I sat, staring at the empty pleather bench on the other side of the table, washing my huevos rancheros down with crafty beer and glancing at the clock on my iPhone. It had been fifteen minutes since he went outside… Continue Reading
On the dawn of my forty-third birthday, I woke up and went to the bathroom just like any other day. Before my butt hit the seat, even before my underwear made it past my thighs, my womb fell right out… Continue Reading
My sister was thirteen when she died. All crooked and soft white like a dogwood flower floating on the water. I heard my mother sobbing on the phone that she had broken her neck nearly to a ninety-degree angle, a… Continue Reading
Behind me, hundreds of papers rustle like the wall is trying to shed its skin. Rain and snow have reduced the pigments on the pages to a neutral gray blob of featureless faces. The names are no more than bleeding… Continue Reading
I did not know my zayde was a writer until the day of my bat mitzvah in March 1989. Everyone was congratulating me on my bat mitzvah but also him on his newest book. For my bat mitzvah, he gave… Continue Reading
That summer I was sixteen. I had a job at a dog groomer’s. I cleaned clumps of hair out of shower drains. I brushed down show dogs. I clipped long, crescent shaped toenails, trying my hardest not to cut the… Continue Reading
I step into the comfort of the ancient woods. I push deeper into their tangled darkness. I need to be lost, to be far away from the world, my home, my family. Somewhere I cannot be found, somewhere I can… Continue Reading
One swing of the bat and a frozen rope laced foul from the barrel of a 32-ounce bat beaned my Dad straight in the left temple, and he crumpled in my lap. It was opening day. I was ten years… Continue Reading
Elias never forgot the day. His mother sewed by the fire. His father oiled a saddle. He told the therapist, “I was twelve. I’d been ill. Measles. The fever shifted something. I remember all at once feeling my mother’s presence… Continue Reading
“A class ring is a great reminder of all the memories you made in school,” the man in the too-small suit said to me, holding out the gold ring. On it was the school crest: a shield and two striking… Continue Reading