I was seven. That’s not right. I had just had the water balloon birthday party, so it was late summer of 1999. I was nine. The sun had started its dive into the cornfield-covered horizon and my stomach was full… Continue Reading
She wants a cookie, chocolate chip. But she can’t eat just one. If she starts, she’ll devour the whole box so she decides to go for a run instead and goes into the bedroom to change into her ‘running’ clothes… Continue Reading
When I was almost five, my Aunt Evelyn discovered that my birthday falls on International Talk like a Pirate Day. “ARRRRRRH,” Aunt Ev brandished a hooked hand and waited until I looked up from my cupcake. “This be the tale… Continue Reading
Your lips on a ram’s horn. A new year. You explained religion as a binary, 0s and 1s. Thou shalt. Thou shalt not. At an early age, or so you told me, you decided your upbringing, centered as it was… Continue Reading
I pull dresses and pants, jackets and blouses from the closet and stuff them into plastic trash bags. Given the pandemic, I couldn’t find a charity to take Pearl’s clothes even though, for all the COVID patients she treated, she… Continue Reading
Bobblehead. I’m a bobblehead, he thought, and smiled at the mental picture of an Albert Einstein one that he saw online one time. It woke him up slightly, which he needed to do; falling asleep in public would be embarrassing.… Continue Reading
“They look like little dolls of yarn,” Paul said. We were gathered along the length of the office windows staring down at the man we named Charlie. “The arms are up in the air, angled out like a ‘Y,’” Paul… Continue Reading
The night before school goes back, my son and I watch his ‘Welcome to Year 2’ video, sitting side by side at the kitchen table. Within a few seconds, I can picture myself, legs wrapped around my son’s teacher, him… Continue Reading
“But Da, I don’t wanna this week.” “Ye have to. It’s Sunday.” “I don’t feel well.” “Don’t be daft. Yer goin, John Paul. Ye need to be there.’’ “It’s J… P,” I snapped back. John Paul is for the Pope… Continue Reading
“Guinevere!” my mother said. My waking eyes saw everything as slow, disparate images on a just-light background; she was a flash of red athletic wear and a sudden weight on the end of my bed, a frenzied face and a… Continue Reading