuff is for the birds.”
Night of the Drifters
(About 8,200 words - Unpublished)
Our team moved quickly to save this man’s life. We cut away his clothes, looking for
bleeders that might have been missed by the ambulance crew. The resident intubated him while I
checked his chest and limbs for broken bones. His breathing was shallow. We feared broken ribs,
a punctured lung, internal bleeding. I tended to his head wounds, applying pressure compresses
to several cuts. I cleared the blood from his face and the matted, long brown hair that reached
past his shoulders. When I stood back to evaluate what needed to be done next, I jumped,
For Suela
(2,320 words -Unpublished)
I feared I had made a tragic mistake the instant the car door closed behind us and I realized there were two men, not just the one I had met on the curb, in the front seat. But what was I to do? We had shivered in sub-freezing cold outside the terminal for more than twenty minutes along with at least a hundred other people trying to get cabs. Emily and Janie, my 10 year-old twins, huddled bravely to my side. But the wind pierced our jackets like daggers and I knew their courage would fade quickly on a night like this. At that moment, I wished Martin and I had not divorced or that I had another man to help me, to take charge. But that was not the way it was. I was on my own and I had to make a decision. It was my judgment and my judgment alone that would either get my girls home safely or expose them to more danger.