"I first saw the shoe lying in the
dirt on the bus route I took to work every day. It was a deep brown,
darker than the ground on which it lay, and it looked terribly lonesome
just sitting there, unloved."
"The light green hotel phone,
the only connection with my wife seven thousand miles away, sat
abandoned on the long pine bureau. I longed to hear her smooth comfortable
voice, but I knew if I did I'd lose my nerve and spend another night
alone in this strange hotel in an even stranger land."
"Liza hummed as she pressed the cords
of black licorice into the little men on her cookie sheet. The spicy
aroma tickled her nose and she leaned closer. Had she added too
much cinnamon? Her gingerbread man license taped over the oven spelled
out the baking rules quite clearly. After all, she did not want
her license revoked because her cookies had run away like
Helen's."
