Birthday Wishes
November 30, 2024 by Dianna Sinovic in category Columns, Quill and Moss by Dianna Sinovic, Writing tagged as holiday story, short fiction, writing
Today was her birthday, but her closest friends were busy, so Nicole took herself out to dinner. The Purple Potted Plant was her favorite restaurant for special occasions, and this year qualified as one: her fortieth.
She tamped down the urge to feel self-pity. She had no one to join her to mark the date; her ex certainly wouldn’t, and apparently, no friends felt strongly enough to share a birthday meal with her.
The waitstaff showed her to a table that overlooked a bustling street in Doylestown. Her birthday coincided with the start of the holiday season, and already giant, fake snowflakes hung from the lamp posts. They were another reminder that she needed to make plans soon to avoid being alone at Christmas. Daniel, her ex, would be with his new wife and their three-year-old.
Pulling herself back to the present, Nicole studied the menu. The chicken looked tempting, but the gnawing in her midsection was for something more than food. This milestone year was just the latest in a life she’d spent wondering who she really was. Adopted at as an infant, she had no memory of her biological mother. She craved details—any details. But the woman she called mother, the woman who’d raised her, had no interest in that.
“Isn’t it enough that you’re here, loved by us?” Brenda had said when Nicole begged her to tell what she knew. “No need to dig up a painful past.”
Nicole placed her order and asked for a glass of pinot grigio. Staring out the window, she watched the passersby, envious that they all had places to go. The swish of a moving chair drew her attention back to the table.
“Mind if I join you?” An older woman in a tailored, cloth coat stood there. “You seem like you could use a friendly smile.”
Taken aback at the woman’s forwardness, Nicole started to say no, but then shrugged. What the heck; it was better than moping alone in the crowded restaurant. “Of course. Please sit.”
“I’m Judy,” the woman said. “Pleased to meet you.” She removed her coat and sat down with a sigh. “It’s been years since I’ve eaten here.”
“I’m Nicole. What brings you here tonight?” Conversation was just what she needed, Nicole thought. Judy, in her dark pants and russet sweater, was a welcome distraction.
Judy’s smile grew warmer. “It’s my daughter’s birthday.”
“Oh?” Nicole smiled back. “How fun. It’s my birthday, too. But,” she paused, taking in the room full of chatting people, knives and forks clinking against plates, “shouldn’t you be with her to celebrate?”
“Oh, she’s near enough,” the woman said. “She has her own life now.”
Without really meaning to, Nicole mused aloud about her life—the pluses (she had a successful career as an editor) and the minuses (her failed marriage to Daniel). She shared her joy at finding the perfect hill on her morning walks to watch the sunrise and her disappointment over the loss of yet another friend who’d moved away. Then she put down her fork, feeling her face flush.
“How rude of me,” she said. “I’ve been talking about myself this whole time. I’m so sorry.” She usually deflected conversation back to the other person rather than talk about herself. What had gotten into her this evening? She picked at the food on her plate, no longer hungry.
Judy had barely touched her own food, seeming content to just listen to Nicole, offering a murmured “I see,” “That must have been difficult,” or “Interesting” from time to time.
Changing the subject, Judy said, “Since it’s your birthday, tell me, if you could alter anything in your life, what would you wish for?”
Nicole didn’t hesitate. “To know who my mother is. I mean, Brenda adopted me as a baby, and she and Paul, my adopted dad, love me, and I love them, but not knowing who gave birth to me brings me sadness even all these years later.” After that passionate response, Nicole caught herself. Was she really that starved for attention that she had to bring all of their talk back to her? “What about you?” she said. “What would you wish for?”
The older woman’s smile was bittersweet. She stood, pulling on her coat. “I’ve got to go now.” She slipped her bag over her shoulder. “To answer your question, though, if I could wish for anything, it would be to watch my daughter grow up. Fate didn’t grant me that. Instead, I missed all the milestones, I missed watching her turn from child to adult, but I’m so happy to see she’s turned out well.” She winked. “Even if she needs to trust in herself a bit more.”
Judy turned away just as the server arrived to clear the table. When Nicole looked up a moment later, the older woman was gone. Had the wink meant what she thought it did? She watched for Judy out the restaurant window, hoping to see her pass by on the sidewalk under the streetlights, but she didn’t appear.
