In our house, we have learned to keep time this way, in days since the last seizure, but this is not something we carry along, not at all like some battered suitcase stuffed with all our worries and dragged along behind, but rather something acknowledged and touched by our hands and burned in the pasture, […]

The curtains open and the music swells, and I imagine flitting, light-winged, across the stage, which looks blue, lit like the sky. I imagine the freedom of soaring, the air wrapping about my waist like a pair of lifting hands. They will soar on wings like eagles, I remember. They will run and not grow […]

Upstairs, I fill a basket with the things Riley will need after her shower–hairbrush, deodorant, pajamas. I tap my fingers on plastic, rub them against soft fabric, ticking off items by touch. I consider the warmth of the night air, how Riley turns on the fan even when it’s cool, how particular she will be […]

“I don’t know what to say,” Riley says, something very likely often true, only now, while my knees carve moons in the carpet beside her bed, she feels vulnerable enough to admit it. I smooth Riley’s hair with my hand, playing with the tiny, curling strands about her ears, thinking that the only thing she […]