jellydish

 In his defense, the man at the door looked more pathetic to Lydia than a red sock on laundry day. He gripped the wet bowler hat with two clenched fists, dripping considerably on her ‘Wipe Your Paws’ welcome mat. She had trouble keeping her eyes open long enough to glare at him. “Four in the morning,” she said. “You know, like the little hand on the four, except you have a tad trouble seeing it, what with it being dark outside?” “Miss, I know it might come as a shock to you, but-” “Shock? No. Surprisingly, things don’t seem very shocking at you-must-be-kidding-me o’clock. The milk h

 Marietta suspected strongly by the end of the week, but had little opportunity to pinpoint any proof.  She spent every spare moment with Henry in the subtle pursuit of slipping him up, jarring the conversation into unexpected turns. ‘Yes’ became a rather indifferent ‘okay’ or ‘alright,’ no matter how many different ways she managed to ask for affirmation. He veered around plurals and possessives as if they were road kill. “How many balloons are there?” she asked. “Eight,” said Henry. “Not seven? It looks to me like there are seven.”  Henry stiffened but didn’t

 “Lincoln Logs,” she said. “You don’t like them?” She smoothed out the wrapping paper on her lap and frowned. “I asked for that poetry book. You know, the one with the picture of the tree on the front?” And I had planned on getting it for her until I saw the little sticker with the price on the back. “You can’t build a house out of poetry,” I said. She burst into tears, and I got the feeling it was the wrong thing to say.

 I had never heard of a music box before she let me hold it. She said it felt too cliché to be real, and that’s how she knew that there wasn’t any such thing. But I could feel its weight in my hands and hear the tinny tune of its labor, and I started to think that maybe she was wrong. She said you couldn’t trust a musician, and that’s all it was. A tiny, plastic, fake of a musician. She even said the sticker on the back had lied, and that it probably wasn’t ‘Made in Holland.’ Probably not any of the other European tourist countries, she said. When it got so cold that we couldn’t feel our finge