The kind you’re born with, the kind you choose, the kind that teach Catholic school
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Michele Herman has two books coming out in 2022: her debut novel, Save the Village, and a poetry chapbook, Just Another Jack: The Private Lives of Nursery Rhymes. She lives in New York City.
On a soaking-wet August day I stood under an umbrella in a Jewish cemetery in Paramus, New Jersey. Though the man we were burying hadn’t been particularly observant, the service was Orthodox, and everyone followed protocol: the other women and I huddled to the side while the men lifted the heavy casket.
But adrenaline, my old friend from early motherhood, has come back to me, and I have taken up with her. I let myself be seduced by her charms, grab her hands for a tango, even though I know her game, the way she sticks around just long enough to see me through everyone else’s crises and then splits when I really need her.