Three Green Notebooks Left in a Cedar Chest on Elm Street

and the old library index cards were gone, leaving the dark mahogany wood bare and dusty.

I looked at my empty desk where my library papers used to sit in neat stacks.

By nine o’clock the next morning, I was sitting at Arthur’s kitchen table. The radiator in the corner gave a sudden, loud rattle, like a handful of gravel thrown against a windowpane, continue reading …