Millie, the deputy director, offered her cabin in the Cuyamaca mountains for our managers’ retreat. It was early May, and the lilacs were just beginning to blossom, she told us; they would be in full bloom for the retreat in two weeks. We all knew about Millie’s lilacs. Their giddying fragrance would engulf us at the door on Monday mornings after she’d spent a weekend at the cabin, floating through the hallway from office to office. Five of us, Millie and the department heads, would go up on Thursday for a pre-retreat planning meeting; the program managers would join us Friday morning.
We decided to pool our culinary talents and each bring or make something for dinner at the cabin. We five often went out to lunch together on Mondays, more of a social than a business ritual.…
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I used to be diligent in my defense against the growing forces of dog hair, using a lint roller or my hands to fend off their growing numbers. My decision to wear black clothing became a signal of my inability to adapt. I loved my dog more than anything in the world and I didn’t care if people knew I had a dog by glancing at my clothes. The evidence was there for the world to see, and eventually I gave up and waved the white flag of defeat.
What started as a minor inconvenience, had soon turned into my worst nightmare. The dog hair, unsatisfied with me surrendering my clothing, became greedy and continued its relentless conquest. My frustration accumulated as I began waking up with dog hair in my mouth.…
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At 11 p.m., Ling called her mother’s WeChat video. It took a while before her mother answered it. Ling said, “Mom, it’s late. Stop watching TV series. You should take a good rest. You have to get up at seven o’clock tomorrow to work.”
Ling’s mother said, “I’m not sleepy. The more I watch, the more refreshed I am.” After that, she hung up the video.
Ling could imagine her mother curling up on the sofa, binge-watching the romantic drama. Her mother would be so immersed in the love-hate relationship between the hero and heroine while her father was snoring on the bed in the bedroom.
Ling’s mother became obsessed with romantic dramas two years ago. She told Ling, “If I had known the TV series was so good, I wouldn’t have married your father.”…
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Suite 815 smells aggressively of hydrangeas, which makes me miss my mother and long instead for the typical sterile smell of hospitals that I am used to. I whisper my name to the woman behind the desk, and she whispers something back about date of birth and take a seat and with you in one minute. I take the photo-sized piece of paper she hands me and don’t hear what I am supposed to do with it, so I use it as a bookmark instead. As I sit, I realize the way I gave my birthday under my breath, as if whispering could unbirth me; I recognize the way I didn’t spell out my name like I usually do, as if by muting my identity I could pretend I had never been in the psychiatric wing of Massachusetts General Hospital.…
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Normally, they would have been up by 7:30—they got up when the dog did—but their dog had had a big day yesterday, an extra walk up and down the hilly streets of Baltimore and a longer than usual game of tennis ball in the backyard, and was still asleep. So the problem wasn’t that it was too early when they heard a woman’s voice calling them from their living room at 8:45; the problem was that a woman’s voice was calling them from their living room.
“Jerry? Sandra? You there?”
It was Elena from across the street, they quickly realized. They knew it was Elena because she always called Sandra SAHN-dra; she’d done it from the day they moved in ten years ago. They didn’t know if it was an affectation or if she’d just heard it wrong or if she had some kind of quirky speech impediment, although she didn’t call her daughter Mary MAH-ry, and when she had her sewer line replaced, she didn’t talk about how cute the BAHK-hoe operator was.…
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My grandmother’s wringer
washer, stolid on
their porch. We told her how
washing machines now
made life easier. No,
she used the wringer washer
until the end. Decades
of water pressed out
to hang clothes in the back yard
before watching
As The World Turns
on a black-and-white set,
problems of the Hughes
and Stewart families, what
she referred to as
“My story.”
– Kenneth Pobo…
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TRIGGER WARNING: SUICIDE
There are only two ways to get to Aunt Rox’s house: you either hop Lisa Buck’s fence or you take your bike and ride it diagonally through the patch of grass that connects Hummel Road and Ashland Drive, totally bypassing the Meyer’s.
If you decide to hop Lisa’s fence, you’re in the clear—we leave a nylon-strapped camping chair on Lisa’s side and a green plastic chair on Aunt Rox’s. There’s an understood rule that no one is supposed to move them, but if for some reason they aren’t where they are supposed to be, the fence isn’t too high. Sure it’s rusty, and its integrity questionable, but no one has hurt themselves. Yet. Just grip a toe in the metal slot shaped like a diamond, give yourself a little oomph, and by that time your other foot should be on top of the fence.…
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