Multiplication
Twice a week, I have almost the same conversation with the greengrocer. “Beautiful lady!” he says. “What can I do for you today?” “Darling greengrocer!” I reply. “I need a bunch of five or six small bananas; a kilogram of green apples – not too green, though; a head of broccoli and a kilogram of tomatoes.” “I’ve got some pomegranates today,” he adds. He might just as easily mention persimmons, or fresh figs, or champagne grapes, whatever is in season. “They won’t last long.” “And two pomegranates,” I tell him, because it may be my only chance to have a...
Read MoreChoking Up
I’m folding Sam’s undershirts upon the curve of my belly when my mother sends me a text to come to the nursery. My husband tends to sleep late before rushing off to work, so I tiptoe down the hall. “He smells a little sick,” says Mom. “Know what I mean?” She’s rocking Sam in the glider, smoothing the cowlicks matted to his scalp. I sniff purposefully, trying to grip the air with my nostril hairs. “Yes,” I lie. Sam’s cheeks are two bright circles of red, as though he’s dabbed them with rouge. He coughs, then mumbles into my mother’s shoulder, “Cook! Cook!” She has...
Read MoreNature’s New Generation
The young lady delivers her first child but continues to have fits of cramps, and the doctor says, “I see something else.” He grips the forceps to extract the emerging object from the lady’s body. “Is it another baby?” she says. “What is it?” Perspiration coats her rosy face. But the confounded doctor doesn’t answer. He struggles with the emerging object. The young lady screams; she grips the hospital bed sheets. He pulls out the object — what on earth? It’s a square object covered in thick plastic, which the doctor has...
Read MoreWinterland
“Daddy, what’s summer?” “You know, when the sun gets warm and all the snow melts and the leaves grow on the trees, and there’s grass and flowers everywhere.” Bryce Frost, down on one knee, looked up from tying the laces on his eight-year-old daughter’s figure skates. Her little nose wrinkled, and she tilted her head the way she did when she thought he was pulling her leg. “Don’t you remember?” Surely she was old enough to remember last summer. She shook her head. “When does summer start?” “Just a few more...
Read MoreWelcome to the North Country
After completing graduate school, my wife, Mikayla, and I, and Maryanne, our 2-year-old daughter, headed for a small town in the North Country where I started my teaching career. We rented a 12 x 60-foot mobile home, and our life in the North Country began. On the third morning, we were visited by the trailer park manager, Mr. Miller. “How do, folks? I come by t’ give y’ this list o’ park rules and tell y’ ’bout th’ roof and th’ heat tape.” He gave us a sheet of paper. “Them are th’ park rules. Y’ got t’ keep...
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