Bill returned home after a particularly strenuous workday to find Loretta in the living room nose to nose in conversation with a stranger. Rather than interrupt, or inquire what was going on, he observed from the doorway.

Cordelia Cates stepped out onto her deck overlooking the lake as she cradled her coffee cup, which had more than a splash of Bailey’s Irish Cream added in for good measure. She sighed as she wrapped her cardigan around her with the other hand and surveyed the red clouds overhead.

The situation was this: Bret’s ringing phone had woken him up just before daybreak. Jeff, his once fairly close, but now hardly close friend, sounding frantic, had asked him to meet him. Bret had said he would and asked where, and Jeff had calmed down enough to give him clear directions.

When Nataliya had finished the last crumbs of her cake, I paid the bill and we left the café, the bell tinkling as the door closed behind us. At half past four, the grey winter afternoon had already turned to night. I offered Nataliya my arm, as the cobbled street was slippery with frozen snow.

It’s almost midnight when they leave the beach, tired, thirsty, still too high from the freely flowing weed. They’re jammed into Ed’s aging blue Volkswagen, Lisbeth up front, Jonathan and Denise crowbarred into the tiny back seat as they head onto the Mid-Cape Highway for the trip back to Manhattan from Truro.

If this is not a meat bun from heaven, Dr. Wu doesn’t know what would it be. A meat bun from heaven (天上掉馅饼) is a Chinese saying, meaning pure luck.
Dr. Wu has worked as a Rehab physician in the hospital in Texas for a few years. A few weeks ago, her department chief, only in his fifties, suddenly left.