African Violets: A Story Excerpt
Below you will find the first few pages of a story featured in my new collection Implosions of America: Nine Stories , due out this fall. African Violets One of our kids started Claudie out with an African violet about a year ago. She put it on our kitchen window sill above the sink. Right around then I started thinking about the fact that I seemed to be on the way out of our marriage. It wasn’t Claudie, it was me. After a month in our kitchen, the plant was almost dead. I found her at 5:30 one morning standing at the sink crying. “We’re going to kill every plant that enters our house,” she said softly. “What does that say about us?” Claudie cries quietly when she’s mad at herself. I know enough to keep my mouth shut when she’s crying quietly. “Look at this thing,” she continued between sniffs. “I love its furry leaves. Even now.” She was still taking deep breaths, but seemed to be on the downside of her pain. I peered at the plant and sure enough, its wilted leaves ha...
