The Wrong Suitcase “Please tell me you haven’t looked inside.” That’s what my best friend said to me on the phone, twenty minutes after we got home from the best […]
The Grantham room at the Ivywood Club on Providence Road had been booked under my father’s name every October for as long as I could remember. The same client appreciation […]
He offered to teach me “the basics” at the range, then the instructor recognized my callsign. Brett had been building up to it all weekend. Ever since he arrived at […]
The Plastic Chairs “Grandma… am I dirty?” My six-year-old daughter, Amber, asked it in a small, careful voice. The kind of voice kids use when they already think they know […]
The first time I saw the cabin, I cried. And not in a good way. It was June of 1986. I was twenty-three years old. Thomas and I had been […]
Greatest Regret My mother had walked both of my sisters down the aisle. Twice each. Four weddings. Four times she held their arms and smiled for the cameras like she […]
The first time I saw my father stand in the rain on purpose, I was seven years old. It was November in Eugene, Oregon. The kind of rain that doesn’t […]
When my sister Emily was six years old, she had eleven baby dolls, and every single one of them had a name. There was Rosie and Bea and Marcus and […]
The Suit My fiancée walked down the aisle wearing an oversized old men’s suit. Nobody knew she was going to do it. Not me. Not my family. And judging by […]
When I was seven years old, I drew a picture of my family on the back of a church bulletin. I drew my mother with yellow hair, because she’d dyed […]