From Mom To Son Quotes

Mrs. Spence picks up a roll of toilet paper from the counter and scrunches her nose. “Ask Caymen about that,” Xander says. Great, now I have to explain to his mother about my vandalism? “Your son called me with a toilet paper emergency. I rushed right over.” She looks confused so Xander says, “She’s kidding, Mom.

MOM Wholeheartedly, She loved me- And inspired me- With transcending devotion. It was a blessing- To have been her son, To have been loved- Without conditions. Her words of wisdom- Opened my eyes- To the world- And to myself. By seeing the best in me, She empowered me. By believing in me, She transformed me. She grew old- And floated away, But her love remains standing- Eternally by my side.

There is no time to reallocate the turkeys.” Without missing a beat, he blurts out, “Bring them to the house.” “Where? Are you hiding a turkey habitat up your ass, son? Where, in our historically protected house, am I going to put a couple of turkeys until I pardon them tomorrow?” “Put them in my room. I don’t care.” She outright laughs. “No.” “How is it different from a hotel room? Put the turkeys in my room, Mom.” “I’m not putting the turkeys in your room.” “Put the turkeys in my room.” “No.” “Put them in my room, put them in my room, put them in my room—” That night, as Alex stares into the cold, pitiless eyes of a prehistoric beast of prey, he has a few regrets. THEY KNOW, he texts Henry. THEY KNOW I HAVE ROBBED THEM OF FIVE-STAR ACCOMMODATIONS TO SIT IN A CAGE IN MY ROOM, AND THE MINUTE I TURN MY BACK THEY ARE GOING TO FEAST ON MY FLESH.

Parents expect only two things from their children, obedience in their childhood and respect in their adulthood.

Actually, Justina, I didn't just ring you to chat about what an undead murderer I was...right, degenerate whore as well. Did I ever tell you my mum was one? No? Oh, blimey, I come from a long line of whores, in fact..." I sucked in a breath as Bones divulged yet another tidbit about his past to my mother, who must be frothing at the mouth by now. "...called to give you the good news. I asked your daughter to marry me and she accepted. Congratulations, I will officially be your son-in-law. Now, do you want me to call you Mum straightaway, or wait until after the wedding?" I flew through the air in a dive that finally tackled him, wrenching the phone away. Bones was laughing so hard, he had to breathe to get it all out. "Mom? Are you there? Mom...?" "You might want to give her a moment, Kitten. I believe she fainted.

My son, I will love you unconditionally no matter what you do. I pray you choose wisely, and that you are always safe. But what I want most, is that whatever you decide and become, that you are a good example to others. That is what would comfort me. This, I believe, is your responsibility in life. I want you to own that responsibility and I want you to live that responsibility.

Mom taught me not to look away from the worst but to believe that we can all do better. She never wavered in her conviction that books are the most powerful tool in the human arsenal, that reading all kinds of books, in whatever format you choose - electronic (even though that wasn't for her) or printed, or audio - is the grandest entertainment, and also is how you take part in human conversation. Mom taught me that you can make a difference in the world and that books really do matter: they're how we know what we need to do in life, and how we tell others. Mom also showed me, over the course of two years and dozens of books and hundreds of hours in hospitals, that books can be how we get closer to each other, and stay close, even in the case of a mother and son who were very close to begin with, and even after one of them has died.

Best day of my life hasn't happened yet. But I know it. I see it every day. The best day of my life is the day I buy my mom a huge fucking house. And not just like out in the woods, but in the middle of Mountain Brook, with all the Weekday Warriors' parents. With all y'all's parents. And I'm not buying it with a mortgage either. I'm buying it with cash money, and I am driving my mom there, and I'm going to open her side of the car door and she'll get out and look at this house—this house is like picket fence and two stories and everything, you know—and I'm going to hand her the keys to her house and I'll say, 'Thanks.' Man, she helped fill out my application to this place. And she let me come here, and that's no easy thing when you come from where we do, to let your son go away to school. So that's the best day of my life.

Menoceus wants his father." "Bob is crying because he wants his mother to stop calling him that crap-ass name. It's all right Bob. Daddy's got you now. I'm saving you fromMommy's bad naming taste. I'd be crying, too, if my mom named me after an idiot." "Menoeceus is a great name." "For an old man or a feminine hygeine product. Not for my son. And next time I get to name the kid and it won't be something that sounds like meningitis.

Clubs rattled behind them. Skeet Cooper rubbed the corner of his mouth with his thumb and rose from the bench. “Looks like Kenny’s caddy’s here.” Dallie lifted an eyebrow as his son stepped up on the tee carrying Kenny’s bag. Ted smiled. “Sorry I’m late. Mom made me eat breakfast. Then she started fussing with my hair, don’t ask me why.” Dallie took the driver Skeet handed him. “Funny you didn’t mention that you were going to caddy for Kenny today.” “Must have forgot.” Ted smiled and shifted the bag. “I told Skeet.” Dallie shot Skeet an annoyed look that didn’t bother Skeet one bit. Kenny gestured toward the tee. “Be my guest. I believe in showing respect for the elderly and the infirm.

