“The cost of words unspoken” can bankrupt us, trap us in unending regret. For Dearnon, the shop owner in “The Broken Place,” the tentacles of regret have spread to every part of his life, to every crevice of the little shop he once treasured. He no longer feels their grip. Not until a customer in trouble stumbles in, a diabetic on the verge of losing consciousness. This wandering stranger also mourns what could have been—and makes Dearnon wonder if it’s not too late to change the past.
Crazy Mary, a smelly, homeless old woman who talks to herself, may be the most “unforgettable character” in That Very Place. She’s also the last person young Terry wants anywhere near Grandma Hilda, whose dementia is becoming more evident each day. But she can’t get rid of Mary. Nor can she rid herself of the fear of what will happen if Grandma Hilda gets “put away.” Hilda is all she has. Hiding her grandmother’s worsening condition from her friends at school—and even from family—gets harder for Terry each day, her schemes more desperate. She sees no other way to protect herself, not until a disheveled, repulsive old lady offers her one—in “Here and Now.”
