WE—THE CDC, THE EXPERTS, THE EXPECTING MOM BLOGS, the websites represented in your top internet search results—are sorry to collectively report that the only safe amount of air for a…
I HAVE NEVER SEEN HER LIKE THIS. She’s twenty-something, young enough to be my kid, and normally dignified, professional—always wears long dark pants and flowing tops, thick sweaters, bracelets I…
WHEN GRANDMA DIED, THE FAMILY FINALLY CLEARED OUT THE HOUSE ON OSAGE. All the streets in that part of town were named for Indian tribes. She’d kept everything after Grandpa…
BIGGEST ONE LEAPS OFF THE GROUND, shakes the house, bellows with forced levity. “You’ll never guess where it’s made!” Hair Scrunchie’s gaze goes soft. “So, the obvious places are out.”…
Ladies JUST OUTSIDE THE SANCTUARY, A SLAP STINGS THE METAL LADIES-ROOM DOOR. Her soprano sugars my ears: “He doesn’t know what happened to it yet.” A low sigh: the alto,…
AS THE BUS AMBLED THROUGH RUSH HOUR, Penny looked at the ticket she picked up from the ‘free’ table at work. That last-minute decision, plus traffic, made her late so…
MARGO VELA’S FATHER SPOKE TO HER FROM HIS URN IN THE BACK SEAT. His words interrupted a silence she’d craved for years. Somehow, he’d found a way past his metal…
THE DAY MY FIANCÉE, BLOSSOM, WALKED OUT ON ME, the potted plant that adorned our kitchen began to bloom. Great, trumpet-shaped flowers—purple, pink, peach, and white—drooped like lazy, cumbersome skin…
AFTER HE MAPPED AND TATTOOED ME, Bill gave me a pamphlet titled Radiation Therapy and You. It was less than thirty pages long with large print, so I read the…
SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD BILLY WALKER, driving home from bagging at Win-Dixie, eases his beat-up Kia through cackling pea-sized hail on State Road 40, right outside Ocala, on the rim of the national…