By Theresa Chamberland One day, when I’m eight years-old, I hear my dad’s voice in my head. “I better never catch any of you playing with matches.” Less than a month later, my oldest brother Dave is in charge while Dad’s at work and Mom’s grocery shopping. If Dave sees what we’re doing, he will …
By Julie Winberg What I remember is my feet, probably in some sort of ski boots and the long, impossible skis attached thereto. I was 17 or 18 and my athletic younger sister had insisted that I should learn to ski. My idea of athletic activity was focused in the wrist, as in turning pages …
By Tzivia Gover Looking back I can’t help marvel at the symbolism in the fact that this story begins with bedsheets. After all, I’m a dreamworker, and bedsheets offer the perfect symbol for a story about dreams. But at the time, when I was just starting to face the fact that my mother’s memory loss …
By Sue Dutch When Mom told me Sonia was missing, I became frantic. I’d left Sonia and my other cat, Freebus, in my parents’ care in Connecticut while moving to Indiana for my first faculty position. “Did you look for her?” I asked. “No,” Mom replied. “Why not?” “Because cats can find their way back …
By Diane Kane When Mr. Munson moved into the decaying farmhouse, he was driving an aging white van with a handicapped plate. Each day, I delivered mail to his battered mailbox that hung precariously by a single rusty nail. As time went on, the paint on the old farmhouse peeled, and Mr. Munson’s van sat …
By Beth Ann Jedziniak When Nathan was a little boy and having trouble sleeping, his mother would lie down with him, read an extra story, sing an extra song and then, when he was all snuggled and warm and sleepy, she would gently move his little arm and quietly slip away. His mother had thought …
By Mary W. Mathias There was a sense of timelessness in the view to the west, back when we bought the land on Salem Lake with our friend Bill. We could sit outside on any clear evening and watch the sun sink down and disappear behind Owl’s Head Mountain, twenty miles away. Yes, we had …
By Ellie Dias Maddie blinked hard to stop herself from daydreaming about Paris. She was standing by Dad’s casket, surrounded by her infirmed grandparents, his friends, colleagues, and two gossipy girls she never spoke to. Appearances hadn’t changed since her mother and sister’s funeral – black clothes, waxy faces, puffy red eyes. The spray of …
By Catherine O’Neill I grew up in Ireland, an island heavily salted with saints and lightly peppered with scholars incapable of teaching sex ed. As a mother, I shadowed my son, Jack, who was in the fifth grade. I had signed off giving him permission to attend “the talk” with his school nurse and principal. …
By Betsy Smith I open the closet and catch a glimpse of the pink box buried under a pile of Dansko boxes. The longing returns. The box holds a pair of knee-high black leather boots. Shiny, low heeled with a narrow calf – the leather soft and supple with an intoxicating and expensive scent. I …
