The flowers are what I remember most. They were everywhere. In pots, on wire stands, on chairs, the piano, the organ—everywhere. I specifically remember one arrangement that was so tacky that even at the young age of eight I recognized it as such. It had white carnations stuck into a round foam wreath with a [Read more...]

Three months ago, my son Jake dropped out of college for a job at a coffee shop. My wife and I found this out from Louise, a pathetic and frail looking woman who delivers our paper. When she let it slip out between a comment on the weather and the twenty I pulled out for [Read more...]

She was mad at him for smoking on their vacation. He said, “Come on, it’s a vacation,” and tipped his ash into one of his empties. On the way to breakfast she caught him eyeballing one of the other hotel guests, a woman wearing brown capris and a cream tank top. Tan freckled chest. “Can [Read more...]

Annie claims the tires were Dunlop, D60A2, all-season. In bed together, I tilt my head like a chocolate lab, dazed and confused. “Don’t give me that, Bruce,” she says. “Bill and I know it was you.” My father caught my mother having an affair in their seventeenth year. He waited outside the boyfriend’s house and [Read more...]