“The Train to Santa Margherita” published by Spadina Literary Review, issue 31, 2019
“Merilee and Samuel, her bridegroom of twenty-four months, arrive by taxi at Piazza Principe, the central train station in Genoa. Samuel doles out the fare, tops up the euros and adds his grazie. Unlike Merilee, he didn’t bother with Italian lessons for travellers every Tuesday evening at the university. He’s certain that the locals will figure out his wishes. Besides, he has great faith in hand gestures.
Merging with their fellow travellers, they jostle past Doric columns, through the portico and into a massive antechamber. Merilee cranes her neck, sunlight filters past the rain-spattered panes of the vaulted ceiling. Piazza Principe hums with human traffic. Business travellers pressed into close-fitting suits move at double-time past uncertain tourists navigating their luggage-on-wheels. Day-trippers like Merilee and Samuel proceed with purpose, to board a regional train to one of the Riviera towns an hour away, their destinations well-researched on Google, already savoured before they arrive. Cliffside climbs through Mediterranean villages, mid-afternoon feasts of Ligurian shrimp known as gamberoni. Fresh caught, their pink flesh glistens from the sea, their flavour enhanced by grape varietals with appellations like Bosco or Vermentino.” [Read the full story here]
“At Montebello, Last November” published by Montreal Writes, issue 2.3, 2019
I wouldn’t go out of my way to befriend Virginie, but I’m flattered that she accepts me into her circle. She fascinates me. I wonder what remains when she peels away her public persona. Gallic and elegant. Black Merino pullover and skirt glimpsed under her open Persian fur. Around her neck a single strand of pearls. By Mikimoto, she tells me when I admire them. White lacey stockings and the solid oxford boot popular with the Holt Renfrew crowd Hair thick, dark and straight. Possibly the result of ritual brush strokes. Hair you’d expect to see on a well-kept child.
I knew only of her by reputation until yesterday, when we both arrived at Le Chateau Montebello, the resort on the Quebec side of the river. [Read the full story here]
“Grace” finalist for Carter V. Cooper Award & published in short fiction anthology CVC 7, Exile Editions, 2017
“Raindrops keep falling on my head.” Arlie belts out her favourite earworm until she runs out of words, then hums what she remembers of the tune. Slamming the metal locker door, she clamps down on the combination lock. It’s quarter to three, enough time to grab a coffee in the cafeteria before report and handover. Four days off and it feels like something inside her needs to recalibrate before she can function. How long until the status of registered nurse takes hold, fits her like a layer of skin, not an oversized coat?”
“Finter Street” published by GRAIN Magazine, spring issue #46.3,
2019
“Step on the crack, break your mother’s back. Blue and white saddle shoes skip along the uneven sidewalk, come down squarely on the crack. Alice considers the blue and white foot. Step on a crack. Skipping off, she avoids the rest of the cracks, reaches the corner and peeks through the chicken-wire fence. Wooden rocking chairs that belong in the living room, traces of blue paint. Then, movement at the yellow-curtained window of the stucco bungalow beyond. Alice bolts, dashes down Finter Street all the way home to number fourteen.”
“Red Scare” short-listed for Open Season Award of Malahat Review, 2014
“Taking the terrazzo stairs two at a time, Oscar bounds past his landlady’s ground floor apartment, his overcoat flapping, his galoshes squeaking. Boiled cabbage and onions. Mrs. Kuzminski is making supper. Up the second flight, felt hat in hand and the latest edition of the Montreal Star tucked under his arm, he stops outside number 2A. No sounds within, though it’s after five. Turning the knob, he finds the door unlocked. He calls out to his wife, listens for his daughter’s tap-tap footsteps. Silence.
Valerie’s muskrat isn’t hanging in the closet. Neither is Jilly’s diminutive rose-coloured coat with its genuine rabbit collar. When she wears that coat his daughter reminds him of the cherubs painted on cathedral ceilings. The most expensive in Eaton’s department store, Valerie added to the cost when she insisted Jilly have fur-topped boots to match. Where is his family? Stroking his forehead, Oscar fails to erase the ache that’s taunted him all day long.”
“Stel” awarded Chang Prize for short fiction & published in White Wall Review, Issue 37, 2013
“Stella Mireault flails her limbs to escape the drip stitched onto the vein in her arm, the rubber tube shoved into her bladder and the itchy, oozing dressing taped over the rotting sore on her leg. It’s a mistake. If she moves to the left, her leg shivers with pain, a move to the right and her arm aches with the welling fluid. No matter what position she takes, there’s a burning from the intrusive catheter.
She’s captive here in room 824, but Stella knows that outside her window the world goes about its business. The medical wing of the Royal Victoria Hospital isn’t very far from Mont Royal. In her mind’s eye, Stella hikes the mountain in search of its cooling breezes.”