Author: Jason Wright

April 26 Ron’s June 26 Ron was having his best day in weeks, and Annie wanted to throw up. He was out of the wheelchair. Standing, even, with one hand braced on the nightstand, but standing. When Annie came through the door of Room 8, he turned and smiled and she could see the man […]

April 25 Ron’s June 25 The Saturday sewing circle met at Good Yarn every week, rain or shine. Kim had learned not to schedule much else on Saturday afternoons. She had also learned to make extra coffee. She was filling the carafe when the bell above the door chimed and seven people walked in with […]

April 24 Ron’s June 24 Carol opened Ron’s chart at 6:30 a.m. Before the hallway got busy, before the aides started rounds, before anyone could see her sitting at the nurses’ station with a pen in her hand and a problem she couldn’t document. The chart was straightforward. Vitals stable. Weight down two pounds since […]

April 23 Ron’s June 23 The woman walked into Good Yarn on Monday morning and Kim knew immediately she wasn’t from Pax River. It was the shoes. Ankle boots, clean, perhaps purchased in a city and worn to look casual in places that weren’t. She carried a leather bag over one shoulder and a phone […]

April 22 Ron’s June 22 The bell above the door had rung eleven times before noon. Kim had counted without meaning to. Four customers. Seven volunteers. She wasn’t sure anymore where one ended and the other began. Good Yarn had never been this loud. Kim watched her bookstore turn into a place she didn’t recognize. […]

April 21 Ron’s June 21 Annie brought the crossword books on a Tuesday. Three of them, large print, from the stack Kim kept behind the register at Good Yarn. Ron went through them faster than anyone expected. Two puzzles a day, sometimes three, filled in with a pencil he kept sharpened to a dangerous point. […]

April 20 Ron’s June 20 Carol met the painter in Room 8 first thing in the morning. Her name was Lisa Cleary. She taught watercolor at the community center on Tuesdays and had once painted the mural on the side of the post office that nobody liked but everyone had gotten used to.  Kim had […]

April 19 Ron’s June 19 Carol held the meeting in the staff break room at 6:45 in the morning, fifteen minutes before the first shift. She’d chosen the time on purpose. Early enough that Ron would still be asleep. Late enough that the night staff could stay and the day staff could hear it fresh. […]

April 18 Ron’s June 18 Kim didn’t recognize the woman who strode in just after she unlocked the door for business. The customer browsed the fiction wall without picking up a single book. That was the tell. People who wanted books picked up books. People who wanted something else browsed. So Kim let her. “You’re […]