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The Cancerous Dog

Nothing Moved Except His Eyes

It was late November, and I was visiting my parents. Dad was asleep in a rented hospital bed in my sister’s old room; he was dying of lung cancer. Mom and I talked over coffee at the kitchen table.

Which Way To Siloam?

I turned my head to look at the woman on the bed to my left, and felt a jolt of shock. Carlos was bent over her and, with two hands, stretching apart the skin over her stomach. A tumor the size of a cantaloupe was slowly extruding through the opening, and the woman had raised her head to stare at the thing in amazement.

Hair

A fashion show, a bike helmet, a confrontation on an elevator

Father’s Day 1989

Last Day At Lemon Acres

At 4:30 that afternoon Jack was sitting up in a chair, his polished, old man’s legs crossed, eyes staring intently at the floor. My heart turned a little pirouette: it was the first time he’d been out of bed on his own in six weeks.

Mickey Mantle, Mother, And The Secret Service

It’s August 1995, and Billy says the Mick is as good as dead. My brother counts one, two, three on his fingers: “First they give him a new liver. Then the cancer they missed eats up his lung. Then he dies.”

The Other Woman

Gina and I just happened to fall for the same guy — a man who married the wrong woman, was miserable for twenty years until the divorce, and now wants to answer only to himself.

Faces

Jeanne Moreau, a shattered jaw, a face lift

Ninth Inning