Elizabeth Sweder

I lay down on the sofa one afternoon for enough of a snooze to shut everything out of my mind, falling into a deep, mindless slumber. An hour later I was startled awake by an apparition of Alice Bjornquist, a girl I knew in fifth grade, appearing suddenly in my mind. There was no question it was Alice, although I hadn’t seen or thought of her for more than sixty years.

In our town Alice’s last name