When Mother came to Guangzhou for eye surgery, my elder sister took night shifts; my younger sister took leave and flew to cook congee. I cared for her afterward.
On the return flight from Texas, I knew I wouldn’t end up teaching Biblical Hebrew to Presbyterians, Pentecostals, Mennonites.
A handwritten sign on the elevator door tells me it’s “broke.”
The pinkish-purple tentacle reached across my palm, oozing and unfurling onto my wrist, caressing my hand upturned towards the starlit heavens.
We finish the night’s bedtime reading, my kindergartener son’s latest lost tooth under his pillow.
On the hidden road of deep country we head over sandy roads east to west.
I sat beside my Christmas tree, remembering Christmas Eves when my two grandkids, mostly grown now, were still small.
I’d emptied the apartment and stuffed the car with the last of my belongings.
“My parents pay you enough to get me ice cream whenever I want,” says the kid I pick up every day from school.
Early Thursday morning her time zone; late Wednesday mine.
“Let us see! Please!” I demanded. “No, you will just scream and say eww,” my grandmother said.
1977. I hopped into Allison’s blue Volkswagen Bug.
Shoes. They were the first items to come off.
My blood runs cold, even though the fan is barely moving above our heads.
Two motionless hatchlings, featherless and translucent, punctuate the lawn.
It was 1989, the height of the savings and loan crisis. Olga loved her job at the bank, but still slid a resignation memo across my desk.
I sat in the Orthodox Jewish synagogue surrounded by women with head coverings, separated from my husband by a glass demi-wall.
Despite my conversation with the doorman—“very important package”—despite my incessant refreshing of the DHL tracking page . . .
The waiter uncorked the Chianti at the table.
I got off work at three and walked the long way home through the cemetery.