There you are," Hale told his mother when he found her. "Oh, darling, do you know Michael Calloway? His mother is the event chair. We've just been arguing over whether he is going to let me outbid him for this gorgeous antique clock," Mrs. Hale said, but her son didn't care. "Sorry," Hale told the man in the tux with the small bits of sweat gathering at his brow. "I need her," he said, pulling his mother from the table and toward the bank of elevators on the far sie of the room, the ones that appeared to be operational. "Mom, I need you to come with me," "But, darling," the woman protested, "its Swiss!" The elevator dinged and Hale pushed her inside it. "Sorry, Dad will meet you downstairs.

Your son has burned down my life!” But there was no punishment for me that day. My mom was too much in shock. There’s naughty, and then there’s burning down a white person’s house. She didn’t know what to do.

I feel so honored to be able to say "What I do is for my son" without that being an excuse to do stupid things (like what I've heard from some moms over the years, doing lazy, stupid things and then saying it's all for their children). No, I will not say that everything I do, I do for God! And no, I will not say that everything I do, I do because I am a sacrificial saint who is in love with people and should be canonized one day! I've had enough of those lines! Overkill already! It will take the love of a mother to change the world.

While you may be able to keep your son Jimmy from owning [a gun], if you try to talk him out of wanting one, you are up against a pretty strong argument: You mean I shouldn't want a device that grants me power and identity, makes me feel dangerous and safe at the same time, instantly makes me the dominant male, and connects me to my evolutionary essence? Come on, Mom, get real!

That means if my son was gay, I would want him to suck the best dick this side of the Mississippi.

Under her thick pancake makeup, her skin had been pockmarked, but he would stare at her adoringly from his cot at night and imagine her scars were constellations, a secret map to a far-off, happy place.

Dad used to say lots of funny things - like he was speaking his own language sometimes. Twenty-three skidoo, salad days, nosey parker, bandbox fresh, the catbird seat, chocolate teapot, and something about Grandma sucking eggs. One of his favourites was 'safe as houses'. Teaching me to ride a bike, my mother worrying in the doorway: "Calm down, Linda, this street is as safe as houses." Convincing Jamie to sleep without his nightlight: "It's as safe as houses in here, son, not a monster for miles." Then overnight the world turned into a hideous nightmare, and the phrase became a black joke to Jamie and me. Houses were the most dangerous places we knew. Hiding in a patch of scrubby pines, watching a car pull out from the garage of a secluded home, deciding whether to make a food run, whether it was too dicey. "Do you think the parasites'll be long gone?" "No way - that place is as safe as houses. Let's get out of here." And now I can sit here and watch TV like it is five years ago and Mom and Dad are in the other room and i've never spent a night hiding in a drainpipe with Jamie and a bunch of rats while bodysnatchers with spotlights search for the thieves who made off with a bag of dried beans and a bowl of cold spaghetti. I know that if Jamie and I survived alone for twenty years we would never find this feeling on our own. The feeling of safety. More than safety, even - happiness. Safe and happy, two things I thought i'd never feel again. Jared made us feel that way without trying, just be being Jared. I breathe in the scent of his skin and feel the warmth of his body under mine. Jared makes everything safe, everything happy. Even houses.

The common theory about Mom’s passing was that, after losing Carrie, Debbie Reynolds died of a broken heart. Take it from the son who was there, who knew her better than anyone else on earth—that’s simply not true. Debbie Reynolds willed herself right off this planet to personally see to it that Carrie would never be alone.

Addicts are good at lying, but never as good as their children. It's their sons and daughters who have to come up with excuses, never too outlandish or incredible, always mundane enough for no one to want to check them. An addict's child's homework never gets eaten by the dog, they just forgot their backpack at home. Their mom didn't miss parents' evening because she was kidnapped by ninjas, but because she had to work overtime. The child doesn't remember the name of the place she's working, it's only a temporary job. She does her best, Mom does, to support us now that Dad's gone, you know. You soon learn how to phrase things in such a way as to preclude any follow-up questions. You learn that the women in the welfare office can take you away from her if they find out she managed to set fire to your last apartment when she fell asleep with a cigarette in her hand, or if they find out she stole the Christmas ham from the supermarket. So you lie when the security guard comes, you take the ham off her, and confess: 'It was me who took it.' No one calls the police for a child, not when it's Christmas. So they let you go home with your mom, hungry but not alone.

is Whitney? Is that your dealer?” “Whitney Houston,” Mom said. “You know, dear. She was that singer who sang that song you like that Helena performed.” “‘Hit Me Baby, One More Time?” “That’s Britney, dear.” “‘Dirty?” “That was Christina.” “Umbrella?” “And that was Rihanna. Larry, you’re embarrassing yourself. You have a gay son, for God’s sake. How can you not know your divas?” Mom sounded affronted. “Paul? Paul! If you can hear me, don’t listen to your father! He obviously doesn’t know his ass from his elbow!” “Language,” Dad scolded. “And I know my divas. I know them very well. What about that Woman Goo-Goo that Helena performs like?

