Splinters speckled crimson skidded across the floor
Doris Finch sat hunched in her rocking chair — wearing her Sunday best — a long-sleeve black dress, beige pantyhose, and black ballet flats, engrossed in the current issue of Prevention when someone buzzed her apartment. “That must be Gerald. He’s late as usual. So unreliable,” she complained to no one in particular.
She glanced at the framed picture of her twins on the mantel — Gerald and Simon — identical in every way: straight, red hair, deep blue eyes, and husky frames standing side by side on graduation day at NYU, hoisting their diplomas like hard-earned trophies, grinning ear to ear.
Doris adjusted her pewter wire-rimmed spectacles carefully on the bridge of her nose and reached for the hickory crook resting on the windowsill beside her. Leaning on her cane, she got slowly to her feet and shuffled over to the intercom near the door and pressed the button that unlocked the lobby door without bothering to see if her visitor was indeed Gerald. Doris welcomed the company, any company for that matter.
Several minutes later, her (un)expected guest pounded on her door so hard it rattled. A peek through the peephole revealed her son’s haggard face, a tall, brawny man with thinning red hair dressed in a baby blue button-down shirt, khakis, with tan loafers standing in the brightly lit hall biting…
