The sun through the door threw a hard rectangle of light across the red dust of the hut’s wooden floor. Hoa squatted in the shadows, watching a black beetle scaling the woven-reed screen over the window nearby. With an empty face, she dwelt on the decision handed down by her parents. She could not leave her village to study at the school in Dien Bien Phu. Her hands and body would be needed in the rice terraces and mango groves in the year ahead, though this was no consolation to her disappointment.
Truong Pho Thong Vung Cao was a boarding academy for children from the neighboring hill-tribes in Dien Bien Province and had, more than a year before, notified Hoa’s family that she was a candidate for the school.… ...continue reading
Florida isn’t really that crazy. Sure, on any given day one might see a shrunken old man in a giant caddie driving on the line like it’s there to guide him from Publix to the retirement village he came from, but most of the time it’s just warm. Well, hot. But even hurricanes aren’t that crazy. Because right in the middle of one everything comes to a halt; the wind, the rain stops, and the world is silent for once because everyone is inside. Quiet until the eye passes over and the winds tear right through the palms again. But then the palms are replanted, the floodwater goes somewhere, and life is good.
So, when I say I never meant to get on the wrong side of the law I really meant it.… ...continue reading
“Okay, Jamie,” Coach says. “Four more pitches, and then I’ll have you try for a hit off the tee.”
I sit in the shade of a twisted old apple tree and watch my chubby, clumsy son struggle at the plate. My nail polish is chipped, my bare legs need a razor, and my bra squeezes a reminder that I’m 10 pounds too many.
It’s the third practice for 1st grade, coach-pitch, Little League baseball. So far everyone but Jamie has eked out a hit, a pitched hit. Even the one girl on Jamie’s 13-player team.
Coach pitches. Jamie swings and slams nothing but air. “Nice swing, bud!” Coach cheers.
Coach pitches. Jamie’s slow, wobbly bat nips a bit of the ball. A couple of boys in the dugout laugh.… ...continue reading
Carol Van Den Hende is a speaker and author whose award-winning novel, Goodbye, Orchid (which was named a 2020 Favorite Book by The Write Review), deals with themes of love, loss, and disability. The story is inspired by combat-wounded veterans and centers on a wounded entrepreneur named Phoenix Walker who questions who he is post-accident and how he’ll continue a relationship with a woman named Orchid. A portion of profits is being donated to charities including USA Cares.
In this episode of Cover to Cover with . . ., Editor-in-Chief Jordan Blum speaks with Van Den Hende about the inspirations and processes that went into creating Goodbye, Orchid, as well as her interest in Jack White’s music, her strategies for marketing her work, and much more!… ...continue reading
The woods followed the road, stretching out across yards boasting a couple acres. In summer, the woods were drooping with black raspberries and mulberries begging to be picked. Most of the wooded areas nearby don’t host the berries—our family got lucky.
That’s where you’d find me in July: barefoot, and at times, bare-legged, picking black raspberries and placing them in a small plastic colander to make them easier to wash. I’d often have to fight ants, bees, and other insects for the ripest fruits. And even if they clung on after being picked, they’d be washed down the sink or drowned in the post-wash soak. Most of the berries would get eaten by my mom or my sister in a day. Mom might top her nightly dessert of vanilla ice cream with a few plump berries.… ...continue reading
I can see him clearly from my window, standing tall in the arena with his bodyguards, though I couldn’t hear what he was saying. Whatever it was, it excited a wild roar from the audience that boomed up through the loudspeakers to the 20th floor.
I knew why they were cheering. He was one of us. He cared. He saw we had nothing.
The crowd knew that. And they liked entertainment, accepting whatever gift he offered, even a shrug of his shoulders, his fingers pointing up as he illustrated some principle that others had forgotten. It didn’t matter what he was saying. The arena could have been full of slaves battling against beasts and they would have cheered with him. Because he knew what people liked.… ...continue reading
