Eighteen-year-old Stories

My parents took off for a weekend vacation, leaving me with our next-door neighbor, Mrs. Jones, and she seemed pretty happy to get a break from her husband. I've heard they haven't been getting along well since their kids left for college. I just turned eighteen and will be starting college in the fall, so a babysitter seems pretty unnecessary, but my folks were dead set on Mrs. Jones staying at our house, which completel...

My brother, David, is not like me. He was faithfully married for many years and deeply in love with his wife, looking after her during her long illness until finally she lost her battle with cancer. David took her death very hard and remained single while he brought up my two nephews, Richard and Ian, who are now grown up. So I was delighted when David called to tell me he was re-marrying. He is a surgeon and met his fian...

Helen had always loved horses and was an accomplished rider. As a young girl, she'd been fanatical about gymkhanas and had shelves full of now-tarnished trophies and tattered rosettes. Of course, Daddy had indulged her every whim, and she'd had her own horses from an early age. Now, aged eighteen and in her first year at university, she had discovered polo. Not only did it challenge her riding skills, but many of the play...

A taxi crunched up the long gravel drive. I opened the front door to let in my daughter, her current boyfriend, James, and two of my daughter's friends. They were off clubbing in town tonight, but their main reason was to see some band I'd never heard of on Saturday. I grinned to myself. It was also my birthday, and I bet that thought had never crossed my daughter's mind. Not that I cared much; I was way past celebrating...