In one moment, I am close to her. I can smell cold cream and cigarettes, my nose in her neck. I play with the gold cross she wears there, fingering it and watching the light change it yellow and gold. My hair is wet and I can feel her shoulder getting damp. Her arms are wrapped around me, my knees to my chest, the flannel of my nightie soft against my skin. It is clean and smells like it came off the line, just like the sheets on the bed. The TV glows blue. Her breaths are slow and deep, and I am falling asleep. [Read more...]

The bruises are still fresh on my arms and back when I meet your mother at the hospital. She is immersed in a trashy magazine when I get off the elevator. Licking her forefinger slowly, she flips the page as I sit down. [Read more...]

“What kind of pot do you have?”

This line of questioning pried right into our kitchen. Touchy territory. “A white one?”

“Porcelain,” she noted, a generous term for the thick pot with a stained crack running down its side.

She made notes and disappeared behind the black velvet curtain at the back of the store. I was left in front, alone. In The Book of Tea, Okakura Kakuzo says that Teaism is a cult founded on the adoration of the beautiful among the sordid facts of everyday existence. [Read more...]

I wasn’t going to mention the murder thing. I’d already told two people and that had come to no good. It would be unwise to spread the word any further. [Read more...]