When Momma left, family stopped. Was it worse before? Maybe for her. But she was what tied us together. The fabric ripped as soon as she was gone. The unraveling continues, even today. The flashback took me by surprise. It’s not that I thought I’d...
The first time my father had his foot amputated the surgery didn’t take. We’re not talking a case of phantom limb, here. The morning after they severed the offending appendage, it was back. Just like that. Dad was up and walking around the hospital...
I had a dog named Jake. Jake had a doghouse in the backyard. Like this: red, with a white roof. Can you see it? Behind it was the sandbox where I buried countless G.I. Joes. Some might still be there, who knows? When I was five, when I was ten, when...
Denying When the police officers arrive at the house, you’re in your dressing gown, just about to climb into bed. You hear their words, but you know it’s a mistake. They’ve got the wrong house, or the wrong registration plate, or it’s a practical...
Petrach is humming. It is something grand—a courtship for those not sleeping. He has tried sleeping. It does not work. Now he is standing at his mirror, blurry in his 2 am reflection. It is cold, the fire in the living room doesn’t reach the...
I should’ve never answered that Craigslist ad. I’m bunkered in this motel room leering out a window with my fingers between the blinds while staring at the dark and counting the rain drops. The evening bleeds into the night. The night offers no...
When I was eleven I fell in love with Mathew—not Matt or Mat-the-Rat or MC (who was also a Matt)—but Mathew, who had a whole name and small hands, who I shaved my legs for and who never kissed me or even looked at me like he wanted to. When I was...
“Come on, just jump!” Back and forth you pump your legs, and for one fleeting moment, you feel as if you are aboard a rocket ship whose engines are failing at the peak of its climb. You’re afraid to take flight. It’s easy for Max to say jump; he’s...
I. The boy sat bow-legged on the saddle. Young and headstrong. The freewheeling age of thirteen. He rode past matchstick saguaros and sandstone towers that cut through the cracked earth like compound fractures. His sombrero was dusty, his saddlebags...
Her father brings her with him each night to his shift at the tie-treating plant. He clocks in while she sits in the back of the Nash Rambler and clutches her blanket. She stares into the dark, focuses on the doorway—where he will sneak out of...
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