Milk

My long short-story "Milk," set mostly in and nearby the Cathedral close in Durham, England, has just been published in Minerva Rising Issue 18:  Reinvention, Resolution, Recreation.  

Despite her utter lack of resolution and self-confidence, after her archaeologist boyfriend leaves her for a Roman archaeobiologist, Virginia takes the path of least resistance to weather through, then by way of her love of cooking and her caring nature reinvents herself and recreates her life.  Here's an excerpt from near the beginning:

“It’s no use crying over spilled milk,” he had often quoted his no-nonsense Aunt Hattie, never married, who’d moved back to Santa Fe into his childhood house to take care of Joey and his two older sisters after their parents’ death.  Joey had readily embraced Hattie's dictum, not being one to regret, to look back.  Odd for someone studying the ancient past, some might argue, but he saw archaeology and art history as forwards progress, a necessary advancement of knowledge for the good of humankind.

         Though she was one to regret anything and everything, Virginia would much rather not be crying over it in public—and especially not in the spice aisle at the mega-Safeway on El Camino over a tin of bay leaves, exactly like the one she’d bought to make jambalaya with sausages and red peppers and chicken thighs for Joey’s 40^th birthday.