On the wall next to the door we’d entered through was a huge floor-to-ceiling bulletin/whiteboard combo and hanging from a thumbtack on the bulletin board amongst pictures and other various sorts of memorabilia was my bra. It’d been washed but it still had a good many blotches of pink on it. If that wasn’t shocking enough, the dialogue written over the last two weeks on the whiteboard pertaining to said bra certainly was. I’ll include the copy just so you can truly appreciate what I’m dealing with here. Tristan’s Mom: What’s this? Tristan: A size 34B lace covered slingshot. Jeff: Nice! Tristan’s Mom: Do I want to know? Tristan: I don’t know, do you? Tristan’s Mom: Not really. Are you planning on returning it or did you win some kind of prize? Tristan: I plead the fifth. Tristan’s Dad: Well done son. Jeff: Ditto! Tristan’s Mom: Don’t encourage him. Tristan: Gee, thanks Mom. Tristan’s Dad: Can’t a father be proud of his only child? Tristan’s Mom: He doesn’t need your help…obviously. Tristan’s Dad: That’s because he takes after me. Tristan: Was there anything else I can do for you two? Tristan’s Mom: Tell her I tried to get the stains out, but I’m afraid they set in before I got to it. Tristan: I’m sure she’ll appreciate your effort, but if I’m any judge (and I’d like to think I am) its size has caused it to become obsolete and she needs to trade up. Jeff: I’m so proud. Tristan: Thanks man. Tristan’s Mom: A name would be nice you know. Tristan: Camie. Tristan’s Mom: Do we get to meet her? Tristan: Sure. I’ll have my people call your people and set it up. Tristan’s Mom: I don’t know why I bother. Do you want anything from the store? Tristan: Yeah, Camie’s sleeping over tonight and I promised her bacon and eggs for breakfast. Jeff’s got the eggs covered but could you pick up some bacon for us and maybe a box of Twinkies for the bus? Thanks, you’re the best. Jeff: I have the eggs covered? Tristan’s Dad: He gets his sense of humor from you. Tristan’s Mom: Flattery will get you everywhere. How would you like your eggs prepared dear?

On the way back from the doctor's office, my mom asked me if I'd written back to Dante. "Not Yet". "I think you should write to him". "Mom, I'm your son, not a suggestion box". She shot me a look. "Keep your eyes on the road", I said.

It’s public knowledge. It’s not my problem you just found out,” his mother is saying, pacing double-time down a West Wing corridor. “You mean to tell me,” Alex half shouts, jogging to keep up, “every Thanksgiving, those stupid turkeys have been staying in a luxury suite at the Willard on the taxpayers’ dime?” “Yes, Alex, they do—” “Gross government waste!” “—and there are two forty-pound turkeys named Cornbread and Stuffing in a motorcade on Pennsylvania Avenue right now. There is no time to reallocate the turkeys.” Without missing a beat, he blurts out, “Bring them to the house.” “Where? Are you hiding a turkey habitat up your ass, son? Where, in our historically protected house, am I going to put a couple of turkeys until I pardon them tomorrow?” “Put them in my room. I don’t care.” She outright laughs. “No.” “How is it different from a hotel room? Put the turkeys in my room, Mom.” “I’m not putting the turkeys in your room.” “Put the turkeys in my room.” “No.” “Put them in my room, put them in my room, put them in my room—” That night, as Alex stares into the cold, pitiless eyes of a prehistoric beast of prey, he has a few regrets. THEY KNOW, he texts Henry. THEY KNOW I HAVE ROBBED THEM OF FIVE-STAR ACCOMMODATIONS TO SIT IN A CAGE IN MY ROOM, AND THE MINUTE I TURN MY BACK THEY ARE GOING TO FEAST ON MY FLESH. Cornbread stares emptily back at him from inside a huge crate next to Alex’s couch. A farm vet comes by once every few hours to check on them. Alex keeps asking if she can detect a lust for blood. From the en suite, Stuffing releases another ominous gobble.

Working outward in concentric circles from the single mother's situation, we can easily draw a picture of what a 'good' mother-son relationship needs in order to flourish. In its ideal form, mom would be experiencing physical, material, social, and emotional support from four interdependent sources: an intimate partner who is also attached to the child; a select group of close friends and family; a wider community that supports mom's values and goals; and a maternity-flexible workplace.

My mom’s smile is genuine, A lilac beaming In the presence of her Sun. Indentions in the sand prove Time’s linear progression, Her hair yet unblighted, Carrying midnight’s consistency. Clear tracks fading as the Movement slips further In the past. Cheekbones High, soft, In summer’s hue, Hopeful. Each step’s unknown impact, A future looking back. My father’s strength: One whose Life is in his arms. Squinting past the camera, He rests upon a rock Like caramel corn half eaten, Just to the left Of man-made concrete convention Daylight’s eraser Removing color to his right. Dustin sits In my father’s lap, Open mouth of a drooling Big mouth bass; Muscle tone Of a well exercised Jelly fish, He looks at me Half aware; His wheelchair Perched at the edge Of parking lot gravel grafted Like a scar on nature’s beach, Opening to the ironic splendor Of a bitter tasting lake. I took the picture. Age 11. Capturing the pinnacle arc Of a son To my lilac Who Outlived him and weeps, Still. Their sky has staple holes – Maybe that’s how the Light Leaked out.

