In the waiting room, she reaches for my hand, lacing her long fingers through my own.  She presses her palm flat against my palm until all the lines meet, intersecting for a stretch and then contradicting, all posts and crossbeams.  Her moon eyes speak paragraphs over still lips, tightly drawn.  They are imploring blue–those eyes, […]

Standing there elegant in front of us all, she says to him, “I choose love.  I choose you. I choose the wonderful things about you and the things that drive me nuts.  I choose the good days and the bad ones,” and her voice doesn’t even quaver. She is radiant with chosenness, and it strikes me that […]

It really wasn’t until we turned into the neighborhood—5 minutes, maybe, from home–that the ice really made me nervous.  An hour and a half away, we’d started to see a dusting, just bits of dazzling white in the grass; here and there, a glassy ditch or frozen puddle. If it’s like this here, Zoe murmured then, […]

They are inside the gas station maybe 5 minutes.  The girls and I wander in while father and son linger at the pump, and then they follow us in, more efficient, by far, than we.  Early morning, and ours is the only vehicle left at at least eight nozzles, though the three dusty spaces beside […]

The funny thing is that none of us remember the original prompt, now—it could have been outer space or video game or teeter totter, but we remember only purse, only the bizarre wrong thing it became when Adam gave up trying to guess.  I’m not sure what it is about our human nature that we store up wrongs. But here […]

Travel weary and temporarily keyless, we knock, feeling as dusty as the door, as parched as the plants.  I run my thumb along the delicate thinning edge of a swooping leaf, crisp and browned, like old parchment.  On the door, the vinyl letters have broken in places and begun to curl away, even as they still […]

“I love you.” He says it slowly, the way he says everything, but lifting the word you, as if in emphasis.  It’s not enough just to fling the words into the air above her head and walk away.  He knows this.  Purposefulness has been a recent goal.  So instead, Adam bends his lean frame toward the […]

Twinkle lights cast warm light over their cheeks, their tawny skin, their sun-gold hair.  The summer breeze lifts long, errant strands—mermaid-streaked deep maroon-purple, steel blue.  The girls slide their thumbs over their foreheads, corraling without thinking.  As the day fades along the edges of the dinner hour and the five of us gather on the […]

“Where are you going?” He asks, in a voice muffled with sleep, a voice just on the edge of awareness. My hand stills on the doorknob.  I turn back toward him, not much more than a shadow. “I’m goi–I can’t sleep.”  My voice falls lightly.  “I need to—I don’t want to keep you awake,” I […]

In the early hours before the sun rises, we rise, and we’re so tired we move around in silence for a while, fumbling to make the bed, pressing back against sleepiness to dress for exercise before we find an excuse.  We’ve tried so hard for intentionality with regard to first things—time with God, time with each […]