Ignoring Dad must’ve done something to his masculine ego, because only a couple weeks after Ms. Sandee stopped pushing herself on Dad, he started paying a lot more attention to her.

My mom died when I was eight. We were close when she was alive, or so people tell me, but I barely remember her. I was raised by my dad, a gruff factory worker, the kind of guy who changed his own oil and thought just about anything could be fixed by hard work and exercise.

It hit Jane the hardest when the cat died. It was on a Friday, luckily, giving her the weekend to grieve.

Derick drives Ruth around the loop to the lower side of campus so she doesn’t have to walk down the hill.

Ruthie wakes from a dream of watching the sun rise over the Chesapeake Bay with Derick the morning after her wedding.

Before she even realizes she’s pregnant, Ruthie begins having terrible dreams.

Underneath Boy Solum’s house there was a tunnel that led to a female spider’s nest.

The phone rings at five a.m., exactly. Derick answers, eyes still closed as he nods at Ruthie’s form watching from the bed.

​The dining room table looks like a scene from a post-apocalyptic children’s movie.

“We have a window of about four months,” Ruthie says. “After that, the drugs will start to damage my ovaries.”