It was a standard if not cliché motel bathroom, and Mom had been in there a while. In August of 2001, we’d found ourselves at a Days Inn for the weekend—Mom, my sister, and I—despite her losing custody of us six years prior. We were one hour outside of Pittsburgh, in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, though home was even farther, just over…
Marin County 1992 From the couch, my parents give me their full, undivided attention. Dr. Groszmann arranges her thick blonde hair in front of each shoulder, crosses one leg over the other. She nods from her armchair, gives me her you-can-do-this expression. I shuffle three pages of notes, hands trembling. Eyeing the cassette recorder to make sure it is revolving,…
They Say Ten years ago, I married a sailor. They say sailors swear a lot, but my husband barely does. Actually, he’s kind of a disappointment in that area. I can swear him under the table, usually within the first few minutes of watching a football game. And as far as being drunken, my sailor rarely is. I think it’s…
He nearly killed us just after our eleventh anniversary. Glossy pages of the wedding gift guides call it the steel year. A shiny alloy of carbon and iron, strong yet malleable, what makes the bones of buildings, supports bridges, and for many years, served as the exoskeleton of automobiles. My partner and I had orbited the Chevy Malibu in the…
All men will resemble one another in the way they use their feet. But no one can tell what any given man will do with his hands. . . . The hand is the direct connect with man’s soul. . . . When a free spirit exists, it aches to materialize in some form of work, and for this, the…
It’s 10 p.m. on a drizzly Friday night in Los Angeles. The temperature is in the fifties. My wife, Beverly, and I are home, relaxing on our double lounge chair with a red Scottish blanket draped over us. Cuddled next to us is Ben, the Lhasa Apso we rescued nine years ago. Outside, the backyard lights illuminate the palm trees…
When I am overwhelmed with adult life, I think of childhood days home from school with a cold, cozy in bed. My mother moves the living room TV into my room, and I spend hours watching syndicated episodes of I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched and reading Sweet Valley High. My mother brings me snacks, presses her palm to…
To be fair, I made the mistake of standing too close to the kitchen island and hovering over the charcuterie spread. With my shoulders slouched and arms wide, I looked like a vulture protecting fresh roadkill that it had paid too much for at Whole Foods. Everyone knows that the safest place at a party—especially one where you only know…
Photo by Amanda Witherell The awful is inside the normal. Like normal is pregnant with awful. —Brian Doyle, “Everyone Thinks that Awful Comes by Itself, But It Doesn’t” April 4, 2017 Fanning Island rises into view slow as the morning sun—just a low, green strip of palms with a thin gap near the center. We steer our sailboat for the…
I work for a content mill. In 30 minutes I can write 500 words for $7. When I look at a single roll of toilet paper, I can tell how many words it’s worth. 7 minutes for a Snickers. 400 words for a bottle of laundry detergent. I log on to a website where clients from all different businesses…