“Icky Papa Died”
I was relieved when my great-grandfather died. I learned of the event more than a year after the fact, simultaneously ingesting the information that he’d passed in Idaho, that he’d been buried in Montana, and that his grave—while next to my great-grandmother’s—was unmarked and expected to remain that way. No one in Idaho wanted him...
Suspended
The locker room walls were painted puke green and lined like a cage with metal hooks, and red mesh equipment bags hung from the hooks like meat. One of the bags was swinging, and I was swinging in it, and Drew McKinnick slapped at it and did his punching, and the janitor got me down....
Hill Street Blues
My first memory fails me. Brown shag carpet. I am in the living room. My mother is watching the end of Hill Street Blues on a color television. She lights a cigarette. Smoke rises, spiraling toward the ceiling. When her show is over, an orange racecar with a Confederate flag painted over the top jumps...
Advance. Retreat. Lunge. Recover
Joe steps forward and back, holding his imaginary foil as the instructor barks commands. Joe’s face is a mask of concentration and anxiety, his body tense. For Joe, it is important his moves are just right, important the teacher say to him, “Good job,” at the close of class. Joe is eleven. We have moved...
On Receiving Notice of My Step-Daughter’s Pregnancy
I want you to hear the voice of an angry stepmother as you read this, so go ahead and settle into it. You know the voice I mean: that extra-tall mocha raspberry voice, with the hint of an edge, the little bit of burn from sitting too long in the pot, from forgetting to remove...
The Causeway
“Watch me, Margaret,” my freckle-backed father said. Wearing cut-off Levi’s and a silver crucifix, he stood barefoot on the cement wall designed to keep cars from driving off the causeway into the lake. “I’m watching, Daddy.” “You have to stand up close to the wall and watch until my feet disappear.” He was getting ready...
Ornithology
We’re walking to school and Claire is naming the birds. There’s a chickadee, she says. And that one is a nuthatch. I think that one could be a flicker. She’s usually right, though even when she is not, I don’t correct her. Dad, is that a pileated woodpecker? She’s holding on to the index finger of my left hand –...
Dirty Laundry
Are your garments spotless, Are they white as snow, Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb? He cooks. I do laundry. That’s our deal. We share childcare. We clean in sporadic bursts, usually when someone is coming over. His mother comes often. She pities him, in the kitchen kneading and mincing and basting,...
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