*   It’s winter and the ceiling fan, not in use, has become a big asterisk above my bed, a qualification to my life.  I wonder what it’s telling me.  Is it a “yes, but,” or is it more of a “by the way”?  Does it mean this terrible, lonely year is a mere blip, [...]

Our friendship was just beginning the month you died. We enacted the juvenile plays of high schoolers trying to impress each other. Staying after school in a time before cell phones, we waited on the wide concrete steps until our parents or older siblings came to pick us up. You found a smashed hamburger on [...]