The day started tense. Not what Marie wanted on her day off work. The family all knew that there was to be a “proper” Thanksgiving dinner. And then Dad said he was going to join the lads at Dave’s to… Continue Reading
I read an article recently about harp seals. How their mothers abandon them just twelve days after they’re born, left to the elements, floating on ice in the frigid ocean. Biologists say it teaches the seal pups survival, lessons of… Continue Reading
My dad never learned how to swim. As a kid, it always made me nervous because he had to drive over a bridge to get to work. What if he drove into the lake? Or what if he pulled over… Continue Reading
He only sees her sometimes. Maybe once or twice a year, if that, and only then when he’s caught off guard. When, preoccupied with exhaustion or the grim necessities of survival, she slips his mind for a moment that allows… Continue Reading
for Gael Queuing… a particularly British habit. So orderly. So polite. So not Hilary. Hilary wasn’t one to queue. Not if she could avoid it. She put it down to being half-Austrian. She had neither the time nor the inclination.… Continue Reading
The day of the funeral, it fails to rain. It would be easier to bear if the sky wept with us. Instead, sunlight and warmth touch every corner of our mountains, flicker on every tree leaf, fill each breeze. A… Continue Reading
I’d forgotten how much I hated small talk until we hit the interstate. Three hours into the trip I pull into a truck stop to buy Meredith a Milky Way and some headphones. My hope was that the caramel might… Continue Reading
“You didn’t have to come with me, Sam. I’m okay.” Sam handed me the challah I’d made the day before, wrapped in a cloth. He’d always scared me a little bit, tall and athletic and proud. He looked like the… Continue Reading
I was eleven years old when I learned that penguins, in fact, are incapable of flight. It may seem like a mundane — even embarrassing — revelation, but to me, it changed the course of my life. Five years prior… Continue Reading
The flowers glow against the pewter light of a soggy spring. You regard them with distaste. Your feet smack against the pavement, thud, thud, thud, aggravation weighting your steps. You do not want to go. You do not want to… Continue Reading