Stories
Planting a Tree You May Never Sit Under: My Grandfather's Orchard and Time
He circled a peach in the catalog and wrote a year five years out, in the handwriting he saved for important things. He did not get the five years.
Stories
Using the good dishes on an ordinary Tuesday changed what I understood about waiting
I lifted the first plate out of its tissue the way I used to lift baby birds that had fallen into the yard - both hands, barely breathing. The paper had gone th...
Stories
The Watch Goes to Marcus
My father kept the pocket watch in the left breast pocket of his good coat, the charcoal one he wore to funerals and job interviews and once, memorably, to a
Stories
The Cooler in the Trunk
He had a thermos the color of old mustard wedged under one arm, and he set it on the Civic's roof while he worked the bungee cord over the cooler lid, hooking i...
Stories
The Table That Was Always Her Job
Fourteen names on a Post-it she knew by heart, a tablecloth three generations old, and a dime turning the brass bracket that holds the extra leaf.
Stories
The Grab Bar
The chrome had gone brass at the center, rubbed down to something warmer by fifty-three years of hands. Gerald set the wrench against the mounting bracket and l...
Stories
The Summer She Finally Figured Out Growing Tomatoes Good Enough to Give Away
Renata's neighbor, Carl, had a tomato problem the way some people have a religion. He kept a mason jar of last year's dried seeds on his windowsill, labeled in ...
Stories
The Trip Everyone Agreed On
The legal pad had columns with names at the top, written in Renata's good pen before the highlighter gave out. Her mother's column. Her mother-in-law's column. ...
Stories
The Man Who Stayed an Extra Week
The shuttle board said 6:20 but the bay was empty except for a pigeon picking at a heel of bread near the curb. Gerald unfolded the laminate again, crease by cr...
