Seventy-five-year-old Pete waved his gun, shouting, “He stole my shoes!”

Vera told the police he was wearing the “stolen” shoes. They talked Pete into turning over the gun and leaving with them.

Vera twisted the engagement ring she’d worn for 20 years as she waited for his wife to die.

Diane de Anda, a retired UCLA professor and third-generation Latina, has edited four books and published numerous articles in scholarly journals, short stories, poetry, and essays in Rosebud, Straylight, Storyteller, Pacific Review, Frogpond, Modern Haiku, Bottle Rockets, Presence, and others, eight children’s books, satires in Humor Times, and a collection of 40 flash fiction stories.