“Happy birthday,” the server said, placing a slice of chocolate torte in front of Nicole. Edible confetti lay sprinkled over it, topped by a miniature flag printed with Best birthday wishes!
“I didn’t order this,” Nicole protested, although she was touched by the effort. “It’s fine, though. I’ll pay for it. You can bring the check for both of us—” She stopped. The place setting opposite her showed no sign that anyone had been there, the flat wear still wrapped in a cloth napkin.
The server chuckled. “Both of you, huh? But here’s another odd thing. I don’t remember bringing your check, but our system shows that your meal has already been paid for. You’re all set.”
Some of Dianna’s stories are in the following anthologies.
On the Wing
October 30, 2024 by Dianna Sinovic in category Columns, Quill and Moss by Dianna Sinovic, Writing tagged as birding, flash Fiction, short fiction, writing
The post promised an autumnal birding phenomenon not to be missed. Steph wasn’t really a birder—she could never tell one sparrow from another—but she did like birds. The local nature site urged anyone interested to show up just before dusk at a reservoir in the hills of Bucks County. There they would watch as a large flock of starlings swooped and tumbled in a remarkable, unified movement called a murmuration.
She reached out to several friends, but no one could make it. And Claire was gone; Claire, who had given Steph a rudimentary lesson on birds several years before. Steph didn’t know if Claire had ever seen the starling flock. She would go, alone, in memory of her friend.
When she arrived at the nature center, a tangerine sun sat on the horizon. A handful of cars filled the lot, and a knot of people stood outside the building entrance, which was flanked by several large pumpkins and a scarecrow. Steph made her way to the group, adjusting her binoculars around her neck. The center director, a woman in a blue down vest and a wool watch cap, was already talking.
“We’ll take the boardwalk to the lake shore,” the director said. “That’s the best place to see the birds. They’ll start arriving within the next fifteen to twenty minutes.”
Intimidated by what she thought of as “true” birders, Steph hung at the back of the group as they set off toward the lake. The slight October breeze made her zip her fleece jacket and pull out her mittens. It carried a faint whiff of fireplace smoke and moldering vegetation. Dried leaves scuttled along the wooden planks and crunched under hiking boots, and a handful of crows cawed overhead. Claire would have been at the front of the line, pulling Steph along, making her feel at home and welcome despite her limited knowledge of avian life.
Many birds are like people. They prefer to hang out in groups. That was a bit of Claire wisdom Steph dredged up as she walked. But Steph was more of a loner. More like a heron, she decided, preferring to watch the world by herself. Except. She missed Claire.
“Everyone!” the center director shouted. “The starlings are starting to gather across the lake. Keep an eye on the small flocks. They’ll merge into bigger and bigger groups.”
Focusing the binoculars at the far shore, Steph swept them up and around, listening as others in the group called out. Sure enough a small flock dipped and turned in the distance. Another flock appeared to the left. Yet another materialized. Soon the flocks became one—a large swirling mass of dark birds dancing to their own feathered rhythm.
“Oh, Claire,” Steph breathed. If only she could have seen this magical phenomenon.
As if in answer, the now-large flock swooped upward as one entity and curved to the right. The trailing birds formed a line, and the complete symbol became the letter C.
In a whisper on the wind, Steph could have sworn she heard Claire’s voice: Even herons need companionship. Don’t be afraid to reach out.
More of Dianna’s Stories
Door Knocker
September 30, 2024 by Dianna Sinovic in category Quill and Moss by Dianna Sinovic, Writing tagged as flash Fiction, short fiction, writing
The staircase is steep, a small hill of thirty-five steps to ascend to reach your room. This was not in the description you read of the quaint New England hotel when you did your research. You realize quaint has more than one definition. The stairs are only the first of several aspects of this lodging that were omitted in the details provided. The second is that there are only three rooms in the hotel, because the first floor houses not only a podiatrist’s office but also a small gift shop (with only intermittent hours). The third omission is one you will come to realize as the day slips into night.
Room One overlooks a winding creek and a stand of white pine. You are glad for the quiet until the innkeeper informs you that you are currently the sole guest. When you push for a reason, she explains with a shrug that it’s the off-season in this tourist town. She also informs you that she leaves at five o’clock and then entrusts you with the security code for the hotel’s entrance.
