They’ve been waiting for months now, like patients on an organ donor list. Two large icons—one of Christ, the Life Giver, and another, The Mother of God, Directress—sit unfinished in my studio. A few well-meaning students have offered encouragements like, “Oh, they’re...
Animals come after my father dies. Dogs. Cats. Ducks. Geese. A goat. A peacock. They wander to our home several years into his absence, appearing on our doorstep, or catching our eye from feed store cages. Always, we take them in. We line our laundry room floor with...
Susan was writing a story about a teacher who almost lost everything when she had an affair with a married man, the father of one of her students, and Susan’s best friend Frannie, a sixth-grade teacher, was sure the story was about her. “Oh my god, Susie,” Frannie...
(This piece also appeared in the Mount Voices Journal published in April 2008 by Mount St. Mary’s College in Los Angeles.) Somehow I’d connected wearing a bra with a story on television about a young girl with polio in an iron lung. Her hair, head and neck were...
The bed is as difficult to sleep in as the house is to come home to. The silence isn’t the problem. She’s used to that. It’s the thought that no one will join her. The thought slams, hard, when she tries to find a comfortable position in the bed. Alone. As she stands...
