The cedar fence posts along the county road were gray as driftwood and twice as stubborn after three years of drought. I sat on the tailgate of my old Dodge …
The Rusted Hohner Accordion And The Fifty-Year Secret That Cost Me My Quiet Porch Read More
The smell of damp mortar and cut lime always brings me right back to the summer Cal decided our backyard needed a monument. It started with a pallet of red …
The Backyard Brick Wall And The Painted Mural That Cost Me My Whole Marriage Read More
I know you are going to hate me when you hear this, and honestly, I do not blame you one bit. I was the one who left the side door …
The Backyard Cat And The Lonely Woman Who Cost Me Fourteen Months Of Searching Read More
I was wrong about what that old trunk in the back of the garage was meant to hold, and I admit it right here because keeping that secret for thirty …
The Patched Wool Quilt From My Grandmother’s Trunk That Cost Me Thirty Years Of Pride Read More
Three seasons of dead squash vines and brown tomato stalks will teach you a lot about how stubborn dirt can be when you do not know how to talk to …
The Forty-Three Dead Tomato Stakes And The Hidden Letters That Cost Me Three Years With Arthur Read More
The box fan in the second-floor hallway was clicking every third rotation like a dry joint in a knee. I had just finished scrubbing the linoleum in room 214 when …
The Ice Cream Truck Song That Cost Me Fifty Years And Led Me Straight To My Grandson Read More
My coffee cup was still lukewarm and half-full on the side table when I grabbed my car keys off the brass hook by the back door. I had lived in …
The Platform Two Green Bench And The Thirty Years I Spent Waiting With Dale For A Train That Never Pulled In Read More
I know you are going to hate me when you hear this, and honestly I do not blame you at all because I was the main one wasting six years …
The Old Brass Key In My Late Father’s Drawer That Cost Me Six Years And Told Me The Truth Read More
The green paperback book sat on my kitchen counter for three solid weeks, smelling faintly of the thrift store basement where Clara had dug it up. It had a badly …
The Hated Book Club Choice That Cost Me My Freedom And Found Me Dennis Read More
The newspaper skiff was folded out of an old copy of the Daily Astorian from May of nineteen-eighty-four, right when the cannery down on the wharf started laying off the …
The Folded Newspaper Skiff That Drifted Out Of Reach And Cost Me Twenty Years With My Daughter Read More