Jack Vening

Tuesday I went downstairs to meet with Jackson, my cousin, a man I hadn’t seen for a long time. I had been living by myself in the city, far away from the life he’d been part of, and he was in town that night for a reason I never learned. There’s a reason I haven’t mentioned him much. I don’t like to dwell on Jackson.

A young woman whiles away her summer calling strangers from the paper, waiting for her sister to return from who-knows-where, waiting for life to get moving – until Whitman comes by looking to sell a crossbow.