When the Los Angeles Dodgers won the 2020 World Series last year, I was sitting on the couch with my youngest daughter Rosette, 25, here in Riverside, California, 55 miles from Dodger Stadium in LA, and on the phone with my mother, Gabrielle Gertrude Leu Straight Watson, 85, who was sitting alone in her mauve …
I’m not a violent person, but I do have a fantasy of punching him in the face. Last I heard, he still lives in New York, where I have recently returned after a decade away. In my fantasy, I run into him on the sidewalk or the subway and land a good right hand to …
The morning of the test, I arrived at the dive shop before the first minibus from Inhambane reached the market bearing the day’s supply of rolls. On the concrete deck, in the half dark, I stood shivering and scanning the profiles of my charges. Late September marked the tail end of winter, dry and cool, …
“He has also set eternity in the human heart.” ~Ecclesiastes 3:11 THE HOARD It became clear that time was against me. That mortality was always slinking around. That our three children, now almost grown, shouldn’t have to dispose of their dad’s, my husband’s, vast piles of stuff after we died. And that a 3,800-square-foot house …
When my mother first came to America, she wore a pink coat with a rounded collar and four beveled black buttons. A farewell present from her parents and by far the most expensive garment she’d ever owned, the coat was wool, custom-made, and heavy enough to withstand the winters of Boston. It was March 1959; …
To read this essay, please purchase a print copy of Issue #2, 2015
In the movie, when Dracula moves from Transylvania to London, the first thing he does is crash the opera, and starts making the moves on the ladies. In particular he’s interested in Miss Mina (Helen Chandler), though Mina’s friend Miss Lucy (Frances Dade) has the hots for Dracula just a little bit more. Soon after …
In the tank, you watch the whale circle behind you. You tilt your head around trying to follow him in the water. Yellow streams of sunlight cascade over the black and white torpedo that is coming at you. Today, Dawn Brancheau will drown during a clear, sunny afternoon toward the end of the “Believe” orca …
I have a brother. I never met him. His name is Mark. He’s the same age as I am. Mark only lived thirty miles away from me the entire time we were growing up. I was in Lebanon, Pennsylvania and he lived near Harrisburg, the state capital. Our father, Billy Lee Wells, already had a …