And brushing my teeth, I think of Santa Claus and the North Pole and how round it is at the top of the world and how small my hand is, holding my toothbrush, going back and forth. The sink is white as snow, and there in the snow I can see the reindeer with their big round eyes. I don’t want to spit in the sink
Continue reading… "Saving Santa"Fire ripped through her right kneecap as she slammed herself onto the hard floor, pulling the boy to her left down with her. The linoleum was slippery, warm, wet. The blood was coming from everywhere, deep pools of it swallowing and suffocating. The boy was choking and screaming, trying to crawl away from her tightly balled fist that held desperately to the leg of his black jeans.
Continue reading… "The Reckoning"In the old days Italians must have had a lot of fun insulting each other. I don’t doubt they still do, but the difference is that many of the medieval jibes turned into family names. Before I married I was a Calvo (“Baldie”). When I was growing up we had neighbors named Nasato (“Big Nose”) and a street over was a
Continue reading… "A Loan to God"Josh has a really cool poster taped on his ceiling above his bed. It’s an interpretation of what Aristotle looked like with lots of bright colors. Underneath the picture it says, “It is the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men live only for the gratification of it.” He has a lot of posters, but this one is the biggest and my favorite. I really get it. And it sums up everything Josh stands for.
Continue reading… "Without a Picture"It was nearly 25 years ago he first asked me, over a burger and fries in a local tavern on my lunch break, whether I had ever thought about having a thing with him. Caught off-guard, I reply too honestly, “Yeah but the Valley is way too small,” and I change the topic. As if the question was never on the table. I look away, but the thought registers. I think about my husband.
Continue reading… "Film is the Cure"He called The Courier the day after they buried Priscilla. As town librarian for decades, she’d been the one who read it, occasionally calling his attention to local news. His only consistent use of the paper was to clip the crossword they did in bed together each night before turning out the light. He tried a puzzle the night after the funeral, but didn’t complete it.
Continue reading… "The Man Who Cancelled the Newspaper"Julie and I are standing at the bar. We’re taking small sips of our bottles of Smirnoff and Julie shouts in my ear, “I want to join a student organization. But I don’t know which one. There are so many.”
“Hard,” I shout back.
Continue reading… "Last School Party"The bridesmaid’s dress from your best friend Nina’s wedding, three months before your own, baby’s breath blue, strapless, tea length; it swirled when you danced with your him. Nina had pre-wedding jitters. You had none. You thought you’d found the perfect man. So thoughtful. So kind. So attentive. He said you were the love of his life, his jewel. He bought you flowers for no reason at all.
Continue reading… "In a Box for Goodwill"As a human being, living in the world, I know it’s all a game. But what if I don’t know the rules?
This is the question I am asking myself as someone flashes their high beams in my rear-view mirror. The lights are so bright and close I tense for the impact.
Continue reading… "Brakes"We were having a heat wave, the kind that grabbed you in its jaws and shook you like I saw the neighbor’s dog do once with a rabbit. He’d snuffed it out, poor bunny. Even the clothes on the line seemed limp and perpetually damp. Six o’clock and neither of us felt like firing up the grill. I could barely muster the energy to throw together a salad, open a tin of tuna.
Continue reading… "The Cooling"