When I was seven my father threw out my mother’s vintage dining table. It was a beautiful, untrustworthy beast that sucked all the air out of the room and swallowed up any tendril of light. Both marveling and fearing it, I’d run my hands down the curvature of its chestnut-colored legs; weeks later my hands
I arrived in New York in the late summer of 1883, having crossed by the Guion Line with the Liverpool and Great Western Company. At once, I set myself up with digs in Lower Manhattan near the Christopher Street Pier on the Hudson River, at the time a dark nest of competing factions. Wrapped up
The Pull-over “A Corvette?” Nadine repeated. “You’re kind of old for a mid-life crisis, aren’t you? And besides, don’t they cost $100,000?” “Not a new one,” George replied. “A used one. One of the curvy models. I’ve got my eye on one for $20,000.” “What’s wrong with our Camry?” “Not a thing. I just want
1. In a small room, high above a street in Los Angeles, a man lies sleeping beneath an open window. The blinds are closed, rattling softly in the breeze, but daggers of sunlight pierce the slats and blaze across the thin, greying counterpane that rises and falls with each breath. Behind closed lids, the sleeper’s
The banner between the trees read: “Welcome Home, Logan!” On the table below the banner there was a spread of yellow cake, hamburger buns, chips, ketchup and mustard, a plate of grilled meats, and fizzy red punch in a plastic bowl. In sweaters and jeans, Logan, Becky, and Sharise assembled their meals. Leaves were falling
My daughter will be joining me soon, and while part of me loves that idea, it fills me with sadness too. It will mean the end of an era, the final disintegration of our family which was small enough to start with. I sit with my husband and my daughter sometimes. I sit with them
“We shall not,” Reverend Morrison whacked the pulpit, “stroll at our ease into the Kingdom of Heaven. For the Lord tells us, ‘Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life.’” In the front pew Michelle suppressed a shiver, conscious of being observed from the rows behind. To her right her
“Try to relax,” the doctor said, her voice pragmatic and assured, issuing the impossible command. “You’re doing fine, Lenora,” the nurse added, her voice soothing and empathetic, issuing the white lie. The strangers who comforted Lenora were completely anonymous; their names had not been revealed to her for their own protection, even though April knew
The new waitress says he reminds her of someone. She presses a finger to her lips, frowning slightly as she looks him up and down, then shakes her head. ‘I can’t think who it is. The image is blurred, a little fuzzy around the edges. If I could sharpen you up, pull you into focus,
To the Satellite Beach I keep the pieces on my desk, fitting them together as an opaque, incomplete lens. Collecting them from one and another shore and soul across the world they merge into a single story like a flawed memory. I like flawed memories because they can be unintentionally hilarious, often misdirected, sometimes tragic
