LEARNING OUR LINES: 1952 Mommy is dying. There is a lump growing inside her and it takes all the food. Mommy sleeps alone now and Grandmother sleeps on a cot next to Mommy's bed so she can hear if anything happens or she's needed. Daddy sleeps in my bed and I sleep with Sissy in…
They are together and asleep between cotton sheets when the phone rings. Early morning bleeds blue through tinted shades. Tanner reaches back to the endstand for the receiver without rolling over. He recognizes the heavily accented voice of his father-in-law instantly, though he has not heard it in years. The line is thick with fuzzy…
I once asked Lizard whether he too watched the iridescent lights that played across his vision. Whenever I am weary and confused, I shut my eyes and wait as the orbs of yellow and phosphorescent blue creep in from the sides. Lizard said he wished he could slither between my lids. I laughed because I…
Every night I use to think, I have to get up, because it always like this. Wait, listen, hold my own breathing till I hear him. I would breathe in his rhythm, try and take in the air he done let out his mouth, back then when it was still sweet and warm, like years…
Cara has crooked feet because we're poor. They are twisted up like an old lady's and bunions haunt her big toes. She's getting the wraps off today and she's truly believing her feet are going to be beautiful. Mama spoons some dry pancake mix into her mouth and says, "Don't get your hopes too high….
She wrote to say this: Send me a picture of the boy we never had, the one with blue eyes, big ears, and a smile that says, Nothing, so far, has hurt too bad. She wrote: Yesterday, when I got your letter, I carried it with me like a dark bloom. I took it with…
Emma's tongue woke him, wending a slow trail downward from his chest and making his hair stand on end. "Mmmm, salty," she said, smacking her lips as his eyes fluttered open, and then the trail of moistness, cool against the morning air, continued down, while Flaubert, the cat, observed with oriental and detached curiosity, and…
There are four of them: Rick and MaryAnn, Molly and Molly's father, MaryAnn's ex. His name is Art. He is a gangly man with a reddish beard and a face that is slightly off kilter. Even on the river he smokes constantly and flicks the butts of his cigarettes into the brown, swift water. They…
My father looked very healthy on the day of his death. There was radiance in his face, light in his eyes, his cheeks were ruddy with a good circulation of blood. It was December 6th, and there was a slanted snowstorm outdoors. When you looked through the window, you had a feeling that the whole…
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