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Zombie Mom

Denise figured the mom was dead; she had to be. The dad did the shopping now, and unless the mom was traveling for work for, like, a month or something, it was the only explanation.

Point of fact: Just last month the daughter and the mom had been talking while checking out at Denise’s register, and the daughter had asked for Lunchables, and the mom had said, “You will eat those over my dead body.”

Now the dad was buying five of them a week.

T-Shirts

Poorly—and purposefully—placed slogans, baby-goat encounters, and uncanny AOL connections

Thievery

I was sure I'd heard our front gate squeal and rattle. We live on a tree-lined Chicago street where 6 AM on Sunday is the time for arriving home from the night shift or heading out to the early shift or, in the case of a very few early risers, walking a dog.

Chores

On a solo backpacking trip, in a desert military base, at a church revival

Ditch

This is the part of the story where someone tells me, You couldn’t save him. He had to save himself. Every time I hear something like that, I want to scream.

Luxuries

A foreign sports car, a Hawaiian vacation, a glass of water on a hot day

The Work We Do

I can’t believe it took me so long to hold myself accountable for how much my life actually costs. Forty-two feels incredibly, abnormally late to realize that, yes, time is money. And, conversely, money is time—time that someone, somewhere worked.

Greenie

Sometimes I wonder if that moment when I came into the house after school, during a time when I was mostly friendless, dressed in matronly, dated clothes from the Cancer Society thrift shop, barred by my mother from concerts, movies, and parties, and I sat down at the table and was grabbed hard by my grandmother’s hand, which seemed to hold a charge of energy—sometimes I wonder if that moment, that physical connection, that pinch, was how I survived.

Flower People

There was a rumor the NAACP would call for a boycott of white-owned businesses. Eugene’s mother said it wasn’t clear what the objective would be, except to piss off white people and make Black people feel in control of something. “A show of Black power,” she said, holding up a fist from the living-room sofa, but she was worried more people would be killed.

The Basement

Teenage parties, lost treasures, wartime bomb shelters