It was more the things left unsaid than anything spoken. When we bought Jackie's house, we knew several of the neighbors on the block, had many friends in the neighborhood, and found connections at every turn. Two of my mother's close friends had grown up on this block, one a couple of houses to the … Continue reading Secrets and haunts.
It is a bright September morning, and the weather has broken (as it always does, if briefly, after Labor Day) giving a hint of fall. I'm driving slowly through an old neighborhood, tourist-style, looking from porch to porch, block to block. I see a friend working in his yard, and I call through the open … Continue reading Jackie’s house.
See, what happened was this: Our neighbors moved, and when they cleared out of their house they left stuff on the curb (because that's how we roll around here, or at least that's how it used to be before things got fancy). Among the treasures they left on the curb were an electronic dart board … Continue reading Be the light.
We are on the porch eating dinner, one night just a few weeks ago, at the front-tip edge of our 21st summer together. The days are warm and nights still cool. Our kind of weather. I think of this weather as our season. Our son (who drove his truck, your truck, Henry's truck, to school … Continue reading Belonging.
You work all night, and you sleep all day, and I hardly ever see you. I have only a handful of photographs of you from this entire year, all of them taken on a winter's trip to see my sister. This picture of my nephew with you, in your signature hat and coat, on my … Continue reading 5
Memory is a kind of fiction. It's the story we tell ourselves, the one we decide is true because we want it to be true. These stories are my memories of you, of us, in our 20 summers living together under the same roof. These stories are my truth. Fact: By this point in our … Continue reading 6
It is the start of our second decade in Memphis; our children are five and seven. I know you remember this summer at least as clearly as I do. This is the summer of camp on our block, when each family took a week (or two) with all of the children together. One neighbor had … Continue reading 10
I learned to drive in the fall of 1980, when the future tasted like a raindrop on the tip of my tongue. It was after the summer we moved from my growing-up house into one that, in my mother's words, didn't have room for my father. It was the year we packed up books, clothes, … Continue reading Independence day
