I remember thinking it would be funny to disappear from the trail when my parents least expected. We walked in a line beneath the pines with Mom in front and me...
A black tile T stretches across the floor of the hotel pool. Last time I saw tiles like that I was six and convinced they were hammerhead sharks. But then I had...
I sat on my mother’s couch, posthumously chosen during a sisterly round robin. Sun salved me and honeyed the couch so like her: sturdy on its legs, densely pil...
A girl and a woman approach each other on the street going the opposite direction.
The girl is 15, maybe 16. The woman is three times her age, maybe more.
...
From the back porch, I check on the fire’s progress. Just over the tree line, dark columns of smoke billow. The fires, I know, are closing fast on the ranch. Th...
By the time you get around to picking up the pills it’s been nearly eight weeks, and the doc or tech or whoever she was—some white lady in scrubs—made sure you ...
The birds and the bees come and go. They graze on my leaves. They flutter against my stalk, buzzing or chirping their contentment. They always pause at my flowe...
My father came after my bedtime, but I could hear my mother talking to him. She said she would not let him in, and while he stood at the foot of the porch she c...
“It’s all history with you,” she said. It was an accusation.
“I just wondered if you remembered trying it,” he said.
They were driving west on Green away ...
The surgeon has hands like a polished sword. That’s what her husband says, like a polished sword.
He buys her roses for their anniversary; he opens a bottle ...
