The Night Shift
Marcus sat in the security booth watching the monitors. Nothing ever happened at the warehouse between two and six. That was fine with him. Through the window, he could see into the laundromat next door...
Margaret Thornfield is a contemporary American writer whose stories are infused with subtle melancholy and deep understanding of the human condition. Born in a small Midwestern town, she learned to find beauty in the ordinary and discover stories in the simplest encounters. Her work is distinguished by its lyricism and ability to convey complex emotions through everyday details and natural imagery.
Stories by this author (43)
Unit 47
The storage facility sat between a tire shop and a check-cashing place on International Boulevard. Mateo arrived first, fifteen minutes early, and sat in his truck with the engine running. The morning fog hadn't burned off yet...
The Weight of Steam
The espresso machine arrived on a Tuesday. Rajesh had been sitting at his kitchen table, laptop open to three different job boards, when he closed them all and went to the Williams Sonoma website instead. Three thousand dollars. More than his rent...
The Color of Forgetting
Linh bent over the customer's hand, filing the acrylic nail into a perfect oval. The woman was talking about her daughter's wedding. Something about centerpieces. Orchids or roses...
The Tuesday Ride
Miguel had been driving Mrs. Nguyen to dialysis for eight months, every Tuesday and Thursday at seven-thirty in the morning, and every Saturday at noon...
Wrong Number
The phone rang at 2:17 AM. Marcus looked up from his paperback—some Louis L'Amour thing about a gunfighter with a heart of gold—and stared at the desk phone. Nobody called the security desk at the data center. Especially not at this hour...
The Detroit Lock Doc
Frank Kowalski set his coffee mug on the workbench and looked at the lock in front of him. A Kwikset SmartKey. Nothing special, but people wanted to see him pick it...
The Tuesday Wash
The man came in at three in the morning with a green duffel bag. Tuesday again. Marisa looked up from her paperback, one of those romance novels with a shirtless man on the cover that she'd never admit to reading...
Night Shift
Marcus had been driving for six hours straight when the man got into his car at Sky Harbor Airport. Terminal 4, Southwest Airlines. The man wore a gray suit, no tie, carried a small overnight bag. Clean-shaven, maybe forty-five, fifty...
Clean Cycles
The fluorescent lights hummed their familiar tune when Yuki pushed through the glass door at eleven-fifty-eight. Always two minutes early. Never late, never more than five minutes early...
Unit 47
The storage facility sat between a tire shop and a check-cashing place on International Boulevard. Maria got there first. She sat in her Accord with the engine running, air conditioning on, watching the entrance. Twenty minutes early...
What We Keep
The auctioneer's voice carried across the lot like a preacher's at a tent revival. Marcus stood at the back, hands in his pockets, counting the forty-three dollars he had left until payday...
Notes from 3B
The first note was taped to his door on a Tuesday. Marcus had to lean close to read the small, tight handwriting. "You received my delivery by mistake. I have yours. Please leave mine outside 3D. Do NOT knock. Thank you...
Tuesday Drives
Marcus pulled up to the beige apartment complex at 6:15, same as every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday for the past two years. The morning was already warm, even for October in Phoenix. The steering wheel felt sticky under his hands...
The Longest Twenty Minutes
Ernesto saw the name on his phone screen and his hands went cold despite the Phoenix heat. Maya C. Pickup at the Marriott Downtown. Heading to Sky Harbor. He could cancel. Say his car broke down. Say anything. His finger hovered over the screen...
What We Kept
The storage unit was on Stockton Boulevard, one of those places with orange doors and security cameras that didn't work. Mariam got there first...
Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday
Miguel checked the app. Tuesday, 5:45 AM. Luz Reyes. The same address off McDowell Road he'd been driving to for three months now. He knew the house—pale yellow stucco with a Virgin of Guadalupe in the front window...
The Thing About Money
Tomás pushed his cart down the fourth-floor hallway at eleven-thirty on a Tuesday night. The wheels needed oil...
The Blue Dress
Tuesday again. The woman pushed through the door at 4:15, same as always. Linh looked up from the pressing machine, steam hissing around her face. The blue dress hung over the woman's arm like something dead. "Hello, Mrs...
Things We Carry
Marcus pulled up to the beige stucco house at 7:15, same as every Tuesday and Thursday. Sometimes Monday too, if she had a bad week. The morning already pressed down hot, even though it was only April. Phoenix heat didn't care about calendars. Mrs...
Between Floors
The elevator shuddered once, made a grinding sound, and stopped. Esperanza Reyes felt her stomach drop, that familiar sensation of something going wrong...
