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Siblings
My Brother’s Dinner With The President Of Sears
After this friend left, I excused myself to go to the bathroom, where I shut the door and fell to my knees, shaking and crying. I wished that my brother had been different. And I wished that I had been more forgiving and compassionate. I wished that everything between us had been different. I was on that floor for a while.
July 2021Precarious
“Imagine if we’d known,” I said. “If you’d had a diagnosis, you could have been given lithium or something to help you.” Joan lifted her hands to her face and sobbed.
February 2021Sonny Boy Williamson
In a clearing in the woods alongside a country lane outside the town of Tutwiler in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, stands Sonny Boy Williamson’s granite grave marker. As we approach, we notice more of the glints beneath us, and notice the same silver glints piled atop the old monument.
December 2020The Second-Toughest Son Of A Bitch In East Gary, Indiana
He would have said, sometimes it’s not about the truth. Sometimes it’s about kindness. Especially when it comes to family.
April 2020Childhood
Flunking a driver’s test, frightening a bully, grown up at fourteen
August 2019Show Day
The Crandells participated in 4-H the way we did everything: bargain hunting, doing odd jobs, and keeping costs and desires to a minimum.
June 2019The Explorer
But he’s not getting caught on this trip, he says. He’s packing his stash wrapped in tinfoil, sprayed with deer urine, and taped to the inside of his engine, as per a YouTube tutorial.
June 2019Fever
I lie on the couch in the living room and feel a deep sense of shame, because I’ve increased our debt by getting sick.
November 2018Clickbait Elegy
Brother Sends Mysterious Text (And Woman’s Life Changes Overnight) / How To Drink Your Way Through The First Few Days Of Mourning / Looking For Last-Minute Airfare Deals From Las Vegas To Cleveland?
October 2018Boy
When my brother was twelve, I found six mice nailed to the wall of the abandoned tree house in the woods near our apartment. He spent a lot of time there. It seemed to me the little mouse faces were frozen in agony. As though they’d been alive when he’d hammered the nails through them.
August 2018