Going Where They Belong

Judith Day's Going Where They Belong is a book of gentle kindnesses, nine stories of people in transition and of people clearing circumspect paths for them. Told with a simplicity of language that expresses complexity of character, these stories place you squarely inside the quiet calamities of ordinary but wounded beings. Maybe it was her stint as a cabbie or her long-time practice in psychotherapy, or maybe it's teaching meditation that gives the author insight. These stories inhabit you with their specific and wonderful detail, their wit, their understanding, their compassion.

"Fiction," says Day, "is the best way for me to tell the truth about things."

This collection follows the 2023 release of Glowing in the Dark, Stories of Wounded Healers, also from Wordrunner Press. As in that book, several of these stories remain purely interior. In "Royal Flush," a woman tries to get back to sleep by counting past lovers instead of sheep. The detached narrator in "Stupid Buddha" mentally sorts through her alternatives as she flees downriver from a murder she committed but doesn't seem to regret:

I hated that Carol. The whole world is better off without her, but she isn't, I guess. The world would be better off without me, too, but I'm still here. I'd say it was her fault she's dead. But it isn't really. It's my fault.

"One person was appalled that I would celebrate such a psychopath," says Day. "To me, what I'm in touch with is her suffering, her needs, her losses." The story started with an image: a man hidden in the trees making his way down a creek. In the writing, the man became a woman, the creek a river. "Who she was and why she was there came along on its own," says Day. "I was inside her mind and stayed there the whole story except for recounting the killing—which was an imaginary event..." The motivations of the characters came easily from Day's connection with disturbed people in her community. And the subtle shift in the story provides understated hope.

Day's experience driving cabs in St. Louis inspired the vignettes in "Cabbie." In that story, Tony stashes enough fares to pay his rent and spends the rest doing what he loves: shopping in bargain stores. He is a keen observer who can't help but deduce the situations of the people he transports. One day, he's putting his thrift-store knowledge to use for a woman he's sure won't be able to pay. Another, he's singing opera to a man who admits, "I'm old and nobody loves me."

Day's skill for getting into her characters' minds may derive from her tendency to begin writing a single character, letting the story expand to include others. Perhaps in this way, writing is a bit like psychotherapy? Both require a willingness to let go of predictive outcomes by letting the writing—or the therapy—do itself, she says.

"Family Jewels," starts with Queenie searching for a diamond ring she wants to wear to lunch with a cousin whom she hasn't seen in 20 years—a cousin she was close to, despite a secret they never discussed. At lunch, Maryanne questions Queenie about why she referred to herself as a black sheep, and Queenie responds, "I don't know why, but I was. According to Grandma Jane, I was antisocial. Then when I grew up and had boyfriends, she said I was a slut."

The genesis for "The Sundown Side of the Rock" was a string mop absurdly found dangling from a tree during a camping trip. In that story, Bill, 16, is now in charge of his younger brother Tom as they find their options dwindling at a rock formation in the desert—a place they had visited with their drifter father before he disappeared:

We always camped on the sundown side of anything that was big enough to keep you in its shadow for quite a while when the sun came up.

It's not just the surreal appearance of that mop, but the challenge of climbing the rock, the leaking radiator, and the fleeting clouds that corral you into this absorbing story.

Two names inspired the unforgettable stars of "The Girls," which finds failed beauty queen, Miss Florida, living with her girlfriend Melba in a sticky St. Louis suburb:

Florida pulled the front of her clinging gown away from her body and waved it in and out, fanning herself. "What shall we do today, Mel?" Melba tapped her fingernail on the rim of an Old Fashioned glass that sat sweating on the ground beside her lounger. "I'm gonna start with this and see what happens."

Melba mulls returning to Jacksonville for a high school reunion, but Florida's comfort zone is narrowing—thrift shop, crosswords, Cardinals baseball on the radio. This funny yet poignant tale of love and growing old together lingers long after it's done.

A spousal disagreement inspired "Those Kind of People," which follows two couples from different social strata as they question their bonds after a lost wallet is returned:

"I can't believe anybody would put fifty dollars in your wallet," said Mary Jo. "Those kind of people would give CPR to roadkill."

Based on a personal experience, the locale and central object in "Crystal Monkey" have morphed over time. In it, Charlie's cancer leads to insights via a quest to find a missing artifact that had been gifted to a New Mexico meditation center:

Some spiritual people might say I'm attached. I don't feel I have to explain myself, but I'll just say this much: matter matters.

Perhaps the most humorous story is "If You Lived Here." With their litany of what you could be doing if you bought their house, a down-sizing couple evaluates prospective buyers from a hiding spot in the woods:

He is charmed by the idea of having a woodstove. But seeing the large piles of harvested and scavenged firewood, he wonders if the electric wall heater really warms the place enough. (It doesn't. If you lived here, you'd be cutting wood, shoveling ashes, cleaning the chimney, and you would still be cold on winter mornings.) She whispers to him: for this price, we can get four bedrooms, three acres, and a pool outside Omaha.

Written when Day and her husband sold their first house, revised as they contemplate selling the current one, this story was expanded to include a series of potential buyers. Did she actually spy from the woods? Yes!!

"I am marveling at how stories develop themselves," says Day, reflecting on this collection. "The writing is coming through you like a river." A river does thread through these tales, several of which are located in the river city of St. Louis, where Day grew up, as well as near Northern California's Russian River, a short distance from her current home. And like a river, these luminous stories—and the people in them—are seeking a level, flowing quite beautifully to where they belong.