Mitchell vanished from my life more abruptly than anyone had. Though we had been exceptionally close as children, he came infrequently to mind as I grew older. High school graduation then college in Upstate New York, my first job, and my first kiss with another man, all passed without a thought of Mitchell. It was …
Thank you, Dr. Payne-Walker, both for the kind introduction and the invitation to speak at this distinguished annual ceremony. Thank you also for directions to the chapel. Any spiritual interests disappeared long before I arrived on campus eleven years ago. And, yes, I knew about the other prayer breakfasts held here, as well as the …
I opened my email and there was the apology. I’d reached out to Thunder several weeks earlier. We hadn’t spoken or even exchanged messages in years, but I’d just read an article that made me think of him. Marcel Marceau, the famous Parisian mime teacher, had died and the article examined his legacy. Did Thunder …
There was an air of license beforehand, an anticipatory giddiness, especially between Gil and Angela, though they weren’t partaking, only making sure I came to no harm. At one point, as Gil refilled Angela’s glass, some of it missed the mark and trickled down her forearm; he ran a finger slowly up its track, elbow …
Marcus woke at the water, teetering in a cold wind. It was night and in his blurry return to consciousness he watched as a mink stalked the edges of the tide, indifferent to his presence. A bit of childhood trivia told him mustela vison hated saltwater and yet here it was, like a totem freed …
i Every morning, when the black of sky had barely lightened to a deep blue in the east and the camp lay quiet and exhausted, Maggie McCurdy heard her father stir, and prop himself up on one elbow, and say to her mother, “All right, old woman, time.” Then Maggie’s mother sat up, eyes wide …
Baba spent the early hours of the morning in his study. He was writing a novel and didn’t want to be disturbed. On bad days he yelled at Ma who then yelled at me. On good days he took me to the bookstore. I could only read the books he selected. Thakurmar Jhuli was permitted. …
When bumps that look like something between pimples and warts erupt across her stomach, the doctor welcomes her to the postpartum experience, tells her bodies do weird things. When her underarm hair starts to grow down her ribcage, thick and stiff, almost like the shaft of a feather, he tells her she needs to stop …
When she was twenty-one and in her third year of university, my mother’s younger sister, my Aunt Toun, became pregnant. She sat in our flat, her eyes red and raw from crying, a tissue crumpled into a ball in her fist, but my mother’s takeaway was that Aunt Toun was in a relationship and having …
I didn’t think of myself as lonely before I met Thom, which may be the same as saying I wasn’t, not quite, until he came along—that he made me unhappy. Papers had been placed before me; I’d been told to sign and sign. Keys had been deposited into my hand while my fingers still echoed …