This Week of Summer

Oh, hey there.

What have you been doing this past week?

I've been watching baseball and working on my tan and ferrying my children to various camp-y activities, eating watermelon and enjoying the clean, chemical smell of chlorine that has permeated our pores. I have seen an old friend, and prepared to say goodbye to another. I have celebrated our seventeenth wedding anniversary and organized boxes of photographs and cried with happiness at both things. I have been a puddly mess of emotions, and relied far too much on the brewskis as a mood stabilizer.

I have not written. Who has the time, with all that going on?

I have thrown up my hands and declared myself 'Done with being mommy for the day!', only to start laughing a second later when Julia said, 'Yes! Now I can do whatever I want!'

I lost my mind today and took them all to Chuck E. Cheese to escape the ridiculous heat, and found myself not minding at all when they fed $25 worth of tokens into machines. We walked out of there with some tattoos and sunglasses and Smarties. I love Smarties.

I question the marketing genius who decided that a giant rat would be a great mascot for an establishment touting food and good, clean, family fun. Who would have guessed? Sean caught six mice in our garage this week, giving me a Code Red level anxiety attack, and making me wonder if I should charge admission to the garage and serve crappy pizza on the car hood. Maybe set up a cornhole toss.

Give out plastic fang teeth and Smarties as prizes.

I question the marketing genius who decided to name a popular game after a euphamism for a butthole. It makes me wonder if I should come up with a seemingly innocuous portable game, and name it something like Rimjob Toss, or Nutsack Ball, or The Clamslapper. Bars could hold Collegiate Clamslapper Tournaments, they would be televised on ESPN 12 or one of those other networks that show curling and cornhole and pub trivia and the rochambeau championships (which totally exist).

I am watching summer tumble past and I keep trying to grab it and hold on. I pull at the days to slow them down, and find myself looking at my sleeping children each night thinking, 'Again? Is today over, again?'

A Memory of Sound - Conclusion & Author's Notes

(Part I)

(Part II)

(Part III)

(Part IV)

Meredith had wondered why Dan had been called when Father died, instead of her. But of course, it wasn’t Dan, but Mother who’d received the news. Mother, who’d remained the next of kin on all of Father’s mundane paperwork. Mother, who’d continued to pass on photographs and updates about their children. Mother, who’d never seemed worried or lost or lonely, but surely must have lived her own version of grief. Why else would she have stayed in contact with him?

She’d told Dan over the phone in a cold tone, like she was giving him the weather report instead of telling him his father was dead. He’d made the trip to Meredith’s apartment and held her stiffly as she wailed. He sat by her side while she made the funeral arrangements and picked out Father’s suit and wrote the obituary. He walked around pretending he’d known the man, while his mother sat at home, pretending she hadn’t.

Dan found himself alone in the apartment. He packed up a few final books and sat on the floor among the boxes. The room was silent, save the lonely drip of the faucet. He sat and listened to the solitary sound. He listened for a message in the monotony, and waited for a ghost to appear. 

Author's Notes:

I hate this story.


When I decided to write a piece for a prestigious literary award, I made one giant mistake: I believed that 'prestigious literary award' translated to 'something I wouldn't normally write'. It had to be serious. The writing itself needed to involve a good amount of hair pulling and agonizing and self doubt. And it did. It was hard, this writing for a prestigious literary award. Too hard.


Of course, I didn't win.


Not because it isn't a well written story (because I think it is, mostly), but because it lacks the one thing that you can not fake: authenticity. If the assignment had been, 'channel Tennessee Williams and write something dramatic and morose', I might have won. But it wouldn't have been my story. This isn't my story. This is a story I wrote while trying to be the kind of writer I am not. My amazing pro bono editor and my husband both tried, very nicely, to tell me this, but it was something I needed to figure out for myself.


That doesn't mean that I can't write something serious, because I can, and have. But it comes from a place of personal perspective, or experience, or belief. It comes with authenticity. It also doesn't mean that there is not value in humor, and poop jokes, and possum c-sections.


This week, I've been working on my submission for Southern Sin. There's been no hair pulling, or stomach churning, or wondering if the story is good enough. Because it's my story, in my voice, and that's good enough for me.


Thanks for continuing to read, and for your wonderful comments, and for your continued support.

A Memory of Sound - Part IV

(Part I)

(Part II)

(Part III)

“Meredith has been seeing Father.”

Dan sat at his mother’s kitchen table, spinning his coffee cup, intently staring at the single drip that had run down the side and dried there.

Mother sighed. “I know.”

Dan looked up, surprised. “You know? She told you?”

“Your father told me.” Mother looked at him side-eyed, waiting to see the effect of the information.

“He told you? He told you? You talk to him?” Dan’s voice was a mixture of outrage and disbelief.

“Of course I do.”

Dan looked at her, mouth open, and the full truth occurred to him. “You’ve always talked to him,” he near whispered.

“Of course I have, Dan. He’s your father. He was my husband.”

“He left us!” Dan’s voice grew louder and cracked.

“He’s still your father and he has a right to know…”

“He has no such right!” Dan yelled and rose from the table. “He has no such right! He left you and he left us and it was his choice to not be a part of this family.”

“You have no right, Daniel, to tell me what I can and can not tell my former husband about his children. My children. Your father left for reasons that had nothing to do with you. He didn’t call because I asked him not to. What happened, it happened because of us, not because of you. If you had ever opened your eyes to what was going on around you, you may have seen that. Instead, you chose – and continue to choose – to be a completely self absorbed little shit.”

Mother was close enough that he could see the spittle flying from her lips and feel her hot breath on his face. She smelled of maple syrup.