On the flight over to Chicago, I thought of a story Mom had once told me from her days as a pediatric nurse. "There was this little boy I was taking care of," she said "and he was terminally ill,and we all knew it,but he kept hanging on and hanging on. He wouldn't die, it was so sad. And his parents were always there with him,giving him so much love and support,but he was in so much pain,and it really was,time for him to go. So finally some of us nurses took his father aside and we told him, 'You have to tell your son it's okay for him to go. You have to give him permission.' And so the father took his son in his arms and he sat with him in a chair and held on to him and told him over and over, that it was okay for him to go,and,well,after a few moments,his son died.

To: Anna Oliphant From: Etienne St. Clair Subject: Uncommon Prostitues I have nothing to say about prostitues (other than you'd make a terrible prostitute,the profession is much too unclean), I only wanted to type that. Isn't it odd we both have to spend Christmas with our fathers? Speaking of unpleasant matters,have you spoken with Bridge yet? I'm taking the bus to the hospital now.I expect a full breakdown of your Christmas dinner when I return. So far today,I've had a bowl of muesli. How does Mum eat that rubbish? I feel as if I've been gnawing on lumber. To: Etienne St. Clair From: Anna Oliphant Subject: Christmas Dinner MUESLY? It's Christmas,and you're eating CEREAL?? I'm mentally sending you a plate from my house. The turkey is in the oven,the gravy's on the stovetop,and the mashed potatoes and casseroles are being prepared as I type this. Wait. I bet you eat bread pudding and mince pies or something,don't you? Well, I'm mentally sending you bread pudding. Whatever that is. No, I haven't talked to Bridgette.Mom keeps bugging me to answer her calls,but winter break sucks enough already. (WHY is my dad here? SERIOUSLY. MAKE HIM LEAVE. He's wearing this giant white cable-knit sweater,and he looks like a pompous snowman,and he keeps rearranging the stuff on our kitchen cabinets. Mom is about to kill him. WHICH IS WHY SHE SHOULDN'T INVITE HIM OVER FOR HOLIDAYS). Anyway.I'd rather not add to the drama. P.S. I hope your mom is doing better. I'm so sorry you have to spend today in a hospital. I really do wish I could send you both a plate of turkey. To: Anna Oliphant From: Etienne St. Clair Subject: Re: Christmas Dinner YOU feel sorry for ME? I am not the one who has never tasted bread pudding. The hospital was the same. I won't bore you with the details. Though I had to wait an hour to catch the bus back,and it started raining.Now that I'm at the flat, my father has left for the hospital. We're each making stellar work of pretending the other doesn't exist. P.S. Mum says to tell you "Merry Christmas." So Merry Christmas from my mum, but Happy Christmas from me. To: Etienne St. Clair From: Anna Oliphant Subject: SAVE ME Worst.Dinner.Ever.It took less than five minutes for things to explode. My dad tried to force Seany to eat the green bean casserole, and when he wouldn't, Dad accused Mom of not feeding my brother enough vegetables. So she threw down her fork,and said that Dad had no right to tell her how to raise her children. And then he brought out the "I'm their father" crap, and she brought out the "You abandoned them" crap,and meanwhile, the WHOLE TIME my half-dead Nanna is shouting, "WHERE'S THE SALT! I CAN'T TASTE THE CASSEROLE! PASS THE SALT!" And then Granddad complained that Mom's turkey was "a wee dry," and she lost it. I mean,Mom just started screaming. And it freaked Seany out,and he ran to his room crying, and when I checked on him, he was UNWRAPPING A CANDY CANE!! I have no idea where it came from. He knows he can't eat Red Dye #40! So I grabbed it from him,and he cried harder, and Mom ran in and yelled at ME, like I'd given him the stupid thing. Not, "Thank you for saving my only son's life,Anna." And then Dad came in and the fighting resumed,and they didn't even notice that Seany was still sobbing. So I took him outside and fed him cookies,and now he's running aruond in circles,and my grandparents are still at the table, as if we're all going to sit back down and finish our meal. WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY FAMILY? And now Dad is knocking on my door. Great. Can this stupid holiday get any worse??

All of a sudden from one of the doors I heard a woman scream out, “Michael Shawn Hickenbottom! What are you doing?!” It was Carol, Shawn’s mom, and she gave him an earful in front of all of us for going against doctors’ orders. Instantly he stopped being the Superstar wrestler Shawn Michaels and turned into a son being scolded by his mother.

She had transferred in from Baltimore because as a black single mom she wanted to raise her two young sons far from what some people liked to call the murder capital of the world.

