Wayward Novels & Stories

The front door closed, and I was left alone in the empty living room. I slid helplessly to the floor and covered my mouth to keep my sobs from spilling out. I did not know how much time had passed before I finally braced myself against the wall and slowly stood up. In my studio, a damaged antique painting was still spread across the table. It was my favorite piece, "Waiting at the Harbor." In the painting, a woman stood at the pier, looking into the distance as she waited for her family to come home.

change? That's what I was thinking. I was imagining my face with my eyes closed. This is Tagore Gari who just stepped on Shiva but could not then. I was imagining that face in my mind. Anjali got curious. 'Anger is there but it is not expressed, sadness is there but it is suppressed affection. I thought it was my husband

Time to end this one way or another. ***

Wards hum here, my fingers tingle before I touch. “Seam,” I say. “Heavy one.” “How do you want to play it?” Hadrian asks. “Like it’s lying to me,” I answer, and bow my head to the bark, letting that sleepy buzz crawl into my palms. This seam isn’t a wall. It’s a funnel. It pushes anything dumb enough to run straight along the cedar line and spills them into a pretty little bowl of deadfall and thorn. “Trap,” I say. “Lovely bowl just past the rise, plus...” I sniff, and wrinkle my nose. “Something under leaves to our left.”

And sulk like a woman whom her husband deserted from. God my life can't get any better.

Or worse. *****

Wade could not turn back. *

Even so, we would get to know each other better—in the various meanings of the expression, I hoped—in the next few days. A few minutes later, Westfalia was on the coast road, heading north. I rolled down the window and gave a sigh of pleasure. — I love open roads. — Possibilities. Now there were not only poppies and beaches, but, who knows, hot sex with a man with a body like a freak and a mind like a scientist. Absolutely tempting. "Do you intend to take the coast road all the way there?" I asked. He rolled down his window too. The left arm rested on the frame of the