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Preparations for a
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Family, Friends and Lovers
With this edition of
Family, Friends & Lovers, we begin to turn away
from romantic love toward essential family bonds. What does it mean
to struggle into motherhood, to have or lose a baby, to nourish or
defend a child, to etch your own outline in your mother's shadow, to
lose the woman who gave birth to you? These stories take those
questions on. Let us know what you think about them at Moxie's
online
forum, MoxieTalk.
Abortion
Lessons
I had an
abortion six months ago. I offer no poetic nuances to skirt the issue. I
am twenty-six, married, and college-educated. I never imagined
..(more)
Ever since my mother dressed me in lace anklets and little white shoes and carted me around stores for people to admire, I was a good girl who needed to be bad...(more)
Alien
Dates
"So, do you
believe in Aliens?" the guy asking me this is a
seemingly-normal man. He is serious....(more)
Always a
Bridesmaid
My friend is planning her wedding. I'm a bridesmaid. God help me.
Luckily, I have been able to provide her with a lot of valuable
information because I was in the process of planning my own wedding,
until I called it off. She was supposed to be my maid of honor. I
dragged her to a bridal expo and a few dress shops. I certainly owed
it to her to return the favor and share the pain. I figured I might
as well have someone learn something from...(more)
American
Gothic Romance
He'd fallen in love with her at the Art Institute of
Chicago. She said she flew to Chicago twice a year, because she thought
she'd meet her soul mate looking at the American Gothic. She loved that
painting. It should have been his first clue, but her independence
intoxicated him. She was a successful...(more)
Another
Wednesday
It's
Wednesday, and being a woman of routine, I don't see any reason to alter
my weekly schedule. I arrive just after she's finished her dinner, peek
into her room before I enter, try to determine what kind of night it's
going to be. An attendant has seated her in an armchair by the window
and she's staring outside. The fluorescent lights in the parking lot
...(more)
Asunder
I wore the standard-issue ugly bridesmaid dressó
Pepto-Bismol pink with poofy sleeves,
Old-lady lace down the bodice and
The usual big butt bowó
And stood there on pinchy shoes dyed to match
With flowers in my hair and...(more)
Bada-Bing,
Bada-Boom:
Ahhh, Sweet Revenge
I recently went to my high school reunion. I went for no real
reason. Well maybe just one...I wanted to show my old boyfriend what
he missed out on. Now don't think me petty or bitter. I'm not. After
ten years I would be pretty pathetic if I still harbored any
feelings, good or bad, about him. Not that I have any, really. Okay,
okay, maybe I do still have some negativity towards him, or did
anyway, but going to the reunion helped me gain major closure. The first night of the reunion, there was...(more)
Breast Pump
When our nearly
four-week-old son weighed seven ounces below his birth weight, I was
terrified. I wanted to be able to nurture, to nourish my own child, who
was not feeding well. His gums were razor sharp-no one had mentioned
that babies could induce pain so long before their first teeth poked
through-and he gnawed at my nipples. He tired easily, falling asleep at
the breast quickly ...(more)
Boggy
Meadow
Yvette knelt on
the splintery floor of a shack. Outside, through a fractured pane of
glass she saw rocks tumbling down the bluff, heard them pounding the
shack's corroded roof, the rusted metal vibrating in a thunderous
roar. All around her, the shack trembled and shook, threatening to
collapse at any second--and then, she sat up in bed. In the room
across the hall her husband, Robert, snored...(more)
A Case of
Sympathetic Divorce Syndrome?
