
The first thing I focused on was the little American flag magnet on our stainless steel fridge. I couldn’t see…

I was standing in my tiny office kitchen, waiting for the microwave to finish humming over my leftovers, when I…

The last normal moment of my life was stupidly American. It was a Friday afternoon in late September, hot enough…

Last Friday afternoon, there was a red, white, and blue flag magnet crooked on my fridge, a sweating glass of…

I was sipping store-brand hot cocoa from a chipped white mug with a faded American flag on the side when…

My sister had both hands in my son’s hair under a kitchen cabinet lined with red, white, and blue mugs…

I was thirty-two years old and trying not to crush a flimsy plastic cup of Costco champagne when my father…

The night my life cracked open, my grandmother’s question floated across our dining room table as softly as steam from…

By the time the pounding started on my front door, the ice in my glass of sweet tea had melted…

My twin sister’s graduation dinner toast ended with everybody clapping for her European tour while I sat there with a…

The first thing I saw when I stepped into the kitchen was the dish towel in my mother’s hands and…

The phone went dead at 9:07 p.m., and I didn’t move. I was sitting at my little kitchen table, the…

At the restaurant, under chandeliers soft enough to lie for everyone in that room, my brother lifted his glass and…

On Thanksgiving, my sister didn’t raise a toast. She raised my laptop. The family room smelled like turkey, cinnamon, and…

After thirty-eight years of marriage, my wife left me standing in a casino parking lot in Niagara Falls, New York,…

There’s a little American flag magnet on my parents’ stainless-steel fridge, the kind they bought at a gas station off…

By the time the scream finally reached the parking lot, I was already halfway into my car. The Vermont night…

Mom told me I had to pay for college for my sister on the same day I threw my graduation…

My sister’s hand moved so fast it blurred past the red-and-white paper napkins with the tiny American flags printed in…

On the night I turned eighteen, the string lights in our Austin backyard glowed like they were strung for…