I wake slowly, facedown, stretching my legs, cupping my toes over the end of the bed, feeling my calf muscles pull and retract. My head is lying flat, on 400 thread count white sheets. I am facing...

It’s just nine in the morning, and I’m wishing to hear the garage door sliding shut, meaning Trenton is home, his bike parked. And I’ve never told him, because I’m too embarrassed of needing him...

I am holding a butter knife in my left hand, thinking I could use it to slice through the expectancy hovering in this kitchen. My daughter, Lydia, drums her fingers on the breakfast bar, while...

Sometimes I stumbled downstairs early enough to watch my father shaving at the bathroom sink, in his white t-shirt and navy slacks. While he buttoned the dusky-blue work shirt—sometimes fresh from...

It's early afternoon. Despite sun pouring through the windows, the room seems dimly lit. I know this room. There's a bathroom off to the side where I took my first shower—a rite of passage for a...

It's a Wednesday morning in Haiti, in a dim room with no light bulb. I am a spectator to the quiet work of five women. They thread shiny beads onto strings, with careful hands, so they can make...

“Hello?” I said. “May I speak to Dena Dyer?” a male voice asked. “Speaking,” I answered, rolling my eyes. Definitely a telemarketer. “I’m one of Dr. Phil’s producers,” the man said. “We’d...

He sits beside me and tries to rein in all sixty-three of his jittery pounds, his brown hair uncharacteristically tamed save for the Alfalfa-like rooster tail, his dark eyes dancing about for a...

It was her idea from the get-go, but I was more than willing, it being Easter Sunday. Besides, lately it seems I haven't been getting enough sweet time with my granddaughter. "You take my...

“Someone asked me an unexpected question at work today,” I mention to my husband, Brad, as we stand in the kitchen with our backs to one another. He stir-fries chicken at the stove; I chop...