Just after I graduated from college almost four years ago, my
parents separated. My dad moved into some scummy apartment, and Mom
stayed in the house. Of the three daughters, I was the least
shocked. My two sisters were already away at college when Mom packed
her bags on a sunny spring Sunday years before. She got only as far
as the garage, and I never did learn the precipitating event or the
conciliatory actions. This time was different though...(more)
Confessions
of a Midlife Bride
In the late fall of 1995, I got married. There is, of course,
nothing unusual about that, except that I was forty-six years old
and a first-time bride. I had considered marriage many years before,
when I was in college. I considered it so carefully that I broke an
engagement. Then I didn't think about it much for five or six years,
when I became encumbered by an uncooperative would-be fiancÈ. After
that...(more)
Daddy's
Little Girl
Ruth
groped toward the stairs in the darkened hall. She descended toward
ghostly objects-a plant, telephone stand, hall tree.... Suddenly a door
opened, framing a stout woman in the light. The woman paused
...(more)
Dating
in South Carolina
When I left the land of non-committal, upwardly mobile beautiful
people in San Francisco, I traded my fast-paced life of IPO parties
and over-stimulated sensory awareness for a more peaceful world. In
Charleston, South Carolina, I knew I would find people able to
commit to coffee at least one day in advance. Perhaps men would be
interested in more than the sport-dating of San Francisco, where
something better is always just up ahead...(more)
Desire
I waltzed into the
crowded Elat kosher market just two hours before doors closed for
Passover. It had been years since I lived in Los Angeles or New
York, and I had forgotten the feeling of being able to buy
everything within my grasp. With the excitement of a child in a toy
store, I walked around gaping at the aisles and aisles of shelves
displaying "Kosher for Passover" products, stopping dead
in my tracks when I saw ten brands of rice staring back at me. I
grew up seeing...(more)
Do you
know where youíre going?
The waitress placed two cups of black coffee and the bill on the
table. They both reached for their coffee. "I donít know when I realized it really. How do you
realize that your life is going nowhere?" Mary smelled her
steaming coffee. "If I had to say, I guess it was when...(more)
Dulcimer
you & I
naked in the dusk
listening to the dulcimer...(more)
Emotional
Chicken: A Double Entendre in Sex Acts
Iím driving fast on Lake Shore with the radio blasting, dancing in
my seat, shouting at the top of my voice, and spitting in a very
unladylike fashion when hair lands in my mouth. A Lincoln Town Car
in front of me taps his brakes as we round an "S" curve. I
gun the engine, downshift, and whip around him, pressing the
accelerator with gusto. The song ends, I...(more)
Fifteen
Years of Lorraine
When Daddy was living in an apartment he'd pick my
brother, Jack, and me up on Saturdays. We'd have fun, the three of us.
We'd go to McDonald's for cheeseburger Happy Meals, over to the corner
shop for penny candy, and to the Bowl-A-Rama. Whenever it was my turn to
bowl...(more)
Free the
Breast
After months
of colic-filled evenings, sleepless nights, near-toxic diaper changes,
and sore nipples, my baby daughter and I need a break from our
monotonous routines. I am tired of smelling like spit-up and she is
weary of listening to taped babbling brooks and crickets chirping from
the CD player. We need to feel the rays of the sun on our
faces...(more)
The
Funeral
Genevieve woke to the sound of thunder. It had entered her dream as
the sound of an old-fashioned train crashing into a hillside. In her
dream, she had been riding the train for hours with nobody else in
sight but a young woman made up as a clown, cart-wheeling up and
down the elongated aisle, scattering petals from a bouquet of
flowers over the rows of empty seats. When the train came to a
sudden, screeching halt the clown-woman...(more)
The water carves a broad, sluggish swath, darker than the night. Steam lifts from the surface like breath. This is the Missouri as it slips south, six blocks from the house where I grew up. The air is thick and soft...(more)
Granted
"Eleven-eleven.
Make a wish!" I said, looking at the four neon green lines that
scored the small, dark dashboard clock. It was more of a conditioned
response than a conscious statement.
