Many moments in our lives are shared with just one other human being. Those moments can be intensely personal, momentous, magical—secret, or simply protected from public view. Decades can pass without that other human being in our lives, but there is daily comfort in knowing that out there, somewhere, is a person who shares the […]
Arms Negotiations
“Oh, sweetie, what’s the matter?” The television was on as I walked through the living room with a full basket of clean laundry, and there was Alix, scrunched down behind his child-sized overstuffed rocker, putting it between himself and the screen. His bright, four-year-old eyes looked up at me carefully, so as not to bring […]
Magician’s Assistant
Tumbleweeds escort our van down the long, grey slash, making my eyes and thoughts roll around in bumpy circles. Everything is beige. This van, its cushioned bench, the flat plain, the blowing sand, the tumbleweeds, my face at the window, and my life—all beige. The colors, you know, they’re behind my eyes (stretched out between […]
Sibyl
With love, thanks, and apologies to Sibyl May 1917 Hardtack and a few bits of paper sailed out of the train windows. Sibyl reached down for a cracker that had hit her bare toe. “Please write to me—Joseph H. Riley—Ft. Russell, Wyoming,” was pencil-scratched around and through the craters of the cracker’s surface. Trains full […]
First Day
You stand outside the door, looking up at me. Crackly new backpack, shoes saved for today’s first wearing, Your face a pale, inscrutable mask with large eyes. So serious. “Do you want me to walk with you up the hill?” A headshake no. Ready to be Big. Ready to join the world. Your brother, also […]
Pie
“Rustic” might be too generous a description for the cabin of plywood walls built around an enormous chimney of water-rounded stones and hand-packed cement. The only other heat source in the rented beach house was the battered electric stove in the kitchen, and after 5 days with only books and board games, I decided that […]
First Apartment
The glued edge of the deep orange shag carpet interrupted the painted cement floor of the kitchen entry, its black edges describing years of tenants making their way from the basement door to the frayed couch in the uninviting main room. Beyond, through a doorless archway, the bare red floor resumed, meeting the white cement […]
Last Breath
Sitting by the metal bed, I had no job but to watch. No contribution to make, no internal query to find answer to. I watched a single breath, a lonely inhalation, and waited as a slight pause was followed by the inevitable outward breeze. My mother, next to me and holding my father’s hand, looked […]