Published in the Winter 2000 Issue of Glimmer Train
HE CAME TO HER because his mother was going through some hard times moneywise. Of course it was not money really; there was a man who’d almost married her, a lost job, a car stolen from their parking lot. The schools, the neighborhood, even the weather seemed to play into the decision. Milwaukee was a city with no jobs, Yvonne said, and cold in winter, ice reaching into the gray lake. Maybe it was time to try Chicago (Miss Fisk didn’t say it was the same lake, the same cold, the same city finally). Yvonne called her night after night, sometimes swearing bitterly, sometimes crying, and Miss Fisk could not say no.
The Works of Stewart O'Nan 