Activity

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.…

The moon. There’s no other moon like one on a clear New Mexico night. It rises over the Sandias and soothes the miles and miles of barren desert with all the quiet whiteness of a first snow. Moonlight in Liza’s yellow eyes and the chinaberry tree.

The world just goes along. Nothing much matters,…

When she was gone Rickie Evers dropped his gold cigarette lighter on the floor and when he reached down for it he ran his hand up my leg, stroked the inside of my knee.

I took a bite of the Baked Alaska and said I wondered how they ever managed to do it. He picked his lighter up and told me I ha…