When I was young there was, I remember, a similar situation ó four
bright green cells, each a precise replication of the others, lined
up neatly in the upper left corner of the new microwave oven in my
kitchen. "All the numbers are the same," my cousin Sarah
told me. "You make a wish." And so I had, each time I...(more)
Gutting
the House
Fifteen years ago,
when I was forging my way through the corporate business world,
Bruce took me under his wing. An absolute charmer and master of
words, he taught me his secrets for success: always put yourself in
the path of opportunity, make sure you know your audience, and dare
to take the weapon from your opponent's hands. His
advice worked. My career took off. And so did my heart...(more)
Hair
Today
I was standing in a crowded beer tent, choking down warm beer and
swatting mosquitoes when I first saw it. Long and thick, it seemed
to beg to be stroked, even playfully tugged. Sporting just the
slightest hint of a wave, it was subtly teasing as it gently swayed
with each body movement. When I had gulped down enough...(more)
Hearing
Kiri Te Kanawa
When we first met, my husband told me about a piece of music.
"You have to hear this," he said. "Itís like
hearing the voice of GodÖ." Later, after we married, he
bought me a tape of Kiri Te Kanawa singing Canteloube's "Chants
D'Auvergne" Series 1, 2, and 3ó folk songs a medieval
shepherdess sings to her lover across a mountain meadow in France. I
used to listen to it before...(more)
His
Warm Kiss
Naomi surveyed the
frost-burnt Boston fern that hung from the hook screwed into the
porch roof. Her neglect had caused its bushy leaves to shrivel and
turn black. Now that the plant was dead, Naomi felt guilty.
What to do with the dead plant? She loved to...(more)
I Got
As Far as Hello
So there I was, on the 6, just like Jennifer Lopez, headed towards
Union Square. I was meeting Carol, Nadine and Alicia for Friday
Happy Hour and dinner at Luna Park. Alicia had seen the place
highlighted on Sex and the City, so naturally we had to check it
out. Now that we were college graduates and scattered around New
York City, our lives were supposed to be like the show. My friends
were always...(more)
One approach to keeping love alive...
I want an old-fashioned relationship. I don't just mean that I want a man to open doors, pick up the check, and take my elbow on the street. I want him to lead when we dance, play cards like Frank Sinatra, drink like Dean Martin, talk tough like Humphrey Bogart. I want a man who can take any other man in the room. I want to feel safe and I want to feel like...(more)
In My
Mother's Shadow
My
mother is a damaged soul. I don't know the who, when, where, how, or
why. I suppose the specifics are no longer needed. She is definitely the
product of something gone terribly awry. I spent many years at the hands
of her wrath. As I approached adulthood and marriage ...(more)
In
Sickness (and Health)
Iím lying on my side, my back stuck against my husbandís naked
back, my sore ear facing down toward the bed. I try to concentrate
on his back and press into it with my own so that our heat will
reduce the frequency of his spasms. An hour goes by and another, and
we sleep fitfully, turning over now and again, repositioning
ourselves...(more)
In the
Beginning
A noise from the
parlor made her jump, and though Jimmy had been dead for a year, it
still frightened her when she heard a sound. "Damn you Jimmy
Murray, why can't you just leave me in peace," Kathleen said as
she slammed the kitchen window shut, cutting off...(more)
Inside
the Bone
and even if we do someday say goodbye to each other
even if tender words fading crumble fall and blow away
saccharine love songs echo wistful melodies in an empty hall...(more)
The
Kiss of Death
She never expected
to hear from him again. Never. So when the phone rang in the middle
of the afternoon she thought nothing of it and answered on the
second ring, "Hello?"...(more)
A Kodak
Moment
"Wide load coming
through. Wide load!" said my husband. He tapped the four-by-six
print with his index finger, creating a strobe-like effect that
intensified the blue of my favorite maternity dress and tripled the
striped sailor-suit cuffs. My quadrupled weight filled the frame...(more)
The
Last Frontier
"Two drafts
and two cokes," I gave Mark my order, put down my cocktail
tray, and looked out the window. Once again, it was snowing. Large
billowy white flakes swirled down from the gray sky, blanketing the
parking lot. It was May. However, this was not like any May Iíd
ever known. This was Alaska.
