Category: Family
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Headway
In the 40’s it took 10 minutes for men in coats to drill into housewives’ human bone like needles through thick wool …
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Our Crimsoned Future
Blood on the tissue. Stomach tumbling to hard tile, anchored to expiration…
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Regifting
“I know he’s not real.” She nodded softly, guided two slumping shoulders down the hall and from under a frumpy bed produced a worn shoebox. His velvet hands removed wrinkled envelopes, and together they visited the time before…
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Yard Sale Locket
The clasp clicked shut, two halves of precious metal meeting into an oval…
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At the Break Line
Salty spray smacks both bony knees. Shrieking in delight, four-year-old me retreats to my smiling dad, churning foam and sand as I muscle through. From shore, mom watches, perfect-posture regal. A pale hand shades her roving eyes…
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Deconstructing Mom
They would start in the den Small. Organized. Dad had said to take anything they might use…
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Timing Out
The thin print paper crackled in my quaking hands. “The usual,” I thought. So I chucked eight inches of directions, disclaimers and diagrams into the bin. Then I peed and prayed…
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Balance of Nature
When the doctor guided Josue into the world, his grandmother’s face crinkled in glee. “We’re fifteen now!” she squealed…
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Here They Kill the Mustard by May
While her husband drove, Margaret kept her eyes closed, trying to identify each roll to the right, each jostle to the left along West Road. She had guessed the first curve was the bend around the Tudor house. The one being gutted behind a green privacy fence. “Privacy? Everyone knows what they’re doing,”
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Vacancy
In the apartment, we only had a living room. Now the burbs have gifted us a family room, too. Another unnecessity, like the fireplace that will stand sterile in 70-degree winters…