The Glass Shoe

Posted on by accordingtohoyt

The house looked familiar and reassuring. It was six years since Aimee had last been here, and yet it looked exactly the same as when she used to stop by to see grandma right after grandad died. When she was fourteen. And then less often though highschool.

It was a blue Victorian, set back from the street. There was a tall birch in the front yard, and a bench on the front porch.  Reaching back to memories, before grandad got sick, she remembered them sitting on that bench on Sundays, reading.

She remembered it so hard that she could almost see it: both of them sitting there, smiling at her as she approached.

When she was very little grandma’s house had meant cookies, and malted milk, and being indulged in a way her parents would never do.

Now—

This story is now part of a collection for sale here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09W3WBJYJ

66 thoughts on “The Glass Shoe”

  6. Damn dusty here. Allergies. Yeah, allergies. Or the onion fairy.
    How wonderful.

    1. Dust indeed. I’m blaming the cold front that blasted through and the dust wall that came with it. Yeah, that’s it.

  7. wow, been reading you for a long time – and wow yes the onions it must be the onions – thank you.

  13. Wow! Very nice! So are you going to start a series, Twice-Told Tales, or some such? Come on, you know we’ll buy it!

  15. Beautiful…I so needed that and here I thought I had outgrown “Once upon a time…and they lived happily ever after”!! Thank you so very much!!

  19. It was a bit jarring to see my name in one of your stories (Aimee), but now I want to dig through my closet and see if I can find that missing shoe…

  25. It’s 32 years today for the wife and me, #1 son pointed out that Ronnie Biggs the great train robber only got 30, and I’d been thinking on marriage and specifically my parents marriage. This story reminded me forcibly of their marriage. My mother would smile and my father would pull her up to dance.

    Thank you for something normal, untainted by politics.

      1. You’re way behind us. Our anniversary is a week after yours, but we passed our Sapphire anniversary and charging onward towards Gold.

      2. My parents managed 52 years and died with 4 months of each other. Your story struck me. Thank you,

        1. Congratulations to everyone!

          Our 42nd is Dec 16.

          Sister #1 their 37th, is Today.

          Sister #2 had their 32nd on Sept 4.

          Mom & dad had 53 years together before he died.

          Maternal grandparents had 75 years together before they died within 2 weeks of each other at 95.

          Went to Aunt & Uncles (mom’s sister) anniversary party this last August (outside which is why not during month, they are in NE Oregon, it’ll be cold), official 65th anniversary is Nov 4. Another Aunt & Uncle hit 58th year this summer.

  27. Nice. I like. Especially the idea that stasis, even pleasant stasis, is not an improvement on life.

    I like fairy tales with a twist. My favorite of recent years is the take Ursula Vernon did on Bluebeard, in which the wife has two obnoxiously nosy sisters and consequently loves her privacy so much that she Respects her husband’s and never enters the forbidden room, has a perfectly pleasant marriage, and only learns her husband killed his previous wives after he dies.

    1. Yeah, the never-ending dance may not be an un-alloyed good. Just ask the thistle-haired man’s ‘guests’.

  31. Funny odd how so many of us readers found our allergies really kicking up today. Makes it hard to see the screen thru the tears. Thank you.

  38. It’s not allergies. It’s… more smoke from the fires here in the Bay Area (CA). Yeah, that’s it!

  40. Interesting the shift of perspective, what we think of as “this” world (that we are sitting in, now, reading on a computer monitor) is NOT the “Real World”.
    Ahhhh. thank ye, lassie, for re-lighting the spark of imagination in this old un’s heart and mind.

  42. Pingback: True fairy tales | Forks and Hope

  45. Well I was wondering if you’d gotten to be a better writer than the book I read many years ago, the second darkship book.Oh, wow! Have you ever!

    And the answer to the question you asked in Scope is to be found in Kurt Schlichter’s book Conservative Insurgency.

  46. Wonderful. I thought that I knew where tge story was going, but no.
    Of course not, I just can’t make chili without chopped onions. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

  50. >> She didn’t look like she was dying, despite what grandma had said on the phone.

    Is it supposed to be either her mother or Mrs. Jones who called?

  53. Thank you for sharing that story. It was a wonderful read. I too am suffering from too much dust, or allergies, or wood smoke, or something…

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