While the grown-ups conferred in the hospital room, Lena filled the dim hallway with her anxious energy. She hopscotched up and down the checkered floor, avoiding the white tiles. Black tiles only. Black tiles only. Grandma alive. Lena pictured Grandma… Continue Reading
This should have been our best Christmas yet. But it all comes unravelled with the prick of a needle. Jake has become so blasé about these finger prick tests that he doesn’t even notice the message when it first pings… Continue Reading
The news says that today’s temperature is the highest recorded in twenty-five years. With this comes a choking humidity. To relieve myself of the oppressive weather, I take off my skin, unzipping it from the back. Immediately I’m rewarded with… Continue Reading
In the morning, Mrs. Anderson said: “We’re all just dustbins. You and I are no different from cobwebs or used paper plates. Everything inside us gets swept away by the wind eventually.” By afternoon, Principal Lopez was standing in the… Continue Reading
If I saw all my ex-boyfriends on the train, I would not be surprised. There’s a section called the Transbay Tube that most commuters take and it is crowded. Breathing in there can be difficult sometimes and nobody was free… Continue Reading
How a moose got into the cabin, I do not know. We’d been down to Rosa’s café for a hot bowl of chili verde on a cool night, and I could’ve sworn I closed the door on our way out.… Continue Reading
It didn’t snow this year, but it doesn’t matter. Mrs White (née Flynn) doesn’t like the snow anyway. It makes her joints flare up and she’s turning seventy next year, you know. She doesn’t need the bother. And anyway, the… Continue Reading
I “We get in, get the tree, get out,” says Dad. “Got it?”Football begins in less than two hours; my family is on the clock. II Marc points out that Christmas trees do not grow in Bethlehem. It would be… Continue Reading
“Grandma, did your son die?” I gasp at my six-year-old’s innocent question to my mom. We are outside on the patio, enjoying pasta salad and barbecue, lost in mundane conversation about swimming lessons and arranging who will pick up the… Continue Reading
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