A friend says, the text coming in gently, it must be hard for you to let her just walk through that door. Yes, I type.  Yes. I sit in the car, waiting while Riley digs her bookbag out of the trunk, talking to herself in a soothing, rhythmic way.  She turns to look at me […]

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 […]

He’s in a thousand tiny things:  the way one strand of Riley’s hair falls unevenly across her forehead, the rich sound of Zoe’s laughter—and mine—over song lyrics she misinterprets, the faintest hint of flowers on the breeze when I open the back door and walk across the porch.  The bird feeders, empty, swing ever so […]