The room has a coffeemaker, so you brew a cup and unpack your suitcase—only half full because you are only there for two days, the more important day being tomorrow, when you will give a presentation to a potential client.
At a table big enough for only your laptop and the cup of coffee, but with a serene view of the creek, you review your slides—which ones to edit and which to scrap. Tomorrow’s pitch holds the key to your future and that makes your hand shake as you raise the cup to your lips.
After a dinner down the block of grilled chicken and a side salad—you are trying to lose ten pounds!—you read in your room until nearly midnight. It’s after you turn out the bedside lamp that the noises begin.
First, a bump against the far wall of your room. Then a crackle. More bumps. Muffled voices arguing. This is the off-season; you’re the only one here this week. The innkeeper had told you this conspiratorially. Now you wonder if she somehow forgot about the guest next door.
You put a pillow over your head to block the noise, but the commotion seeps into your subconscious, putting you into an uneasy sleep with dreams of your PowerPoint slides disappearing as you click on them before a room full of people who frown.
Finally, at two-thirty, with the noise unabated, you pull on clothes and march to Room Two. The hallway lights flash on with your movement.
Taking a deep breath to steel yourself, you give a polite knock. No response, but you can hear sounds of laughter, clinking glasses, the thrum of a bass beat. A stronger knock. You consider how tired you will be by morning.
You raise your fist to pound on the door, and the noise ceases. The only sound now: a lone cricket chirping in the hallway behind you. The latch clicks and the door slowly swings open. The dim interior is illuminated only by a nightlight on the opposite wall. Beyond the doorway is silence—no movement, no whispers, nothing. And you remember that you are alone in this building.
The next morning, all is quiet next door, and as you splash water on your face, you wonder if what you remember was just a bad dream. After all, you are stressed: The success of your business hinges on how well you do today.
The crisp black slacks and stylish silk shirt hide those extra pounds, and you approve of the young woman looking back at you from the full-length mirror. Sipping coffee, you check your bag for the files you’ll need, then touch up your lip gloss. You’ve masked the circles under your eyes as best you can; you are not a night person, as much as your friends want you to be.
Checking your watch, you slip your laptop bag over your shoulder and open the door to leave. You have enough time to drive to the interview, stopping at Starbucks on the way. More coffee will either energize or frazzle you. So much for a good night’s sleep.
In the hallway, precisely centered before you, sits a white bakery bag, the top folded closed. You look left and right, but the hallway stands empty. Cautiously, you pick up the bag, noting that someone has written your name in neat script. A perk from the hotel?
The bag opens easily, and nestled inside is a frosted muffin: scents of butter, cream, and brown sugar waft up, and you dig out the treat. Along with the muffin, your hand catches on a slip of paper, which flutters to the floor.
Now ravenous, you bite into the muffin, then pick up the paper. Another bite finishes the muffin. Delicious, maybe the best muffin you’ve ever had.
You unfold the paper and read the words written in the same neat script:
Our apologies if our party disturbed your sleep. Please accept this peacekeeping gesture. You will get the job.
No signature, but you assume it’s from the innkeeper.
Oh, well. You crumple the bag, hoping at the truth of her positive message.
When you arrive at the appointment, the client job offer is waiting for you; no presentation needed.
Back at the hotel, you thank the innkeeper for the morning muffin and share your good news.
“Muffin?” she says, her eyebrows raised.
Some of Dianna’s stories are in the following anthologies.
Salad Days
August 30, 2024 by Dianna Sinovic in category Columns, Quill and Moss by Dianna Sinovic, Writing tagged as paranormal, short fiction, writing
In the shade of a red maple, Ana helped spread the tablecloth over the picnic table and stepped back to let her family lay out the food: tuna salad, pasta salad, chips, grapes, strawberries, brownies, muffins. She and her grown children and her two grandchildren had gathered at the edge of Lake Nockamixon to celebrate her seventieth birthday, on an August afternoon laden with humidity.
Unscrewing a thermos lid, her son Jasper poured sparkling wine into paper cups. Alcohol was banned at the park, but in a nondescript container, who would be the wiser? When everyone but the teens, Luna and Geoffrey, had a cup, Jasper raised his.
“To our mom, on this milestone birthday.” He chugged his drink. “If only Dad could have joined us.”
“Here, here.” There was polite applause.
