Mom was way into Santa. But I always found the red suit, flushed pigmentation, and overall jolliness a bit creepy. Not to mention the standing invitation for strangers to sit on his lap. When I argued that he couldn’t possibly… Continue Reading
The guitar would cost extra. Liam tallied up the baggage costs in his head. His son usually forgot something important like underwear or Ted Bear. Liam didn’t remember seeing Ted last night when he tucked his son into bed, though.… Continue Reading
We’ve been scattered by the wind to all the corners, we four. Time has made us half-strangers, and we all feel it, looking at each other, seeing where the new lines have formed, the touches of grey, the softening around… Continue Reading
“My father’s a writer.” When Seth’s turn came around in class he said what he’d been taught to say. He could have more truthfully announced, “My father’s in marketing,” but no, his parents had drilled the writer line into him,… Continue Reading
No matter who Jax asked about the old times, before his people made webs over the dead city, the answer was always similar. Nobody knows, the old stories don’t say. Under the shrugs, a signal almost too faint to hear:… Continue Reading
A glowing wife wraps a “Baby’s First Christmas” bib for her husband’s stocking. *** Sean bashes his rattle against his wooden high chair. His parents dance close to “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” *** Sean leaps onto his sleeping parents shrilling,… Continue Reading
My memories of her are my earliest. She was the kind of mother you hear about in stories, ever patient. She made my father happy and he adored her. My sister and I were allowed to jump on the bed,… Continue Reading
My mother keeps a jar of Loneliness in the cupboard: top right hand corner, next to the packet of Seething Resentment; both are past their sell by dates, both hardened and crystallized in the suffocating air. I beg her to… Continue Reading
There’s lots of green, and it’s very bright, and that seems wrong. My head feels like a beehive, and there’s a slight hum, from crying or maybe gritting my teeth. There are lots of words, most of them heartfelt but they… Continue Reading
The sunset filtered through the tree branches just above where the darkening sky touched the horizon. Pale pink and gauzy blue, the colors were so delicate Maisie could only see them if she cut her eyes to the side. Out… Continue Reading