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Out on the street I’d run into him sometimes. He’d always give me money, which was awkward, but I was out there panhandling, so I never said no. We’d sit on a bus stop bench and talk. CD’s read more than I have by now. He’s twenty-two. I’m thirty-two but people always figure I’m a lot older. I feel…

She holds him like a potato sack. The expression on her face says, “Where does this sack go?” It occurs to me that she has nobody to tell her anything at all.

We stayed very late, until the moon grew high and pale. Don and Max played chess by the light of a kerosene lantern. Caress of moths. Maria and I lay crosswise on a big hammock, talking softly about silly things like clothes, about our children, love. She and Don had been married only six months. B…

Max would carry each boy to bed and tuck him in. Kiss him sweet, the way he had kissed his father. Max slept as deeply as they. I thought he must be exhausted from what we were doing, his leaving his wife, taking on a family.

He taught them both to swim and to snorkel. He told them things. He to…

I don’t regret my alcoholism anymore. Before I left California my youngest son, Joel, came to breakfast. The same son I used to steal from, who had told me I wasn’t his mother. I cooked cheese blintzes; we drank coffee and read the paper, muttering to each other about Rickey Henderson, George Bush.…