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    In the Name of Love: Thirty Short and Shorter Stories
    In the Name of Love: Thirty Short and Shorter Stories
    In the Name of Love: Thirty Short and Shorter Stories
    Ebook138 pages1 hour

    In the Name of Love: Thirty Short and Shorter Stories

    By Laurie Boris

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    About this ebook

    A lonely neighbor tries to melt a widow’s reluctant heart. Bullying brothers threaten to spoil a young girl’s Halloween. Left at the altar once, a woman takes a gamble on a second chance. These are just a few in a collection of thirty short and shorter stories about growing up, growing older, moving out, moving on, revenge, redemption, and love in all its shades of bittersweet pain and joy.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLaurie Boris
    Release dateJun 17, 2015
    ISBN9781310172397
    In the Name of Love: Thirty Short and Shorter Stories
    Author

    Laurie Boris

    Laurie Boris is a freelance writer, editor, and former graphic designer. She has been writing fiction for almost thirty years and is the award-winning author of seven novels. When not hanging out with the universe of imaginary people in her head, she enjoys baseball, cooking, and reading. She lives in New York's lovely Hudson Valley.

    Read more from Laurie Boris

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      Book preview

      In the Name of Love - Laurie Boris

      First came the flowers. Late on a Tuesday afternoon, Sally found a single daisy languishing in her mailbox, petals drooping from the dark heat. Then a bloom from a day lily, similarly asphyxiated. Once she’d come home to a bouquet of dandelions tied with string. A random offering from nature, okay, she could understand a nice neighbor walking by and performing an impulsive act to brighten up her gloom, but the dandelions sent another message altogether. The string implied intention. Forethought. It made her smile but also troubled her. Aside from the postal carrier, a grumbly older man who railed on her for not clearing the snow away from the box fast enough after storms, one suspect remained: Wendell Alexander.

      Wendell lived four houses away in a cheerful, crumbling Victorian he’d shared with his wife, who’d left him several years back; although the rumors flew up and down the hill about how and why the tragedy had befallen him, no one claimed to know the truth. But every so often, usually around major holidays when he was probably feeling lonely, he’d make a play for Sally, which she’d dodge with a mixed bouquet of polite excuses. It had nothing to do with chemistry or biology or any other subject the neighborhood women gossiped about over light beers when they finished their gardening. When it came down to it, after losing Brian to cancer, she wasn’t ready for another man in her life. But Wendell was so nice, and she didn’t want to hurt his feelings, certainly not on Christmas.

      Or New Year’s.

      Or the Fourth of July.

      Now she’d have to have an uncomfortable discussion with him on Valentine’s Day, because lately the offerings had grown more…more. There were homemade cookies. Banana bread. And the topper, which she’d just discovered: a heart-shaped box of chocolates.

      That’s it, she said, and trudged up the hill to set this man straight.

      <><><>

      When Wendell returned from Sally’s mailbox, he took in the whole of his Victorian from the vantage point of the street, alarm ringing through him when he imagined a potential visitor falling down the stairs. So he checked the oven timer, grabbed a shovel and went at them. He’d reached the third one from the landing when he heard footfalls squeak into the snow in his driveway. He knew her immediately by the long, lavender coat and prepared a smile, but it flagged at the determination of her step, the furrow of her brow, and the red cardboard box clutched in one bare hand.

      Wendell Alexander, we need to talk. As she waved the box at him, his stomach fluttered but not in a bad way. It didn’t sound like one of those soul-crushing We need to talks, which was the exact preamble Esmie had used to pilot the hydrogen bomb into their marriage. From Sally, it came off more like a plea. And Wendell liked how she said his name, with that tiny bit of Boston accent softening his final r. It was cute. Like her.

      Good afternoon to you, too. The indignation melted from her face. He leaned on his shovel.

      Sally huffed out a breath. You can’t keep— She seemed to be stretching out for something beyond her grasp. The flowers, and now…

      In hopes of hiding his flushed cheeks, he returned to his task. Just thought you’d like it.

      I do. It’s nice. It’s very neighborly. But it’s too much.

      Didn’t exactly break the bank.

      You know what I mean.

      He stopped, planted the shovel into a mound of snow. Yes. I’m aware.

      I’m not ready.

      Didn’t ask you to marry me, Sally. I just thought, well, you might like a little company now and again. In a neighborly sort of way.

      The corners of her mouth turned down, and she gazed at the box of chocolates. You make me sound so hard. I’m not, really.

      Hard? No. Her coat was unzipped, and in her apparent zeal to storm over to his house, she’d neglected her scarf, hat, and gloves. Cold, maybe.

      She glanced up at him. Is that…?

      Pound cake. He smiled. Just about done.

      <><><>

      She followed him inside. Just for a minute, she told herself. Just to warm up and get this over with. But the sweet, buttery aroma of a cake in the oven made it nearly impossible to keep her nerves steeled for the conversation she’d planned. It was a trick her mother had pulled out to soothe particularly fussy children. Part of her wondered if the two of them had been in cahoots. After the flowers had failed, she could picture the phone calls, the dissemination of recipes designed to win a recalcitrant widow’s heart.

      Sally shook her head. She must have been hallucinating from the cold. Or the hunger. Or maybe…warm and seductive, the scent of fresh coffee also wafted into the air. She sniffed without meaning to.

      Cream and sugar? Wendell asked.

      I…can’t stay. Unable to face his disappointment, she set the box of chocolates on what she at first thought was a sideboard until her glasses defogged and revealed an upright piano she hadn’t remembered from her last visit. Of course, that was in the Esmie days, so she imagined a few things had probably changed. Is this new?

      He glanced up, a shy flush across his cheeks. Second-hand, but new to me. I thought it might be nice. I hadn’t played for years. Esmie wasn’t much of a fan, so… Wendell ran a finger across the polished cover. Guess I don’t have to worry about that anymore, huh?

      I guess not. I’ve never told anyone this, but I’ve been thinking about getting a dog. Sally liked the sound of that. So did Wendell apparently, from the light in his eyes. She cleared her throat. I’ve always wanted one, but Brian was allergic. It feels sort of…disloyal, though.

      I get that. But it might be nice to have the companionship. And if the two of you care for additional companionship, I’m quite fond of long walks.

      You know, I could really go for that coffee, Sally said, and as the oven timer went off, Wendell grinned.

      Delilah

      After typing I didn’t know how else to tell you, no more words would come, no matter how hard Delilah pressed that mental pencil against the cells in her brain that were supposed to perform those functions.

      Maybe there was something wrong with her. Maybe in her sleep, the karma skulking around her corners had unhooked her battery, cut her brake lines, slashed her tires. Because she cranked out assignments like this every damned day. Okay, it was a strange freelance gig, but she thrived on the strange, the out-of-kilter, the anything-but-normal. In this world of have what you want when you want it,

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