“If you want Elita to throw anything away, just tell her it causes cancer.” This was the advice a friend gave my husband, Mark, when we first got married. It was true. I had once thrown away a whole box of scented candles and a series of scratched Teflon frying pans because someone had told […]
On the first day of my teenage stint as a volunteer in the local hospital, my supervisor gave me a tour. As she explained the business of each floor, she mentioned that I wouldn’t be going up to the psych ward. I shuddered with relief. My mind’s eye flashed with a picture of drooling, yelling […]
There is a bridal portrait, 8 ½x11 in a crackled frame that sits atop my husband’s dresser in our bedroom. In it, I am twenty years old, blonde hair, shock white smile, blue eyes glistening at the hope of the future. My veil spills out all around me and though I am covered in a […]