Overview

This story was originally published in Day One, a weekly literary journal dedicated to short fiction and poetry from emerging writers.

They were almost past the emotional fallout from Rachel’s discovery that Mika nearly—but didn’t quite—have an affair. So when Mika receives a huge basket of Valentine’s roses she assumes are from the woman she could have slept with, she worries that all her hard-won steps toward reconciliation will be undone.

Desperate to get rid of the flowers before Rachel comes home, Mika winds up at the Far Point Senior Villas, sipping tea with her cantankerous great aunt Gladys. But there’s more in the candy hearts than just sugar, and soon a chain of mischief begins to unravel, revealing the biggest heartache of all: the universal yearning to be loved.

Funny and all too relatable, My Triple X Valentine’s at the Far Point Senior Villas is the story of discerning the delusion of love from the real thing and how mistakes of perception are so easy to make—over and over, again.