Suddenly, he was eight years old again, in this same kitchen. It was his mother’s birthday, and he’d gotten up early to make her a surprise breakfast - pancakes, her favorite. Dan had burned the first batch, but the second set had turned out golden and round and hot. He put her plate on the tray with a small pitcher of syrup and a saucer of orange slices arranged like rays of sunshine. He folded the napkin the way they did at the beach hotel they’d stayed at the summer before; a tidy little triangle, standing up on its own.

He walked down the hall to his parents’ room, carefully holding the tray. With every tentative step, the knife clinked against the saucer, and Dan winced. It won’t be a surprise if she hears me coming! Finally, he reached his parent’s door. It never latched quite right – when you closed it, you had to pull in and up, otherwise it didn’t catch and would open with the slightest pressure. Mother had told Father countless times to fix it, but he’d never gotten around to it. Dan nudged it with his foot, and the door opened soundlessly.

They were awake, because he could hear them, talking? Maybe? But they were completely under the blankets. His father was making a low growl and his mother seemed to be having difficulty breathing. Was she sick?

“Mom?” he said, and gingerly sat on the edge of the bed.

His father angrily threw back the blankets, knocking the tray from Dan’s hands.

“Get out!” Father yelled.

“Oh! Oh, Dan!” Mother said.

Dan’s eyes burned with tears and he clumsily tried to clean up the mess. Pancakes and oranges on the bed, and maple syrup dripping into a sticky mess on the floor.

“Get out!” repeated Father, his face red.

“It’s okay, Dan, honey. I’ll get it.” Mother caught his eye and held him there. I’m sorry, the look said.

Dan had that same feeling now, standing in his mother’s kitchen. His face hot with shame and embarrassment, he turned without speaking and left, closing the door behind him. 

A Memory of Sound - Part III

(Part I)

(Part II)

Dan could not understand why Meredith was so quick to forgive. The man hadn’t seen fit to participate in their lives when they’d needed him most, what use did they have for him now? Dan had weathered his teens and college years largely alone. Mother had been so focused on Meredith and her boyfriends and prom and whatever else girls do, she’d had no time for Dan.

When he’d gotten the job at the bank (on his own merit, unlike many of his fraternity brothers), he’d managed to navigate the corporate waters on his own. Dan was nothing if not capable. There’d been a few missteps – a hysterical girl and ill-fated pregnancy in college; a few months where he’d struggled to balance his drink and his work. But Dan had worked it out. He was so confident in himself that he barely noticed that he went home to an empty apartment. So focused on his ability to exist as a single entity, he was completely unable to recognize his own misery.

Through it all, Dan harbored the seed of discontent, stamped with his Father’s name, deep within himself. He tended it with bitterness and fed it with each missed momentous occasion. By the time Meredith told Dan she’d spoken with Father, the seed had wrapped its black roots around his mind, choking out any memory of decency associated with his father.

He’d wanted to call Father and berate him. Tell him to leave his sister alone. He’d wanted to tell him exactly how much they didn’t need him, how little their ‘Father’ mattered. But days turned into weeks and the call was never made. Because in the very center of his capable self - his no-nonsense, fuming, miserable, self - Dan was a coward.

“Come to lunch,” Meredith pleaded. “Come and talk. We don’t have to talk about the past, we can talk about movies! He knows so much about movies!” Movies are the finest friend of the solitary man, a fact Dan knew well. For months, she hounded him and finally, he relented.

“Just lunch,” he said.

The morning he was to see his father, Dan woke as usual, shaved, showered and dressed. He looked in the mirror and adjusted his neat tie, then leaned over the sink and violently vomited.

He walked into the bank, pale and sweating. His secretary leaned across her desk with a grin of greeting. “Hold my calls,” he barked, barely glancing her way. Dan closed his door and aimlessly pushed paper around his desk. Right before lunch, he found himself bent over the toilet in the men’s room, dry heaving fear.

Dan walked slowly to the restaurant. He didn’t want to be the first to arrive. As he approached the café, he could see them through the plate glass window. Meredith, animated and bright and nervous, kept glancing at her watch. Father, small and neat and cool, did not seem to notice the time. He was ageless; his skin pulled taut and smooth across his forehead, his neck slim and his back straight. At fifty, he appeared no different than he had at thirty. He’s not throwing up in the sink, thought Dan.

Dan stood and watched too long. Father happened to glance out the window, and caught Dan’s eye. Father’s gaze narrowed and his brow furrowed, but he did not speak. Dan turned on his heel and ran. He ran from the restaurant and his father and his hopeful sister. He ran straight home to his apartment, called back to the office feigning illness, and climbed into bed. He stayed there for three days.

He did not answer the phone and when, on the third day, Meredith came knocking, he reluctantly answered.

“Dan! What’s happened to you?”

“Sick. I’ve been sick.”

She pushed her way into the apartment and busied herself in the kitchen, making coffee. She talked nonstop. “When you didn’t come to lunch I was so worried! And Father was so disappointed!”

Maybe Father hadn’t seen him after all. Or he hadn’t told Meredith.

“We waited forever!” she went on. “Then your office said you were sick and you wouldn’t answer the phone and…Oh! Dan, what is it?”

Dan sat on the couch and held his head in his hands and cried. Great, heaving sobs that shook his body and filled the small apartment with their despair. Suddenly, Meredith understood everything. She understood her brother’s coldness and distance and the depth of his loneliness.

“Oh, Dan,” Meredith sat next to him and tenderly, hesitantly, put her hand on his shoulder. “I’ll never ask again.”

She never did. It was the last time they spoke of him until Dan called her to say Father had died. The oddity of that suddenly struck her. Why had they called Dan, instead of her?