Replacing the Vacuum
We did not choose our son to replace the vacuum. He discovered plenty of dirt on his own, and when the Hoover broke, he took to it. First, he rolled around collecting glitter and string. Lint flattened out under his roller-pin frame. Cat fur strung around his neck, and to regain mobility we scissored free […]
SOS
Jake’s life was saved when he a was seventeen-year-old skinny boy dressed all in black, walking out of Grand Central Station with his own song blasting on his Walkman. At the time, he lived and breathed rock and roll. It would all have come to a halt if that Manhattan businessman had not grabbed Jake […]
Roundabouts
She doesn’t know if she should leave him. He has become too distant. Martin never looks at her when she tries to talk with him. He always has somewhere else he’d rather be. And now she has lost him at The Fair. Anne edges through the crowd past the food stands. The smell of fried […]
The Barber Sees Too Much
He went to school to be a barber, but he discovered that he only liked razors and the way they shaved clean lines with no wriggle room. His second customer was distraught both in and out of the mirror, but he stood firm, explaining that the lines were a map of her heart. He went […]
What’s Your Superpower?
The secret club was really Lynn’s idea. We would all have secret names that we used only when we were alone together, we would practice our superpowers, and we would write spells—both love spells and curses—and try them out on boys we knew. We all lived in the North Fields subdivision, and three of us […]
Shopping for the Sometimes Submerged
You resurface. Your hair feels like a trawler net. Caught within it are shells, splinters of shipwrecks and shards of glass from broken messages in a bottle. At least this is the way it feels to you, when you finally dinglehopper your fingers through it. The store lights seem too bright. They still seem to […]
EXPIRATION DATE
I remember you, she says, looking right through me. The deserted sky flares into tourmaline blue, ballet slipper pink, and flushed merlot, covering the valley like paint. It is the long cold season and the winds swirl, throwing her voice so that it seems to come from somewhere else. I have imagined this moment, ruminated […]
Dad’s Manila Envelope
My dad lifted himself into the parked wheelchair. “The day I can’t do this anymore you’ll be pushing me out on a gurney straight into the stove.” “Oh come on, Dad, you had a great checkup this year.” “Thank you, Margaret, you look lovely in that saucy sweater. Cashmere?” I’m not Margaret, but lately he […]