Stories - Letters from Oakhurst

“Please… leave us alone” whispered Lily, trembling as Michael bursts in to find Vanessa looming over his terrified children

0305

“Michael already gave us the key, so open the house and don’t put on a show,” Jessica said, announcing they’d move in tomorrow as Emily vowed to call the police

0660

“I’ll show you what happens when you make yourselves unavailable” Linda hissed, bursting into her son’s apartment and stopping short at Megan’s hollow-eyed, disheveled figure

0312

“Your elbow” said the scarred man from the wall, a single calm correction that cut through the laughter

093

“As if the earth itself had opened and swallowed her” Michael cried, then retreated behind a wall of silence

062

“Be a good girl.” Linda announced loudly, humiliating Emily before the guests as Michael flicked her away

0456

“Don’t you dare stick your nose out of that room, you shameless girl. If I so much as see your face, you’ll regret it” — Linda hisses, banishing Emily to her “little hole” as the Johnsons arrive

0520

“Sit in your little hole and keep quiet” Patricia snapped, consigning Emily to hide as the Andersons arrived

0185

“Have you completely lost your nerve, Emily, or are you just pretending?” Patricia thundered from the kitchen as Emily returned to find strangers and her husband settled in her apartment

0259

“These clothes aren’t exactly meant for retirees. Maybe you’d be more comfortable at a flea market” Brittany sneered, measuring the woman from shoes to hair

0274

“He should be taking care of me, not the other way around” Emily snaps as her mother-in-law glides in with cabbage pies, igniting a tense household showdown

0316

“Now I’ll have somewhere to stay in the city, too” the mother-in-law said, leaving Emily frozen at the table and her husband silent

0489