Halsey Street

by Naima Coster

She had told herself that if her mother weren’t there, she would have flown to see Ralph, but then Mirella left for good, and still Penelope couldn’t bring herself to fly back. Instead she called every day and sent flowers and chocolates. When Ralph was out of his temporary wheelchair, she flew him out to Pittsburgh and saw with her own two eyes that he had survived one disaster and then another. The sight of him sealed up some of the guilt inside her. She kept flying him out, whenever she could afford a ticket, and Ralph looked a little feebler every time but never as awful as that first time, when his back was hunched and his fingers gnarled, and he was quieter, as if the fall had cleared away a part of his brain, too.