Ana raised her cup and smiled at the group. There had been some bumps and potholes on the road of life for her family—perhaps the biggest bump, Emery’s death almost a year ago from a heart attack.
Jasper’s eyes glistened as he poured himself another round. Her oldest seemed the most deeply affected by his father’s passing. Kaitlin, his wife, laid a hand on his shoulder in comfort. Ana’s other son, Paul, and her daughter Mindy and partner Sonja lined up for another splash of wine.
What the rest of the family didn’t notice—or failed to sense—was Emery’s presence just beyond the picnic table, a shimmering apparition with waving arms. Emery showed up with regularity, frightening Ana at first when he popped into view a few days after his death. Picking up the shards of the plate that broke when she dropped it in surprise, she wondered what a hallucination of a dead spouse portended for her mental health. But as his sightings continued, she realized he was benign if annoying, much like he’d been in real life.
On this day, Emery signaled to her with his arms. As always, he was silent. Apparitions didn’t make noise anyway, did they? He had been a silent bear of a man, and his children took after him. The group remained quiet around the picnic table, until she sighed, picked up a paper plate, and dug into the spread.
Emery was still waving at her, gesturing at the table—did he want a glass of the wine? How would that work?—but she decided to ignore him, as she too often had done while he was alive.
“Thanks, everyone,” she said. “This is a wonderful get-together. Let’s eat!”
Plates filled, the group moved to the next picnic table over to sit down. Paul and Jasper talked about the Phillies prospects, and Mindy chatted quietly with Sonja.
It was Luna who took the volume up a notch.
“Grams, I made the tuna salad. Don’t you want any?” Luna, at thirteen, could still pout if the mood suited her.
Why had she passed up the salad?
“Your granddad—” Ana started, but knew that explanation wouldn’t do. On her seventieth birthday, she didn’t need to worry her family that she was going crazy.
Jasper broke off his conversation with Paul to look at Ana oddly. “Mom? You okay?”
She nodded. “Of course.” She reached out and gently squeezed Luna’s shoulder. “I just didn’t feel like tuna today. I’m sure it’s scrumptious.”
Smiling, Luna returned to her own plate, scooping up mouthfuls of food. “It is. Mom said so.”
What had Emery been so insistent about? He was now standing behind Jasper, hands on his hips. No more waving or acting agitated. Words from the past bubbled up. I kept trying to tell you.
Kaitlin brought out from a cooler a boxed birthday cake. Luna crowded next to her to plunge the candles into the frosting. Geoffrey, Luna’s older brother, seemed uninterested as only a fifteen-year-old can be at a family gathering.
Paul pulled a lighter from his pocket, but paused, arm extended toward the candles, his face now a pale shade of green. He thrust the lighter at Kaitlin and hurried to the restroom facility across the picnic area. She lit the candles.
Instead of a sweet chorus of the birthday song, one by one, the members of Ana’s family fled to the restroom, their faces wan, holding their stomach.
“What’s going on?” Ana muttered. She watched the candles flicker in the breeze off the lake. “Happy birthday to me,” she sang softly. “Happy birthday to me.” She blew out the flames. Emery moved closer to her and pointed a shimmering hand at the tuna salad.
Oh.
“Food poisoning?” She addressed her husband’s ghost out loud.
He nodded vigorously. Death apparently had given him license to add drama to a situation. Why couldn’t he have been a little more lively before?
“I’m sure they’ll be fine. Just a touch of ptomaine.” She idly began cleaning up the picnic debris, collecting the paper plates, pouring out the bubbly left in glasses. She closed up the food cartons, including the suspect tuna salad. No one had yet returned from the facilities. Should she call 911?
Before she could pull out her phone, Jasper staggered back to the table.
“Taking everyone to the hospital,” he croaked.
“If you must go, I can drive,” Ana said. “I feel fine.”
“No, no,” Jasper said, waving his hand half-heartedly. “It’s your birthday.”
“You are sick. Everyone is sick. This is ridiculous.” She picked up the cooler and bags and carried them to her van. Emery walked beside her, fading in and out. Fourteen months ago, he kept complaining about back pain, an ache that wouldn’t ease up. For a man who said little, that should have been her clue. And now, he’d tried to alert her to another threat, and she’d failed again to understand.
