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Sunbeams

Being a mother is a noble status, right? Right. So why does it change when you put “unwed” or “welfare” in front of it?

Florynce Kennedy

Hard Work

A drawing of a tugboat, an A&W root-beer stand, a C-minus mother

When They Get To The Corner

Back home Nimbus curls up beside Cirrus on the sofa. Norma heads out to the garden to do some weeding. I put on a fresh pot of coffee and open the Sunday newspaper. I’m still on page one when the phone rings. It’s my daughter Sara. There’s something she needs to tell me, she says, her voice a little unsteady. She pauses. It’s about Mara.

How The Winds Are Laughing

But adrenaline, my old friend from early motherhood, has come back to me, and I have taken up with her. I let myself be seduced by her charms, grab her hands for a tango, even though I know her game, the way she sticks around just long enough to see me through everyone else’s crises and then splits when I really need her.

Stepfamilies

A cottage on a lake, Little League, a gray-and-white tract home

Lessons

The space race, cotton picking, a magician

Our Impending Reconciliation

Sheila won custody. I get alternate weekends and a month in the summer, plus special events if I give notice in advance. It’s working out, mostly. Mark is eight and such a crackerjack, playing soccer and reading Sherlock Holmes.

The Drunkard’s Gait

Sometimes I tell them my husband is dead. More often I say he’s working out of town. Or that he’s ill and in a hospital receiving treatment. None of these things is true. Or maybe one of them is. They all could be.

Out Of Reach

A silver bookmark, the Milky Way, college-prep courses