Prose

Jeanne-Marie Fleming Couldn’t Keep Her My husband leaned against the door frame, hung his head and told our son, Colin, “Mommy is mean; she doesn’t like dogs.” “Dear Easter Bunny,” Colin wrote in third-grade cursive, “Can you please bring…

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Kate Neuman Housecleaning, 2020 I sat in my son’s room yesterday afternoon, in this heat-wave, with his air conditioner blasting, watching as he went through the ages of his life’s detritus that have found their way into his…

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Candace Chambliss It Hurts When you spend the weekend at your dad’s house, playing cards, eating McDonalds, and horseback riding and you return to your mother and happily announce that you want to live with daddy and she scoops…

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Anjali Vaidya A Trip to the Aquarium My five-year-old has always had a mind of her own. And by always I really do mean that; she’s been loudly expressing her own opinions since the time, as a fetus, when…

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Alisa Childress To Mom of Eight Years Ago, I often wonder what you would think of yourself now. Of you have become. You are almost unrecognizable. You have always been the woman who took pride in her appearance. You never…

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Ashley Espinoza 27 Miles “Should I have nursed her inside the room?” I asked my mom. As a single mother I needed her to drive me to the clinic, 27 miles from my home. “I don’t know, maybe?” My…

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Jennifer Furner The Adventurers The locker room was boisterous with women’s voices and running water, and I navigated my way through naked bodies to the showers with my baby in my arms. A woman, fully dressed, sat behind glass…

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Francesca Leader Milk and Blood My first child was six months old when I started working. I bought ten kinds of bottles, and she hated every one; she starved herself all day until I got home, then latched on…

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Melanie Faranello Becoming Early Days I stick your tiny fist inside my mouth and cry. It’s the size of a plum. We have no regard for time, or the falling from day into night into day. Together, we defy the…

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