“Unemployed again, huh?” my mom sighed at Christmas dinner. My dad nodded. “It’s not like she ever manages to keep a job for…
I still remember the exact tone of her voice. Not angry, not apologetic, just careless, like she was telling me the weather forecast…
My name is Aurora. I am thirty-six years old and I live in Seattle. I was sitting in a glass-walled boardroom downtown, surrounded…
The diamond on my daughter’s mother-in-law’s hand threw stars onto the ceiling every time she lifted her champagne glass. I watched those little…
The siren outside the hospital hiccuped once and fell silent, leaving only the antiseptic sting in the air, the soft hiss of the…
The first thing I heard was the ocean. Not the real Pacific outside my tiny Seattle apartment—the sound came from the screensaver on…
The diamond on Paige Anderson’s wrist caught the chandelier light and threw it straight into my eyes, a blinding little reminder of exactly…
By the time my father raised his crystal glass over the crowded living room in our Boston suburb and told me to leave…
She’d thought the financial chokehold would break me. My husband, Devon, had announced, smug and satisfied, “I blocked all your cards. Now you’ll…
The night my father retired, the Marriott ballroom off I‑71 smelled like prime rib, cheap cologne, and the kind of champagne hotels only…