Mama’s Boy
The day I found out my mother had cancer I knew it before they even spoke. There was something — I still can’t name it — something to the silence after the ringing stopped. My father’s “Hey Bud” lacked the usual enthusiasm. For twenty minutes there was only medical jargon, recitation of statistics. And in the pauses in between I could feel her, as only a mother could, worrying only how I’d take the news. When we were done, she told me she loved me, I replied in kind, and that I knew it would be okay. It’s always been like...
Read MoreMy Wife Peeling an Apple
She takes the apple in her palm and presses the paring knife under the flesh just below the stem. As if it required no thought, as if it were natural as falling asleep, she spins the apple slowly with one hand, and pulls the blade toward her other thumb. It’s like watching an ice dancer, or a gymnast on a balance beam — you’re sure that every next move will slice jaggedly into her, and fall to the floor in a clatter, blood dripping to pool at her toes. But she doesn’t break eye contact, not even a pause in the conversation; red skin, pulled from white flesh, hanging...
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