In the three months since Iíd moved from San Francisco, Iíd
seen...(more)
Learning
How to Swim
1 He tells me that he loves me because I am so full of dark dark
soul soul which is the well where you get your best water from and I
live in a dark apartment swirls of blue paint in the front room a
string of blue Christmas lights scented candles and cigarette smoke
for even more ambience. This is the room where he first unfolded me.
He lay his hands on me and there was no end to it...(more)
The
Lost Art of Making Out
We live in fast
times. We also live in a time when jumping into bed with someone can
have deadly repercussions. I know things are warped when even my
sexual fantasies include condoms! Surprisingly, many people I know
still seem to play musical bedmates, while others seek intimacy and
gratification through the wonders of online sex. How oddówith the
click of a mouse, you can take a romp in the cyber-hay with a
stranger halfway across the world. We all need contact and
companionship. But should we...(more)
Love
Revisited
Early this Sunday morning spring is breaking out all over. When I
come in from the garden there's a message on the phone recorder,
"Please call me." It's Ted. His words sound formal,
deliberate, unlike him. When I call, eagerly as always, he begins
with...(more)
Love
Story
You were there All along I didnít know I stumbled against you You
caught me.
You slept soundly The sheets coiled around you I turned away And thought of these last months When we circled each other Like children, spoiling for a fight. We...(more)
The
Marriage Plant
It stood on the balcony, twisting itself towards the south,
reaching for horizons of sand, rejecting the island of concrete and
steel that kept it aloft in the captivity of civilization, roots
curled into a gigantic clay pot that could not possibly substitute
for its natural home. Stranded in this ridiculous container, it made
the best of the situation and grew, year after year, demanding of
its keepers...(more)
Mother
Mother.
Her.
Entangled in the messy
acrostic
of father's and partner's names.
I'm laughing wry tears
as I find that becoming
a...(more)
Mother
Sniping, Its Rise and Fall
Motherhood, groggy from decades of blastings from
writers, psychologists and the general public, is now reeling into the
21st century. Her condition, while precarious, appears to be improving.
The 1990s and '80s were kinder to mothers...(more)
My Son
My son tells me
dirty jokes. Not just kid kind of dirty jokes, but adult jokes. He is
sixteen and growing into manhood in a body that he has lost control of.
"He has issues," I tell people when they ask why he...(more)
Painting
the Nursery
You lay over me stroking my ribs, my breasts. And then when you
began kissing me I thought, But weíve just been kissing. You asked
me what I wanted next.
"Touch my tummy."
So you did. I thought, I donít know this man. My tummy knows this
man...(more)
The Phone
Call
The phone
rang. I answered hoping it was the cute boy from my history class. The
voice on the other end was a familiar one, my stepfather. Strange, him
calling me at school. It was usually my mother who called. There was a
moment of silence...(more)
Phone
Sex
The first thing I
noticed was the way my mind seemed to splatter all around, twist and
shout, corner the room. Nobody understands what we mean when we say
we leave our body, and I donít know if thatís really what we
mean. We donít really leave; we compartmentalize, put a shade over
our soul. We move back, divide, recede, elevate, but we donít
leave. If you look real hard, you can find us in...(more)
The
Proposal
I am standing in front of Richard, a man I am dating, and he is
holding out a wedding ring. It is a half-carat, circle-cut diamond
in a platinum setting with tiny diamonds trailing along the band. He
tells me it used to belong to his grandmother, who was happily
married for thirty-two years until she died of a heart attack. The
ring sits in the middle of...(more)
The Reason
Three little girls
baby-doll, white-bowed,
egg-nog speckled
pearls
know another was on the way...
