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I went inside and washed my face and discovered I was still half wearing the paper gown from the exam room, which meant I had walked out of the medical office in it and driven twenty-two minutes home without noticing. I changed into a sweatshirt. Made tea, poured it out. Made coffee, poured that out … Read more

We walked down the hallway to her office. She closed the door. This woman who had watched me go through three years of treatments without once flinching, this calm and steady physician, sat down across from me with her hands shaking. “I could lose my license for what I am about to show you,” she … Read more

He had sounded happy.He had sounded like the man I married. At the twelve-week ultrasound, he could not come. Route emergency. A truck jackknifed near an overpass outside Bridgeton and fourteen pallets of sparkling water needed rerouting, because apparently sparkling water waits for no one. He was very sorry. He would make the next one. … Read more

There were seven seagulls in the painting above the exam table. One of them looked like a check mark. I know this because I counted them three times while my doctor pressed the ultrasound wand against my stomach and her face changed in a way I had not been prepared for and did not yet … Read more

Got VHS tapes collecting dust on a shelf somewhere? Maybe you already reclaimed the space and they’re sitting in an attic long-forgotten. Hopefully you didn’t throw them out,though, as it turns out there might be quite the market for some old tapes. Modern directorial practice for movie releases and re-releases tends to include adding or … Read more

Then she had started giving him more medication before therapy. She told me he was having pain days. When he tried to stand one night and she caught him, she told him that if anyone saw evidence of mobility before the lawsuit against the trucking company was settled, the insurance company would claim the disability … Read more

She hit the interior garage door hard enough to rattle the glass, screaming my name, telling me he was confused, that he needed to sit down before he hurt himself. I threw the car in reverse. She ran into the garage and when she saw the lockbox in Noah’s lap something in her expression stopped … Read more

The calm in his voice was the most frightening thing in the room. Not the standing, not the shaking legs, not the shattered mug at my feet. The calm. It had the quality of something rehearsed across a long time, something he had been waiting to say through conditions that kept not being right, and … Read more

The morning Brittany left for Napa started like every other morning in the six years since the accident, which is to say it started with the particular careful choreography our household had developed around Noah’s needs, around schedules and medications and the management of a life organized by what he could not do. She kissed … Read more