Maggie Shayne's Blog: Maggie's Coffee House Blog

NURSES When someone I loved almost died, nurses took them from my arms into their own. They scrambled and they were flat out pros. They knew exactly what to do do and how to do it, and they saved that precious life. When I was a fifteen-year-old, pregnant child in labor, told I’d have to have a C-section, I was terrified. But there were were nurses who took care of me. There was one nurse, an older woman, who would give me a back rub with Jergens Lotion every night. She'd tape a little...

A chapter-a-day for 10 days! Your Halloween Treat from Maggie Shayne Sara had never felt anything like what she was feeling with every...

A chapter-a-day for 10 days! Your Halloween Treat from Maggie Shayne Sara wasn’t surprised that David knew which trailer lot belonged to...

A chapter-a-day for 10 days! Your Halloween Treat from Maggie Shayne It was, Sara thought, ridiculous that with her life falling apart at...

A chapter-a-day for 10 days! Your Halloween Treat from Maggie Shayne David stared at her as emotions he hadn’t even known he could feel...

A chapter-a-day for 10 days! Your Halloween Treat from Maggie Shayne “All right, all right,” Nikki said. “You’ve had a day to recover while I found out what was what, and now you’re showered, you’re sitting, and you have some of that chamomile tea Mom keeps in the teddy bear cannister?” “I’m clean, I’m sitting, I’m sipping. What have you found out, Nikki? Is that poor man dead?” “I’ve talked to Mom, who phoned the town gossip, Nellie Camaroon, who is also the organist at the Methodist...

A chapter-a-day for 10 days! Your Halloween Treat from Maggie Shayne Sara didn’t keep the promise she’d made to her roommate. She tried, she really did. She put her things in Nikki’s old bedroom, which was right where Nikki had told her it would be. But not exactly the way  Nikki had told her it would be. She’d said it would be exactly as she had left it. Purple paint on the walls. Cheerleading uniform hanging on the outside of the closet door, amid pom-poms, boy band posters, and her orange...

A chapter-a-day for 10 days! Your Halloween Treat from Maggie Shayne A Few Days Earlier Denton, New Hampshire Her eyes burned. Her lungs burned. Her skin  was starting to burn. She struggled to breathe, but sucked only searing-hot smoke into her lungs. She couldn’t see anymore, and her eyes stung as if they’d been irrigated with battery acid. She squeezed them tight as she staggered from the bedroom into the hallway, feeling her way, groping with her hands and moving forward even though...

A chapter-a-day for 10 days! Your Halloween Treat from Maggie Shayne David didn’t end up getting his bag from the Jeep until much later that night. When they left the hospital, the four men drove down to Potter’s Grocery, Mark’s store, parked the SUV in front, and looked sadly at the “Closed Until Further Notice” sign that had been taped to the front door. “Look, let’s talk to people, ask if anyone saw anything that could give us a clue what really happened yesterday,” Randy said. Brad shook...

A chapter-a-day for 10 days! Your Halloween Treat from Maggie Shayne David drove his Jeep Wrangler past the big wooden “Welcome to Port Lucinda, The Town Where Time Stands Still” sign, and shook his head at how appropriate the nickname was. He’d never realized how stuck in time his hometown was, until he’d grown up and done some traveling. The storefronts hadn’t changed. They had green-and-white striped awnings, and old-fashioned lettering, and the drugstore still served fountain sodas and...