Fresh from the shower on an 80-degree day that feels thick with the promise of Summer, Adam spins–literally–into the kitchen wearing flannel pajama pants–buffalo check–and a salt-washed long-sleeved t-shirt as blue as his eyes. I wonder how he doesn’t instantly feel that sticky prickle of after-shower sweat at the base of the neck and the […]

This cluttered morning, sweaty with exercise, I bend myself into a stretch that makes me sigh with pleasure. Nothing feels better to me after a workout than the patient extension of sore and weary muscles, that resting pull that draws out pain with so much tension. Routinely, I pull my shoulders down, away from my […]

“So Adam, what did you do at school today?” The question, admittedly, feels familiar and worn, like a knob on an oft-opened and oft-slammed door, one we open today like every other day, honestly anticipating nothing save blank space. And for how long, I wonder, sitting here wearing my end-of-the-day weariness like grave clothes, can […]

Five minutes before we leave for school, I come down to check on Riley. Before I left the room in search of a shower, while she attended to what-I-don’t-know upstairs, I prepared for leaving at the right time, filling in steps I know otherwise will take her too long. I collected her morning pills (yes, […]

We can’t be sure when Adam first realized he had forgotten the wireless controller for his insulin pump, whether it occurred to him as he stood outside the door at school at the end of the day or only after he had climbed in the car to go home, or if he didn’t know until […]

“Adam, give me a good word,” Kevin says at dinner, grinning down the table at our son, who, having said his amen, has turned his shaggy head toward the food in front of him. The question presents a risk: Adam believes no is a pretty good word. Somewhat reluctantly, Adam half raises his glance toward […]

“I just hope God let’s me learn how to drive,” Riley ventures. Her voice waivers; the flicker from the TV only half lights her face. I don’t have to see her clearly to know that her ocean blue eyes glisten wet, threatening a storm. “I know,” I say and Kevin nods. Riley has talked about […]

We come to the table rumpled, our various work hastily scrubbed from our hands, the last of the day’s energy fading with the afternoon light. Life feels right when we finally arrive here together; it’s like our daily rendezvous at the meet-up point, like returning to base camp. This table, with its temperamental scars from […]

“I said ‘no’!” Adam says, pushing back against his chair just as worship ends. We have only just stopped singing, the sound of our voices only just fades away, diffusing like light in thin spaces, like sweetness carried on the wind. His brow furrows, his hair, which has lately grown long, flips out in response […]

I notice it in the morning on the way to school, the careful way Riley places her finger at the top left corner of her cell phone, straight pointing like a plumb line, the excruciatingly slow way she then drags her finger along the edge, as though it were a pen making an invisible outline […]