It had been a week of “lasts.” Her last term paper, her last shift at the coffee shop, her last Taco Tuesday at Don Jose’s. She heard the toilet flush and realized that this would be the last time Zoe would slip under the covers next to her in their bed.
Eve stared at the crack in the ceiling. It was barely visible when they’d moved in three years ago and she’d emailed the property management company. She didn’t want to be responsible for the repair when they moved out tomorrow.
“We better get our deposit back,” Eve stated as Zoe entered the room.
“Let it go, Elsa,” Zoe quipped back. “I think they’ll care less about the crack then the chalkboard paint in the kitchen.”
“They should consider that an upgrade! They also got a veggie garden out of us. It took us weeks to till that soil.”
“Nana, why doesn’t daddy like mommy anymore?”
Merry awoke just as the first red bursts of dawn streaked through the shutters and across her white bedspread. It reminded her of blood splatter and she watched the gory hue turn to a bruise of blue and purple and finally the pure, clean brightness of a new day, disappearing into the covers. She felt a shift in the universe and tears pricked her eyes.
When a man gets to a certain age, it is time for him to set out on his own, or at least that is what he tried to tell himself as he readied his boat for the journey. He had been sailing these seas with his father since the day he could walk, he knew them better than he knew the land. Of course, where he was going, he would eventually leave his home waters, and that is where the test of his strength and abilities would come in. 
I’d awoken with a sore throat and a fever, so mother made me stay home. Daddy went to work and my sister left without me to walk the short distance to school with the kids from the block. I spent the morning on the couch bundled up in blankets, engrossed in one of the “Little House on the Prairie” books and sipping ginger ale through a straw from a nearby TV tray. Mother went about her daily housewife routine of making beds, starting a load of laundry, arranging the front window drape pleats, and raking the shag carpet.
It was spring of 1982 and I was months from high school graduation. On the horizon was a summer serving as crew on a 101 ft schooner and the beginning of college in the fall. It was also a dull and dreary day sitting in the teeny boatyard office of the marine electrician where I worked as an assistant after school.
Elizabeth frowned at her monthly planner entry for August 15th. The heart with the number “5” inside was drawn before the new year, when things were still good. She planned on serving him with divorce papers soon and wanted to keep things amiable until then. A present was just the thing.
The Littletown League of Women Voters mayoral candidate debate had just begun when the fire alarm was sounded. After 30 minutes and an “all clear” from the Fire Chief, the crowd filed back inside. It was apparently a faulty alarm but they had dragged in the hefty fire hose as a precaution and it now lay smack dab down the middle of Uncle Joe’s All-You-Can-Eat Seafood Buffet. It would remain until the investigation was complete in an hour or so, and the debate needed to get underway and wrap-up before the restaurant opened for the Early Bird Special crowd.
The petite redhead sidled up to the man in uniform sitting at the far end of the bar, leaning in to showcase her ample bosum. “Hey, Sailor, buy a thirsty girl a cold drink on a hot day?”