Those clothes are Susie's,' my father said calmly when he reached him. Buckley looked down at my blackwatch dress that he held in his hand. My father stepped closer, took the dress from my brother, and then, without speaking, he gathered the rest of my clothes, which Buckley had piled on the lawn. As he turned in silence toward the house, hardly breathing, clutching my clothes to him, it sparked. I was the only one to see the colors. Just near Buckley's ears and on the tips of his cheeks and chin he was a little orange somehow, a little red. Why can't I use them?' he asked. It landed in my father's back like a fist. Why can't I use those clothes to stake my tomatoes?' My father turned around. He saw his son standing there, behind him the perfect plot of muddy, churned-up earth spotted with tiny seedlings. 'How can you ask me that question?' You have to choose. It's not fair,' my brother said. Buck?' My father held my clothes against his chest. I watched Buckley flare and light. Behind him was the sun of the goldenrod hedge, twice as tall as it had been at my death. I'm tired of it!' Buckley blared. 'Keesha's dad died and she's okay?' Is Keesha a girl at school?' Yes!' My father was frozen. He could feel the dew that had gathered on his bare ankles and feet, could feel the ground underneath him, cold and moist and stirring with possibility. I'm sorry. When did this happen?' That's not the point, Dad! You don't get it.' Buckley turned around on his heel and started stomping the tender tomato shoots with his foot. Buck, stop!' my father cried. My brother turned. You don't get it, Dad,' he said. I'm sorry,' my father said. These are Susie's clothes and I just... It may not make sense, but they're hers-something she wore.' ... You act like she was yours only!' Tell me what you want to say. What's this about your friend Keesha's dad?' Put the clothes down.' My father laid them gently on the ground. It isn't about Keesha's dad.' Tell me what it is about.' My father was now all immediacy. He went back to the place he had been after his knee surgery, coming up out of the druggie sleep of painkillers to see his then-five-year-old son sitting near him, waiting for his eyes to flicker open so he could say, 'Peek-a-boo, Daddy.' She's dead.' It never ceased to hurt. 'I know that.' But you don't act that way.' Keesha's dad died when she was six. Keesha said she barely even thinks of him.' She will,' my father said. But what about us?' Who?' Us, Dad. Me and Lindsey. Mom left becasue she couldn't take it.' Calm down, Buck,' my father said. He was being as generous as he could as the air from his lungs evaporated out into his chest. Then a little voice in him said, Let go, let go, let go. 'What?' my father said. I didn't say anything.' Let go. Let go. Let go. I'm sorry,' my father said. 'I'm not feeling very well.' His feet had grown unbelievably cold in the damp grass. His chest felt hollow, bugs flying around an excavated cavity. There was an echo in there, and it drummed up into his ears. Let go. My father dropped down to his knees. His arm began to tingle on and off as if it had fallen asleep. Pins and needles up and down. My brother rushed to him. Dad?' Son.' There was a quaver in his voice and a grasping outward toward my brother. I'll get Grandma.' And Buckley ran. My father whispered faintly as he lay on his side with his face twisted in the direction of my old clothes: 'You can never choose. I've loved all three of you.

From the moment I was first pregnant, and those around me insisted that treats such as cold cuts and nail polish could cut my unborn child's potential IQ in half, I got into the habit of NOT seeking out the little things that brought me joy. Like soft cheese. And getting too close to a Starbucks. Then my son came, and I was too busy crying while searching for his User Manual to consider a manicure or massage. I lasted about a week as a new mom before reaching out to others in my situation online. As exhausted, cranky, and confused as I was, I needed friends. It didn't take long for this gaggle of desperate, sleepless women to meet up in person...

You’re lucky to be alive,” I told her. “I still can’t believe you didn’t have any health insurance.” “Oh but I do have insurance,” she said. “You do?” “Yes. Jesus.” “Jesus?” “Jesus.” “Jesus is your health insurance?” “If God is with me, who can be against me?” “Okay, Mom.” “Trevor, I prayed. I told you I prayed. I don’t pray for nothing.” “You know,” I said, “for once I cannot argue with you. The gun, the bullets—I can’t explain any of it. So I’ll give you that much.” Then I couldn’t resist teasing her with one last little jab. “But where was your Jesus to pay your hospital bill, hmm? I know for a fact that He didn’t pay that.” She smiled and said, “You’re right. He didn’t. But He blessed me with the son who did.

His mom realized, of course, that her son was shouting out of fear and concern, so she replied the way she often did: “Boats that stay in the harbor are safe, sweetheart, but that’s not what boats were built for.” Jack said something he instantly regretted: “Do you think God’s going to protect you against knives just because you’re a priest?” She may have been sitting in a hospital on the other side of the world, but she could still feel his bottomless terror. So her whispers were half washed away by tears when she replied: “God doesn’t protect people from knives, sweetheart. That’s why God gave us other people, so we can protect each other.” It was impossible to argue with such a stubborn woman. Jack hated how much he admired her sometimes. Jim, in turn, loved her so much he could hardly breathe. But she didn’t travel so much after that, and never went so far away again. Then she got sick, and they lost her, and the world lost a bit more of its protection.

And there is the note from Sherri that I found in my room while getting ready, rolled up in a 'best son-in-law ever' coffee mug, welcoming me to the family and ending, 'Take care of my baby, he may be on a permanent loan to you but he will always be mine.

