Our grandmother had by now completed a breath thousands or millions of times. It was getting to a point of her frailty where the completion wasn’t inevitable. It was as if she was searching for a memory to trigger the next quenching inhalation—a memory of us as little children competing for attention, to be the last bathed and put to bed, or our grandfather’s return from work each day in time for the evening meal. Read more →
Montréal, my ice queen, with each passing year you must have had a good laugh into your sleeve, every time you saw me trudge through your hiver de force, your cold breaking my skin, slicing my lips, stinging my eyes, when I was fourteen, on Parthenais and Ontario, in front of Pierre-Dupuy Tech, my school full of nutjobs, I would wait for the Papineau bus, heading back home for lunch at full throttle, my too-thin jacket and my second-hand boots pierced by the icy wind and little bits of snow
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Dustin had just graduated collage. We’d been at a party at an upscale bar and grill with a number of other proud parents and graduating students. Witnesses stated that they observed Ilene having only a single drink, while both Dustin and I were four sheets to the wind. This is why, as Dorothy explained, Ilene, who always hated to drive in the dark, and almost never did so, ended up being the one behind the wheel that night when we left for home at 2:00AM.
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Something was wrong—I could see that right off. A peculiar fatigue showed around the edges of her appearance, prominent without dominating. Pink eyes, hair fixed but frayed, as if she’d been driving with the windows down, details of that sort.
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Janet gets “Enter Sandman” played at her funeral because she must have been in Neverland if she thought she could get away with embezzlement. Douglas gets his eulogy in Mandarin so only a select few will understand. Alisha gets a video of her practicing in her head and everyone has to imagine the music. Read more →
Happy Birthday, Mr. President. I really want to play along—but a cocksure president?— I just couldn’t pull it off. I do worry about her. True enough, I’ve seen her reel before, stagger in her high heels, so drunk she could barely stand up straight, but she never used to be alone.
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