The Storage Room
Mai noticed the ceiling creak at eleven-seventeen on a Tuesday night. She looked up from the inventory sheets spread across the pedicure chair, her pen stopping mid-count. Lucky Nails had been closed for two hours...
Things We Leave Behind
The fluorescent lights hummed their familiar tune, the one Marcus had memorized after six months of night shifts. Tuesday, 11:47 PM. The big industrial washers churned in rows like metal hearts, steady and indifferent...
The Quiet Arrangement
Marcus found the first envelope on a Tuesday. He'd been detailing the Silverado, working the vacuum into the seams of the seats, when he opened the glove compartment to wipe it down...
The Night Shift
Dmitri found the candy wrapper on his second round, Tuesday night, tucked behind a server rack in Room 3-C. A Snickers wrapper, folded into a tight square. He stood there looking at it, the server fans humming their white noise all around him...
Night Packages
The first package came on a Tuesday, three weeks after Adewale started working nights at the Quick Mart on Jackson Street. UPS dropped it at 2:47 AM, the driver barely looking up from his scanner. The label read "Marcus Chen" with the store's address...
Notes Left Behind
The first note wasn't meant to be personal. Marcus had written it on the back of a requisition form: "Spill in server room 3. Already put down absorb-all but floor's still slick...
Clean Slate
Tuesday, 2 PM, and Mrs. Chen wasn't there. Dmitri looked at the clock above the door, then at the empty folding table by the window where she always sat. Her machine—number seven, third row—stood vacant, its door open like a mouth waiting to be fed...
What We Saved
The storage unit sits at the end of a long row of identical metal doors, each one painted the color of sand. Miguel arrives first. He parks his Corolla in the shade of the office building and waits. The thermometer on the dashboard reads 108...
Notes Under the Door
The first time Rajesh delivered to flat 1205, Tower B, he waited eleven minutes. The app said to leave the food at the door after five minutes of no response, but something made him stay...
Lot 47
Marcus sat in his truck with the engine off, watching the heat shimmer off the asphalt. Eight-thirty in the morning and already ninety-four degrees...
What We Kept
Marcus got there first. He sat in his Accord with the engine running, air conditioning on high even though it was only May. The storage facility sprawled out like a small city of orange doors, each one holding someone's overflow life...
Tuesday Appointment
The knock went unanswered. Dmitri checked his phone—7:42 a. m. He knocked again, harder this time. The sound echoed in the empty corridor of the Desert Palms Senior Living complex. "Mrs. Santos. " Nothing...
Spin Cycle
Marcus arrived at the laundromat at 10:47 p. m. , thirteen minutes early for his shift. He always came early. Not because anyone asked him to, but because the routine mattered. The way he hung his coat on the same hook...
The Wash
The thermometer on the car wash wall read 112 degrees. Dmytro wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and picked up the pressure washer. The old Ford Ranger pulled up, same as every Tuesday, three in the afternoon. The hottest part of the day...
The Third Shift
Marcus started the night shift at the data center in September, when the Phoenix heat still pressed against the windows at midnight. The job was simple. Walk the halls every hour. Check the badge readers. Watch the monitors...
Tuesday Appointments
The nail salon sat between a check-cashing place and a shop that sold phone cards. Tuesday morning, ten o'clock. Mrs. Kowalski would be here soon. Linh arranged the bottles of polish by color. Red to pink to coral...
Things We Carried
The phone was wedged deep between the seats, face down. Marcus found it when he was vacuuming at the Chevron station on McDowell, getting ready to call it a night. Three a. m. , temperature still holding at ninety-four...
What We Carry
The phone was wedged between the seat cushions, face down, still warm. Marcus found it when he pulled into the Circle K to vacuum out his Camry before heading home. Three a. m. , Phoenix still holding the day's heat like a grievance...
Night Shift
The coffee maker in the office made the same grinding noise every night at eleven-fifteen. Dmitri had stopped noticing it months ago, but tonight the sound pulled him back from wherever his mind had been wandering. He looked at the monitors...
The Fence Between
Keiko stood at her kitchen window watching the woman next door struggle with a shovel. The woman—Rosa, she'd heard someone call her—was trying to dig a hole for what looked like a tomato plant. Wrong time of year for that. Wrong technique too...
The Language of Salt
Miguel heard them moving in on a Tuesday. The walls in the Riverside Gardens apartments were thin enough that he knew when his previous neighbor sneezed or watched television past ten. These new ones had children...
Morning Coffee
Sarah had been coming to Mabel's Corner Café for three years, two months, and sixteen days...