As soon as Kevin leaves the room, Riley slips through the open door and flops on the sofa beside me, hairbrush in one hand, all that hair still dark wet and snarled, swinging against her back and scattering droplets. Immediately I notice her red-rimmed eyes, but choose not to say anything at first, carefully sliding […]

The kitchen smells savory-rich, of comfort and warmth and vacation, of salty, sizzling bacon, slowly melting butter, and just lightly, of syrup. This morning, we cook up breakfast sandwiches assembly-line style, sipping coffee and talking, our voices rising and falling among the clatter of plates and pans. Here and there, a chuckle, a yawn, a […]

Saturday morning, and Kevin and I call Adam downstairs to cook. Kevin has been teaching Adam to make creamy garlic cheese grits for Saturday morning brunch, but we like to try different menus, and weeks have passed since they last cooked together. “Get your recipe,” Kevin says, gesturing with one hand toward the drawer where […]

That breeze today, it tickles my cheeks, warm Autumn winds dancing over rising hills, an invisible thumb tracing the lines of my face. I press my hand flat against the pages to keep them from drifting up. That hand, it’s my mother’s hand, perpetually tanned, rooted with veins like a stretch of earth beneath a […]

Robert Frost would be proud: Every night Adam roams and roams for miles before he sleeps, up and down the same stretch of hall, his heavy tread pressing the carpet flat, beating out a path. Thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk. In muffled pilgrimage, he travels overhead, across the living room ceiling and back […]

In the morning, we friends gather on Zoom, collecting on a screen the way we once surrounded coffee shop tables, dropping handbags on the floor, dragging over extra chairs, only now new windows open into presence in front of us like blinking eyes, and here I sit at home with my wet-from-the-shower hair, and we […]

“But I don’t know when she’ll wake up,” Riley says, gulping back her tears even as they glisten. “I know,” I say, a hand on her shoulder, thinking how hard it is to persevere, not knowing when. “But she doesn’t have to get up at any certain time; she doesn’t like to in the Summer.” […]

Late afternoon, and I walk outside to pick up the mail, noticing only the lazy thick heat of the sun on my bare arms, the faint glint of light bouncing off the driveway. Abstractedly, I try summoning the energy to prepare dinner. I am insular, propelled, tuned to my own thoughts. “Hey-ey!” Spotting me, my […]

The pavement stretches, dappled in shadow. I walk, looking down, weighted by a thousand things, watching my feet. Those feet, they pound tired, thunking against the road. I move past a puddle, a murky earth-carved divot full of leftovers from yesterday’s rain. In my heart, I replay hurtful conversations; I am cistern, collecting disappointment. On […]

Dumbbells gripped in hand, lifted over me like the weight that knots my neck, I remember thinking only of what will be next, after this. I used to plot it out by the hour, how I’d manage to do my way through the morning and into the afternoon. And then, and then, and then. How […]