Grandma Ruth’s U.P. Truck Stop

Short fiction

Original collage by author

Rachel’s last semester at the University of Michigan would have been easy if not for the news that reached her six weeks before her final exams.

It wasn’t a phone call — the phone lines were still down from the most recent blizzard to hit Paradise, she guessed. Instead, a rumpled-looking envelope appeared in her mailbox, the ink of her address slightly smeared…