A wealthy old gentleman who cannot speak and a cabbie who drives him around every week share an experience that leaves the shocked cabbie with no explanation. A little boy's innocent gesture sets in motion a Sunday morning of terror. A cleaning lady's childhood artwork inspires her at a critical moment. A humiliated carpenter secretly nails his customer's front door shut. A mentally-disabled teenager tries to help a frightened child. A mysterious woman moves into a neighborhood and turns it upside-down.
These and other stories offer solid entertainment along with luminous moments of heartache, humor, fear and hope.
Nineteen stories of heartache and humor, fear and hope, devastation and survival, show people wrestling with many different situations, some strong characters, some with little power, young and old, wise or cynical or troubled, from good-hearted to crafty to cruel, all interesting, all treated with compassion and occasional irony by the author.