Ana started the van, picked up Jasper and then the rest, who were puddled by the restrooms.
At least she could help salvage the remains of the day.
As she pulled onto the highway, Emery, hovering near her window, smiled.
Some of Dianna’s stories are in the following anthologies.
The Clue in the Weathered Hardback
July 30, 2024 by Dianna Sinovic in category Columns, Quill and Moss by Dianna Sinovic, Writing tagged as mystery, Nancy Drew, short fiction, writing
Emma worked her way through the tables of used books laid out at a community fair in Bucks County. Books! As if she didn’t have enough of them on her bookcases and her bedside table. Balancing an armful of books—mysteries, a literary classic, two romances—she spied a familiar cover.
“It’s a Nancy Drew.” She smiled at the memory. Her mother had bequeathed her small collection to Emma, who only skimmed them—too dated for her. But she had kept a few of the titles, mostly as a reminder of her mother, who had passed on three years before.
The book, The Secret in the Old Attic, was not one she’d read. Picking it up, mostly out of curiosity, not out of a desire to buy it, Emma opened the cover to leaf through it. Instead of a full complement of pages, though, the interior was carved out to make a book safe. Within the safe lay a folded slip of paper. She smoothed out the slip. On it, in spidery handwriting: IOU.
Fascinated at the clever use of the book, Emma added it to her stack of purchases and left the sale with the bag of used volumes.
At home, she googled the topic and learned that book safes had long been a common way to hide valuables, including money. As long as you remembered which books you’d carved up, no one else would be the wiser as they perused your shelves, either as a guest or a thief.
Lured by the information, she tucked away fifty dollars in the Nancy Drew book and slipped it onto the bookshelf in her living room. An experiment, she told herself. On a run to her public library after work several weeks later Emma remembered the book safe when she passed by the children’s section on her way to the checkout.
She pulled it from the shelf when she returned home and popped it open. The bills had vanished; in their place sat a folded slip of paper. It was identical to the one she’d seen earlier, at the sale, down to the faintly creepy message.
Feeling her pulse flutter in alarm, she dropped the book and the paper. WTF? She spun in a circle to take in the room. It was empty, as was the rest of her modest ranch, but she shivered. Who had been there? And when?
As the moments ticked past, she felt silly. I must have left the slip in the book when I brought it home. As for the money, maybe she’d imagined placing it there.
“Let me try again,” she said aloud to break the spell that seemed to keep her feet glued to the floor. Digging in her wallet, she pulled out two twenties, folded them in half and dropped them into the book safe. She tossed the IOU into the recycle bin.
This time she marked her calendar: Check in one week. Determined to solve the mystery—was she now Nancy Drew?—she set up a surveillance camera aimed at the bookshelf. If there was a thief—but there couldn’t be!—the camera would capture the culprit.
When the week had crawled by, Emma eagerly jerked the book from the shelf, then hesitated. The camera hadn’t caught any strangers in her home. What would the book reveal?
Inside the safe, the same slip of paper beckoned her to unfold it. The money was gone.
“Dammit,” she said, frustration coloring her expletive. Staring at the open book for a few moments, she hit on a solution. Two can play this game. She lay the paper slip on the kitchen table, found a pen, and printed neatly: You owe me ninety bucks. Pay up! With the refolded slip back in the book safe, Emma once again reshelved the hardback.
Barely twenty-four hours passed before Emma succumbed to temptation and pulled out the book. She laughed in surprise. No more notes; the safe contained ninety dollars in crisp bills—a fifty and two twenties—all neatly folded in half.
The cycle, she decided, had ended. She would keep the Nancy Drew book, but forgo putting anything into the paper safe, lest the mystery of the borrower be reactivated.
It was later, as she sat on the couch watching an episode of Stranger Things, that she looked at the returned cash more closely. She switched off the TV and turned on a lamp to inspect. The bills felt and looked authentic—the texture, the watermark, the colors shifting in the numerals—but the portraits . . . She struggled to remember who should be there. Jefferson? Jackson? She was fairly sure a guy named McCall wasn’t one of them. She turned the bills over. On the back, although each building was identified by caption, neither the Capitol nor the White House looked familiar.
The biggest, most obvious difference stared right at her. She ran a finger along the banner words above the buildings: United Territories of America.
More of Dianna’s stories can be found in the following anthologies:
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