My mom was a sayyed from the bloodline of the Prophet (which you know about now). In Iran, if you convert from Islam to Christianity or Judaism, it’s a capital crime. That means if they find you guilty in religious court, they kill you. But if you convert to something else, like Buddhism or something, then it’s not so bad. Probably because Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are sister religions, and you always have the worst fights with your sister. And probably nothing happens if you’re just a six-year-old. Except if you say, “I’m a Christian now,” in your school, chances are the Committee will hear about it and raid your house, because if you’re a Christian now, then so are your parents probably. And the Committee does stuff way worse than killing you. When my sister walked out of her room and said she’d met Jesus, my mom knew all that. And here is the part that gets hard to believe: Sima, my mom, read about him and became a Christian too. Not just a regular one, who keeps it in their pocket. She fell in love. She wanted everybody to have what she had, to be free, to realize that in other religions you have rules and codes and obligations to follow to earn good things, but all you had to do with Jesus was believe he was the one who died for you. And she believed. When I tell the story in Oklahoma, this is the part where the grown-ups always interrupt me. They say, “Okay, but why did she convert?” Cause up to that point, I’ve told them about the house with the birds in the walls, all the villages my grandfather owned, all the gold, my mom’s own medical practice—all the amazing things she had that we don’t have anymore because she became a Christian. All the money she gave up, so we’re poor now. But I don’t have an answer for them. How can you explain why you believe anything? So I just say what my mom says when people ask her. She looks them in the eye with the begging hope that they’ll hear her and she says, “Because it’s true.” Why else would she believe it? It’s true and it’s more valuable than seven million dollars in gold coins, and thousands of acres of Persian countryside, and ten years of education to get a medical degree, and all your family, and a home, and the best cream puffs of Jolfa, and even maybe your life. My mom wouldn’t have made the trade otherwise. If you believe it’s true, that there is a God and He wants you to believe in Him and He sent His Son to die for you—then it has to take over your life. It has to be worth more than everything else, because heaven’s waiting on the other side. That or Sima is insane. There’s no middle. You can’t say it’s a quirky thing she thinks sometimes, cause she went all the way with it. If it’s not true, she made a giant mistake. But she doesn’t think so. She had all that wealth, the love of all those people she helped in her clinic. They treated her like a queen. She was a sayyed. And she’s poor now. People spit on her on buses. She’s a refugee in places people hate refugees, with a husband who hits harder than a second-degree black belt because he’s a third-degree black belt. And she’ll tell you—it’s worth it. Jesus is better. It’s true. We can keep talking about it, keep grinding our teeth on why Sima converted, since it turned the fate of everybody in the story. It’s why we’re here hiding in Oklahoma. We can wonder and question and disagree. You can be certain she’s dead wrong. But you can’t make Sima agree with you. It’s true. Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. This whole story hinges on it. Sima—who was such a fierce Muslim that she marched for the Revolution, who studied the Quran the way very few people do read the Bible and knew in her heart that it was true.

our objective as moms and dads is to transform our sons from “immature and flighty youngsters into honest, caring men who will be respectful of women, loyal and faithful in marriage, keepers of commitments, strong and decisive leaders, good workers, and men who are secure in their masculinity.

Do you want to hold her?” Qhuinn asked. Xcor recoiled as if someone had inquired whether he’d like a hot poker in his hands. Then he recovered, shaking his head as he made a manly show of scrubbing his tears away like they were permanent marker on his cheeks. “I don’t think I’m quite ready for that. She looks…so delicate.” “She’s strong, though. She’s got her mahmen’s blood in her, too.” Qhuinn looked at Blay. “And she’s got good parents. They both do. We’re in this together, people, three fathers and one mom, two kids. Bam!” Xcor’s voice got low. “A father…?” He laughed softly. “I went from having no family, to having a mate, a brother, and now…” Qhuinn nodded. “A son and a daughter. As long as you are Layla’s hellren, you are their father, too.” Xcor’s smile was transformative, so wide that it stretched his face into something she had never seen. “A son and a daughter.” “That’s right,” Layla whispered with joy. But then instantly that expression on his face was gone, his lips thinning out and his brows dropping down like he was ready to go on the attack. “She is never dating. I don’t care who he is—” “Right!” Qhuinn put his palm out for a high five. “That’s what I’m talking about!” “Now, hold on,” Blay interjected as they clapped hands. “She has every right to live her life as she chooses.” “Yes, come on,” Layla added. “This double-standard stuff is ridiculous. She’s going to be allowed…” As the argument started up, she and Blay fell in beside each other, and Qhuinn and Xcor lined up shoulder to shoulder, their massive forearms crossed over their chests. “I’m good with a gun,” Xcor said like that was the end of things. “And I can handle the shovel,” Qhuinn tacked on. “They’ll never find the body.” The two of them pounded knuckles and looked so dead serious that Layla had to roll her eyes. But then she was smiling. “You know something?” she said to the three of them. “I really believe…that it’s all going to be okay. We’re going to work it out, together, because that’s what families do.” As she rose up on her tiptoes and kissed her male, she said, “Love has a way of fixing everything…even your daughter starting to date.” “Which is not going to happen,” Xcor countered. “Ever.” “My man,” Qhuinn said, backing him up. “I knew I liked you—” “Oh, for the love,” Layla muttered as the debate resumed, and Blay started laughing and Qhuinn and Xcor continued bonding. -Qhuinn, Xcor, Layla, & Blay

Preppy tries to hide his crooked smile and narrows his eyes at his son. “Bo, what did we say about using those kinds of words?” Bo recites his answer without apology, like he’s remembering them from a textbook. “Not to say them in front of my mother, my sisters, or my teachers because they don't understand that swearing is a sign of emotional intelligence according to recent medical psychological studies in major publications. And socially not acceptable for an eight-year-old to use in public because it makes mom look like she’s not doing her job when we all know that my terrible language is all your fault.” Preppy nods. “That’s right.

