I end my call, and putting down my phone, I tell them bluntly (might as well get it over with): “Friday, you have a dental appointment.” Admittedly, it feels odd to say the word appointment again, especially with my mind full of new protocols–masks and me waiting in the car and everyone’s temperature checked upon […]

Beside me, Adam’s voice breaks, shattering into silence. I glance over to read his face, careful not to linger lest he feel my gaze; he doesn’t like me to watch him worship. My son could care less if I walk in on him in the bathroom when he’s wearing no clothes and stepping into the […]

Riley hears us on the stairs, the push-pull comedy of Kevin and me moving a desk up to the room from which Kevin now works most of the week. She hears her dad pouring out his strength; hears me straining to lift when the desk snags the edge of a step; hears both of us […]

I kneel next to Adam’s feet, a piece of string stretched along the floor, Sharpie poised. “Don’t move,” I tell him, which comes close to telling Adam not to breathe. He stands in place, but shifts a thin, wide hand to one hip. His toes drift up from the floor and I press them back […]

Sometimes all I can see is what hurts, what’s hard, what I wish could be different. Before we even leave our driveway, Riley stops, setting her water bottle down, handing me the paper, her pen. She lifts her sunglasses, peers more closely at her phone. “It says license plate, so…” She talks to herself more […]

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 […]

In the late afternoon, while I stand in the kitchen strategizing, with ingredients for four different meals sizzling or simmering or slicing under the knife, with mixing bowls and crumb dotted small appliance parts gathering at the sink, I realize I have run out of spoons, and I don’t mean the kind I use for […]

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 […]

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, […]