(more)
Reflections
and Refractions
Every clear, full-moon night in south-central Kentucky, a moonbow
appears over Cumberland Falls. The mist offers itself to rays from
the moon, and these rays bounce off some droplets, bend through
others. The result is a moonbow, sometimes white, sometimes faint
with color, and a visitor could easily miss it if she weren't...(more)
Rendezvous
I watched from my
window as you built another life, in another place, with another
woman, and still I didnít get it. I didn't seem to notice that you
were not coming in my direction, that what I had to give, you would
never take. The only thing I ever offered that you willingly
accepted was the knowledge that no matter what levels of humiliation
and loneliness you took me to, no matter how many times I was left
standing alone in the rain, I would take you back. Even when you
didn't even want that anymore, I waited. I hoped. How deep, how
painful the...(more)
Revelations
Sorting Christmas cards I found Mike Klineís name
and remembered his black hair swaying in a doorway
in the Art and Architecture Building, blending in
with the black curls of his girlfriend in college.
I wanted to be kissed in public that way and soon...(more)
Sandraís
World
Sandra had been vacuuming Scandinavia, dusting each of Norwayís
fjords, when Greg called to say that although he thought he would
always have feelings for her, they werenít the feelings he once
thought they were, and since he was going to be in London on
business for the weekend, perhaps it would be a good time for her to...(more)
Scooping
Mary
Mary, here's
what's up with your futon:
I came home from two weeks vacation
Trailing my stepfather and a shriveled up bush from the Island...(more)
Seeds
of Doubt
I stood in the doorway for a moment, then let myself be pulled into
the silence and shadows of the room. Tigger and Pooh and Big Bird
watched, frozen on the walls as I bent and brought my lips to the
pillow where that head should lay, as I looked into eyes I knew
should be...(more)
The Sky
Asks No Questions
On a night like tonight, when the sky William captures on
canvas is unobstructed by clouds, sounds are magnified. The air
is filled with the riotous, untuned concert of cicadas, frogs
and a restless bird who screeches as though her nest was robbed.
Above it all I hear William's heavy breathing and the little
murmurs and moans as he makes love to yet another woman.
I am curled up in my bed down the hall...(more)
Smoke
I must have been warned of this in a dream. You look so pale
darling, please sit down. You look lovely dear, lovely but so pale.
People act as though I have seen a ghost. And maybe I am seeing a
ghost. There. Wearing a long white gown. She's in the mirror.
Waiting...(more)
Snow Day
"Francis, come to bed."
"Soon." He didnít look up.
"Define ësoon.í"
"Jesus Christ, Alice, Iím working."
"I wish youíd work this hard on us."...(more)
Stolen Kiss
We had both known that it was only a matter of time before one of us would pluck up the courage to steal a kiss. Whenever I looked at him I could see his longing, sense his desire and would then watch helplessly as he fought, and lost, his battle with shyness. I knew he wanted that kiss as much as I did but...(more)
A Taxi
Story
Itís a perfectly clear, hot summer day. Iím late. Iím supposed
to meet my babysitter at the pediatricianís office, where she is
bringing my daughter whoís due for her one-year check up. If Iíd
left the office twenty minutes earlier, I could have taken the
subway and been there on time, but guilt kept me at my desk until
the last minute. Iím the only working mother in my department, and
Iím sure everyone notices...(more)
That
Garlic
We fell in love
because we both liked being fat. In all honesty, she gave me that.
She had no doubt about whether or not she was happy in her body; she
was joyously rotund, erotically ample. Before I met her I had
thought I should want to be a skinny boy, but getting there would
have taken too much effort and that didn't appeal to me. Olive oil
appealed to me....(more)
A Time
of Water, A Time of Trees
I met Louisa through my work as a geriatric social worker when her
doctor referred her to me for psychotherapy because of her refusal
to have a polyp on her vocal cords removed. "She
acts like she deserves it," he explained. "She must be
clinically depressed to feel that way."...(more)
True Love?
