Stories tagged parents

The Overlook

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all it takes is a light touch on the back like the one he gave you when we met at the school parking lot and the listening device is planted and ready

Never Saw You Coming

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Dad always claimed he never saw me coming. He insisted he never knew Mom was pregnant until the day she dropped me. He liked to joke about it—the baby no one knew was coming. Mom didn't like that sick streak in his humor, but I did, and tried to get him to make…

Under Water

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When I was six, my father brought home a fishbowl. Look out for the inhabitants, he said. You can play Neptune in their microcosm of the sea.

And We Sell Apples 1977

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I hear the car door slam. Steve, about to duck daddy-duty: Just gonna take a run to the Quickway. "Rudy," I say, "go get in the car. Tell Papo I said Wait."

Rubble Fever

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Two summers ago, there was a flickering moment, before my conscience kicked in, when I considered setting fire to this house.

Migratory Mistakes

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Unadorned tragedies pinpoint the worst angles of the road; simple crosses or bouquets line boulders painted with car crash smoke or skid marks that tiptoe to the edge of cliffs and then, apparently, leap.

a kid's guide to the art of the grift

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“We must never forget that we are children, and as children we dream, and when we dream, we dream of candy."

A Kids' Guide to the Art of the Grift

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“We must never forget that we are children, and as children we dream, and when we dream, we dream of candy."

Understand, Rubberband?

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After we moved uptown we lived close enough to the park that we could go there on our own (with permission) on weekends and during school breaks to visit the zoo or the pond where people floated their mechanical boats....

Conviction

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“You’ve put all my anorexic friends on the table nearest the buffet,” I say. “And all my bulimic friends on the other side of the room away from the buffet and the toilets.”

Thanksgiving

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Ted rose and began searching cushions of the bad furniture in his loft (Monte's loft, if you thought in terms of leases and rent and who had his shit together). Three shineless quarters in the yellow vinyl chair, a dime in the heater, nineteen cents in t

Washing Minerva's Hair

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Minerva watched him / her mind was no longer clear and precise / it short-circuited / under the weight of mundane tasks

Child Star

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Then there was Alyce, from your mother’s lesbian moment. Would you count her? Probably not.

Scooping the Fat of Time

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I lift up my sweatshirt and reach with a full fist into my belly button. This is where the fat comes out.

No Such Happenstance

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Tabitha approached her daughter, eyes not managing to veer away in time to miss the tutu rising up the chunky ham legs.