I stand behind, holding Riley’s hair in my hands, twisting the damp lengths into Dutch braids while she thumbs through notifications on her phone. With practiced fingers I smooth the hair, which is honey brown when wet and, in places, darker with shadows. I weave, my hands trapped in the loom, and slowly an elegant […]

After dinner, we settle our forks on plates smeared delicious, and I give thanks. Around one sentence gather so many gifts: dinner, delicious, we. Adam stands, reaches for Kevin’s plate, then mine, stacking them with careful clatter beneath his own. His eyes flick past Riley, who still needs to finish a few bites, to Zoe, […]

In the late afternoon, having satisfied my heart on sweet conversation, I convince myself to take our mother-daughter mugs–empty now, but still warm in my hands–to the sink. But in that pregnant moment between the decision and my middle-aged groan, Riley squeezes into the chair beside me. It’s a chair and a half, but there […]

Before morning light cracks the sky, Kevin drives away for work. In the headlight beams, I watch raindrops gently fall, but everywhere else, the morning looks blank and still. Coming up behind me, Riley wraps her arms around my shoulders. I lift a hand, folding my fingers into the sign for I love you, and […]

As the day bends toward night, we fill the kitchen with simmering smells–bits of onion sizzling with chicken and pungent Indian spices, the roasted sweetness of Winter squash. The sky matures to a dusky persimmon, and I wipe butternut gold from the blade of the knife. “Mom Jones, when’s Dad Jones coming home?” Riley asks, […]

Beside the auditorium door, Adam sways, a reed gently tossed, rooted at the feet. For Adam, this represents an attempt at stillness, this planted shifting of weight from foot to foot. I glance at him and smile, and he bends a lengthy arm, touching his name tag with the tips of his fingers, moving a […]

At the dawn of day, while yet the dark of dying night redacts our view, I huddle in the chair by a flickering fire, coffee cup warm on my fingers. The one hand cradling, the other cupped to receive, my heart turns to prayer. I worship; I confess; I give thanks; I ask, withholding nothing. […]

It makes me want to hide. I type the words–vulnerable, the most honest ones I can offer, into my text to Kevin, curling my phone in exactly the way I want to curl myself, further and further away, until I’ve hidden all the tender parts of me. This day, so heavy with life, feels so […]

Home from a walk and still smelling like outside, that fresh blend of newborn and dying things, we walk into the living room. The Winter chill still pinks our cheeks. I know, because I see it still blooming on Kevin’s face as he shrugs off his extra layers, as I bend to plant a light […]

After dinner, gathered around the blessing-table, our emptied, sopped-up plates abandoned like islands, our bodies weary from the day, we feast on family. “We should play a game,” Kevin says, and I get up to look in the cabinet where we keep them. Adam follows, towering behind me, swaying like a pendulum. For Adam, stillness […]