I felt certain the love bug struck me when I came to know my now
ex-husband. He seemed to have those qualities we all look for in a
man, so I married him. I never knew love quite the way I knew it
with him, nor had I ever allowed myself to get so close to another
human being. I didn't know much about relationships, except for the
bad things I saw with my parents' defunct marriage, so I convinced
myself that...(more)
The Visit
At the stainless
steel sink, I scrub my hands with the bristle brush until they are raw
and aching. The smell of the antiseptic is strong, lingering. It should
be; this is the routine all visitors must go through to kill any germs;
germs that could kill our babies...(more)
The
Visit
I fully expect to read that the French have taken over the world in
tomorrow's headlines. Of course, that always happens whenever I see
my French in-laws...(more)
Ultimate
Feminism
The man in the produce aisle dropped his eyes to my protruding belly, a
sneer pulling at the corner of his lips. My son giggled in his stroller,
drawing the man's attention away from my girth for a moment. Shaking his
head, he looked up at me...(more)
Understanding Mother
My mother died four days ago and all I've been able to
think since then is, "Uh-oh." I've tried to muster something more
profound, a little more soul searching-ish; I'd settle for straight
sorrow...(more)
The
Upstairs Nursery
"Congratulations! A son !" The doctors and nurses cry in
unison. Through her exultant tears, Selene says, "Oh, he has
the most beautiful little rosebud mouth."
When she brings Gabriel home from the hospital, Selene gives thanks
that she has finally given birth to a healthy baby, whose eyes
sparkle with a hint of sea-green in their new-born blue. Sometimes
he...(more)
The Way
the Heart Survives
The way the heart survives
is to see the day let loose
on the streets like a beggar...(more)
We Have
Found Each Other
We
have found each other. Quite a feat considering the mass of humanity on
the railway station platforms. Rush hour on a Wednesday at St. Pancras.
The immense iron roofs stretching over our heads hundreds of feet up,
wrought iron curving from one platform to another. Generations of
families and lovers have met in this exact same place...(more)
Wedded Bliss?
Call us old fashioned, but I didnít actually live with my husband
(I still can't get used to that term!) before we got married. Not
for any strong moral or religious reasons, it just didnít suit us
at the time. He had a house, I had a house, both of which needed
attention and upkeepóso we lived our lives separately, together,
if you know what I mean...(more)
The
Weddings
By the time she arrived in the small town, Shivani was half
delirious. She had been traveling for close to two days and was in
serious need of some coffee and a bath. Her black pants were dusty
and her red jersey was crinkled with sweat. Her face had already
turned a shade darker from...(more)
When
Two Worlds Collide
Since my mother
threw a dart on a map of the Southwest and moved from LA to the
desert metropolis of Silver City, New Mexico, we have visited her
more than a dozen times. But none of these pilgrimages was more
intriguing than the trip we made there to meet...(more)
Only 23% of the U.S. population stays single their entire life. That means most of us will get, are, or have been married at some time. So then why does every man complain about what his woman won't do and every woman complains about what her man does? Why do people...(more)
A Woman
Knitting
The first
time that I saw her, she was sitting in the corner chair of my
gynecologist's waiting room, leaning over her knitting, intently tracing
a pattern across the beginning rows of her work, with fingers
surprisingly youthful for a woman of her seemingly advanced years. She
had a blue tint to her silver hair ...(more)
Wonder
Boy
Lisaís mind wandered as she drank her morning coffee. She wondered
what the guy who lived in the upstairs apartment was doing at that
moment. Was he drinking coffee as well, or was he drinking tea? Did
he prefer a can of Pepsi or maybe a tall glass of cold orange juice?
She imagined him in his Wonderbread factory uniform, the blue shirt
with the red and yellow logo on the name tag baring his name, Jeff.
His...(more)
The
Wrong Kind of Music
He'd opened her bedroom window, Diana discovered. She could hear the
cars whizzing by on the rain-slicked street outside.
"Is that all right?" he called from the bathroom.
"I love fresh air," she lied cheerfully.
"Reminds me of the theme from The Bodyguard," he said,
stepping out of the...(more)
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