I know an American family that spent several years living in England. They had one son, who was an average student: not great, but not terrible. When the family returned home to the United States, the parents enrolled him in the local public school. Mom was startled by the continual drumbeat from teachers and other parents: “Maybe your son has ADHD. Have you considered trying a medication?” She told me, “It was weird, like everybody was in on this conspiracy to medicate my son. In England, none of the kids is on medication. Or if they are, it’s a secret. But I really don’t think many are. Here it seems like almost all the kids are on medication. Especially the boys.

You can’t forget how important coming together is, whether it be a mom and a son, a dad and a daughter, whether the family be ten people, or twenty people, or a million people. Dinnertime is the perfect time for that. Dinnertime is the perfect time when you can sit down, you can offer thanks to your kids for making you laugh, or to your parents for supporting you, or to a god for looking out for you, or to whomever you want. You can just close your eyes and open them again and realize that you have the opportunity everyday to change your life, or change someone else’s. Dinnertime is a great time to think about that. ~ Dillon, age 22 From Dinnertimes: Stories of American Life, 1912 to 2012

And as Sean climbs into bed and closes his eyes, Mother comes, riding astride a lion the size of a house, blowing a clarion from a horn made out of a hollowed-out elephant's tusk. Her eyes have a faint crimson glow from the lasers that are mounted behind her irises, ready to fire at will. 'I touched a prince's chest today and made his heart stop,' she says. 'I'll do it again if I have to: they'll see what happens if anyone gets in my way. Good night, my son. Remember that I will always keep you safe; that I am always everywhere and always here.' 'Good night, Mom,' Sean says, and falls asleep. And Mother recedes, wise and beautiful and strong, a genius and a hero, a punisher of thieves and a slayer of wicked men, to watch over her son in all her different versions.

I squeezed through a horde of gum-snapping girls I recognized as seniors from my school. “He did not say that!” “Yes, he did! And you wouldn’t believe what she said!” Please, someone tell me I wouldn’t be that annoying if I had girlfriends. “Sure, you will be.” I whipped around and nearly got a faceful of cotton candy. I moved the purple sugar cloud to the side and glared at my mother. She wore a white, short-sleeved blouse and a patchwork skirt. “You have to stop listening in on my thoughts without my permission, Mom. It’s not cool.” She shoved a piece of cotton candy in my mouth to shut me up. “I didn’t do it on purpose, Clarity. I was strolling along listening in to the crowd.” “Pick up anything interesting?” “Actually, I did. That detective’s son can’t stop checking out your legs. He loves this little pink dress you’ve got on. So much so that he’s actually mad at himself for it.” She shook her head. I blushed. “Did you happen to pick up anything important?” “Like a man walking along thinking, ‘I killed Victoria Happel’?” “Exactly.” “No such luck. But dear, people don’t wander around thinking about their biggest secrets all the time. The killer could be standing right next to me and all I might pick up from him is how he wants to buy some barbequed chicken.” “Have you seen Billy Rawlinson or Frankie Creedon?” I asked. Distaste turned her mouth down. “No. Why are you looking for those scoundrels?” “Billy might be a witness in the case. Or a suspect.” “I’ll keep my eyes out and my mind open.” “Thanks,” I said. “Enjoy invading everyone’s privacy.

Forget it, we can do it another time.” I turn around to go back into my parents’ room, but Mom catches my hand. She knows I may never feel ready to do this, that I may keep finding excuses to push this off until long after my dad is gone, and then maybe I’ll go to his grave and come out. But the time has to be now so I can feel as comfortable in my home as I am chilling with Collin. “Mark,” Mom says again. His eyes are still on the TV. I take a deep breath. “Dad, I hope you’re cool with this, but I sort of, kind of am dating someone and . . .” I can already see him getting confused, like I’m challenging him to solve an algebraic equation with no pen, paper, or calculator. “And that someone is my friend Collin.” Only then does Dad turn toward us. His face immediately goes from confused to furious. You would think the Yankees not only lost the game but also decided to give up and retire the team forever. He points his cigarette at Mom. “This is all your doing. You have to be the one to tell him he’s wrong.” He’s talking about me like I’m not even in the room. “Mark, we always said we would love our kids no matter what, and—” “Empty fucking promise, Elsie. Make him cut it out or get him out of here.” “If there’s something about homosexuality you don’t understand, you can talk to your son about it in a kind way,” Mom says, maintaining a steady tone that’s both fearless for me and respectful toward Dad. We all know what he’s capable of. “If you want to ignore it or need time, we can give that to you, but Aaron isn’t going anywhere.” Dad places his cigarette in the ashtray and then kicks over the hamper he was resting his feet on. We back up. I don’t often wish this, but I really, really wish Eric were here right now in case this gets as ugly as I think it might. He points his finger at me. “I’ll fucking throw him out myself.

