Hidden Animals

This is the seventh and final story in the collection Ripples. An old man's routine walk along the beach in search of shells is interrupted by a young girl who questions his unusual ritual. His wife had not really cared for collecting shells. She would stop and admire them on the sand, but she never kept them. A native of the Carolina coast, she had explained to him once that a shell was beau...

This is the sixth of seven stories in the collection  Ripples. In the aftermath of a serious car accident, Marcie Anderson ruminates on the absence of her husband after their recent divorce, seemingly unaware of a much more immediate and medically urgent loss. Over the years, she had become accustomed to the emptiness of the house, the silence that collected like dust in the corners, long before h...

This is the fifth of seven stories in Ripples. A little girl and her father witness a fruitless battle between two ants, prompting a discussion about the nature of God's perspective. "Big Ant stumbled blindly around in circles, pausing occasionally to try and dislodge Little Ant’s jaws from his leg. For a minute or so, they stopped completely, but then their combat resumed with increased...

This is the fourth of seven stories in Ripples. Beside a quiet pond in the Ozarks, a boy's split-second choice becomes a lifelong burden for his entire family. "My father always blamed Lucy, my older sister. Dad had instructed her to watch over me and my twin brother, but we were notoriously difficult to supervise. She always resented being stuck with us. I can’t say I blame her. Grant a...

This is the third of seven stories in Ripples . On the side of a lonely Texas highway, a young man faces a life-or-death decision that is not as black-and-white as it seems. "Nearby, a lone red light swept silently in unceasing circles from the dashboard of the police cruiser. James’s car threw its headlights a few yards ahead into the darkness. Other than that, the roadway had no other sourc...

This is the second of seven stories in Ripples . When a young girl gets in a fight with her boyfriend at school, it becomes the source of conflict at home. "You know, that’s how women end up with men who control every aspect of their lives. It’s one small compromise at a time. One false apology at a time. No one leaps into an unhappy marriage. They end up there by taking a thousand little tin...

This is the first of seven stories in Ripples . In a small-town diner in south Georgia, a mysterious stranger struggles under the weight of his terrible secret. "She saw that he had blue-gray eyes, a remarkable color so icy and deep that the hairs on her neck and arms prickled. It wasn’t the way he looked at her; there was no malice or threat at all. It was the impossible concrete color of hi...