When I told her my secret, she promised not to tell anyone, so the surprise was fierce when we were all in the car a few days later and, out of the blue, she announced it.
I took my coffee to the porch overlooking the Strait of Belle Isle in northern Newfoundland. The early morning fog lifted to the sound of gulls, crows, and a fox sparrow.
My right thumb pressed the button again to release more morphine. Covered in tubes and needles, surrounded by sounds generating persistent resonant vibration in the head, I shifted between states of consciousness …
She doesn’t have long. Has a finite time to search while her son’s surgeon does his best or, possibly, his worst.
I had never been to a real wedding before. My new wife’s mother rose, clinked her glass with her spoon, and made charming remarks.
The back of our tour bus hung out over the edge of a cliff on a narrow mountain road in northern India, in the pouring rain.
He invited me to a fancy dress party near his house. I was his uncomfortable moll, my dress long, hot and heavy, embellished with bad taste.
My cure for today's news: I lean over handlebars, legs churn, heart thumps. Breathe in. Breathe out. Wind whispers through helmet holes.
Education courses didn’t prepare me for the Freshman Who Still Hasn’t Discovered Deodorant.
Mom found it doing laundry. My lungs seized watching her pull the evidence from my pocket.
Alone we speak in snappy Spanish. With customers nearby, we switch to slow, polite, American English.
She’d swathed Vaseline on her thighs so she could walk from the lockers to the pool without them rubbing raw. But she’d forgotten to put the jelly around the edge of the bikini panties, the line where it scraped up against her inner thighs.
“Hey, asshole, you fucked up my shot!” “No, brother, I was nowhere near your arm. Look, I’m the drummer; I don’t want any trouble.”
I've had a crush on Crystal forever, and now here I am, in front of everyone, expected to stab a flower into her dress, millimeters from her—you know.
The van has left already. I tell you I'll need a moment and walk to the terrace.
I unclasped the bra hooks behind my back in a cold room with flower art and silver tools.
Before starting my morning ritual, I wipe down the counters. Greasy streaks snake across the countertops, evidence of my husband’s effort to clean up the kitchen the night before.
I can smell the acrid headiness of danger in the disinfectant-laden air. It cloys at my uvula before entering my lungs to catch on my breath.
What I’m going to miss were those silky exits from the back seat of an Uber, the air that went limp as a sigh when she decanted and entered the pulse of a neighborhood …
I am convinced I am dying in the bathroom of a coffee chain in Copenhagen.