intro and pt 1

April in Boston - April anywhere, really - is a bit of a transitional month. Winter might not be over, but people are still expecting it to be spring. College students start thinking about the end of the semester and what they'll do for the summer. Christians plan for Easter, Jews plan for Passover. It rains. Sometimes it snows. Sometimes it warms up enough that people break out the shorts and lightweight skirts and t-shirts and sandals. Croci and tulips come up in front yards. No one expects anything terrible to happen.

But then, no one usually does.

So sometimes, when terror strikes, it takes a few tries before anyone notices it for what it is.

( This particular terror - not that anyone noticed it as such - started on a Tuesday in April )

words: 1736

pt 2

The rest of that Tuesday passed as usual, for Ana and Rose Marie and everyone else in Greater Boston. Office workers commuted home, high school students did homework and practiced team sports and went to after-school retail jobs, mechanics closed up shop, line cooks flipped burgers and fried onion rings, men and women in suits took clients out for business dinners. Ushers at Symphony Hall guided ticket holders to their seats, MBTA employees coming off their shifts bitched to each other about signal problems and fare jumpers and people who brought their dogs on the T, bicyclists navigated around buses and SUVs and pedestrians.

( In Brighton, Nanda and Michelle Ruhl-Wasserman celebrated their fifth anniversary )

words: 829
total words: 2565

(no subject)

Exeter was the laziest dog Rose Marie had ever met, but he loved the snow. Fresh snow was the easiest way to get him out of the house, especially if that fresh snow was piled a foot high.

It was a good thing John lived in Boulder, even if that meant Rose Marie never got to see him.

Ana got a ride home from someone, because it was raining by the time she got out of work and she didn't have her umbrella with her. Rose Marie had put on her pajamas and was watching a movie on TV.

"I thought about calling you to come pick me up," Ana told her, "but I thought that would be mean."

( It would've been, yeah, Rose Marie said. )

words: 1023
total words: 3590