Of course it turned out that Christmas cookies are not just any cookies you happen to bake for/on Christmas. There was a specific kind of cookie that Claire had in mind. She told Landon all about them while we were rolling out the dough and using cookie cutters, all about how making these cookies was […]
We had made our way all the way to the produce department before my mind circled back to something in that conversation. From things I’d learned from Janine and Courtney and Claire herself since arriving in Tennessee, I was putting together the timeline of my older sister’s lives. Claire’s whole “there wasn’t family to take […]
(Sorry to be posting late! Monday holiday confused me. But here we are! -ctan) — The next day Remo left and Claire declared it was Cookie Baking Day. I didn’t realize that the traditional holiday calendar had Cookie Baking Day, Christmas Eve, Christmas, and Boxing Day, but to hear Claire tell it, we would have […]
Church was of course not the place to have an argument about pharmaceuticals. Courtney had apparently decided not to fight going, and had come downstairs with Landon fully dressed herself in something church-appropriate. Borrowed, I assumed. Remo had been upstairs, too, and once we got Landon fed, we packed everyone into cars, by which I […]
When I arrived back at the house in the morning, Courtney was wallowing in misery. “Ugh, this is your fault,” she said to me, her face half buried in the crook of her arm on the breakfast table.
I had forgotten what it was like to live with people who were on hair triggers all the time. When I was growing up I had considered it mostly Digger and Claire. Once I thought about, though, I realized it was also my sisters. But when you’re a kid and you go off it’s “just […]
The next morning we were awakened rather early by the phone ringing in our hotel room. It was Barrett and it was urgent. “There’s a rehearsal you have to be at and the only flight out that makes sense is two hours from now, so you need to get going.” “Two hours from now?” Ziggy’s […]
I don’t have too many illusions about being a “good son.” I mean, I am pretty sure I am not one. That doesn’t mean I’m not a good person–that’s a whole different discussion. When you talk son or daughter, though, you’re talking about a very specific thing, and that’s how you relate to your parents. […]
The next evening we went back to the same mall. Me, Remo, Courtney, Ziggy, and Claire. Janine had abdicated her vote into Court’s hands. Ziggy and I had already bought something for her and no one argued with us–by which I mean Claire didn’t object when we said we had. Court and I were put […]
I saw a T-shirt the other day that said something like this: there are two kinds of crazy, the kind where you’re sure there’s something terribly wrong with you, and the other kind. I think the shirt was pithier, since that sounds like a lot of words to put on a shirt? What had caught […]