My seventeen-year-old son, Chase, and his friends are in the family room watching a movie. I’ve been trying to leave them alone, but it’s hard for me. I understand that most teenagers think their moms are uncool, but I am certain I’m the exception. I stand at the door and peek inside. The boys are draped all over the couch. The girls have arranged themselves in tiny, tidy roly-poly piles on the floor. My young daughters are perched at the feet of the older girls, quietly worshipping. My son looks over at me and half smiles. “Hi, Mom.” I need an excuse to be there, so I ask, “Anybody hungry?” What comes next seems to unfold in slow motion. Every single boy keeps his eyes on the TV and says, “YES!” The girls are silent at first. Then each girl diverts her eyes from the television screen and scans the faces of the other girls. Each looks to a friend’s face to discover if she herself is hungry. Some kind of telepathy is happening among them. They are polling. They are researching. They are gathering consensus, permission, or denial. Somehow the collective silently appoints a French-braided, freckle-nosed spokesgirl. She looks away from the faces of her friends and over at me. She smiles politely and says, “We’re fine, thank you.” The boys looked inside themselves. The girls looked outside themselves. We forgot how to know when we learned how to please. This is why we live hungry.

Happy Birthday to my first born(umafungashe wam). No words can fully describe the way I felt when I heard your first cry. The unforgettable joy I felt when I held you in my arms for the first time. I've watched you grow up from the time you were little until you become this compassionate, kind and thoughtful young man. I'm also proud to see you become an amazing husband, father and a great servant of God. I'm blessed beyond to call myself your mom. Happy Birthday son.❤️❤️

When Dad came home a couple of days later, Mom told him about the fish I’d caught and how much money we’d made. I could see the smile on his face. But then he went outside to check his boat and noticed that a paddle was missing. Instead of saying, “Good job, son,” he yelled at me for losing a paddle! I couldn’t believe he was scolding me over a stupid oar! I’d worked from daylight to dusk and earned enough money for my family to buy a dozen paddles! Where was the gratitude?

At least you still hear from him," Mel says gently. "Once in a while." Henna shakes her head, like that doesn't help, which of course it doesn't. "I think it's why my mom and dad go on all these mission trips. Try to beat some of the darkness out of the world w/their bare hands." She makes this sound both impressive and a sad, sad, waste of time. There's also pity. They did lose their son. The Silvennoinens are as complicated as anyone else. More, if you count trying to say their last name out loud.

PROLOGUE   Zoey “Wow, Z, this is a seriously awesome turnout. There are more humans here than fleas on an old dog!” Stevie Rae shielded her eyes with her hand as she looked around at the newly lit-up campus. Dallas was a total jerk, but we all admitted that the twinkling lights he’d wrapped around the trunks and limbs of the old oaks gave the entire campus a magickal, fairy-like glow. “That is one of your more disgusting bumpkin analogies,” Aphrodite said. “Though it’s accurate. Especially since there are a bunch of city politicians here. Total parasites.” “Try to be nice,” I said. “Or at least try to be quiet.” “Does that mean your daddy, the mayor, is here?” Stevie Rae’s already gawking eyes got even wider. “I suppose it does. I caught a glimpse of Cruella De Vil, a.k.a. She Who Bore Me, not long ago.” Aphrodite paused and her brows went up. “We should probably keep an eye on the Street Cats kittens. I saw some cute little black and white ones with especially fluffy fur.” Stevie Rae sucked air. “Ohmygoodness, your mamma wouldn’t really make a kitten fur coat, would she?” “Faster than you can say Bubba’s drinkin’ and drivin’ again,” Aphrodite mimicked Stevie Rae’s Okie twang. “Stevie Rae—she’s kidding. Tell her the truth,” I nudged Aphrodite. “Fine. She doesn’t skin kittens. Or puppies. Just baby seals and democrats.” Stevie Rae’s brow furrowed. “See, everything is fine. Plus, Damien’s at the Street Cats booth, and you know he’d never let one little kitten whisker be hurt—let alone a whole coat,” I assured my BFF, refusing to let Aphrodite mess up our good mood. “Actually, everything is more than fine. Check out what we managed to pull off in a little over a week.” I sighed in relief at the success of our event and let my gaze wander around the packed school grounds. Stevie Rae, Shaylin, Shaunee, Aphrodite, and I were manning the bake sale booth (while Stevie Rae’s mom and a bunch of her PTA friends moved through the crowd with samples of the chocolate chip cookies we were selling, like, zillions of). From our position near Nyx’s statue, we had a great view of the whole campus. I could see a long line at Grandma’s lavender booth. That made me smile. Not far from Grandma, Thanatos had set up a job application area, and there were a bunch of humans filling out paperwork there. In the center of the grounds there were two huge silver and white tents draped with more of Dallas’s twinkling lights. In one tent Stark and Darius and the Sons of Erebus Warriors were demonstrating weaponry. I watched as Stark was showing a young boy how to hold a bow. Stark’s gaze lifted from the kid and met mine. We shared a quick, intimate smile

I told mom that she was confusing happiness with pleasure. That's common today. A trip to the video arcade may be a source of pleasure, but it will not give lasting and enduring happiness. This mother's son derives pleasure from playing video games, but playing video games in an online world is unlikely to be a source of real fulfillment. The pleasure derived from a video game may last for weeks or even months. But it will not last many years, in my firsthand observation Of many young men over the past two decades. The boy either moves on to something else, or the happiness undergoes a silent and malignant transformation into addiction. The hallmark of addiction is decreasing pleasure over time. Tolerance develops. Playing the game becomes compulsive, almost involuntary. It no longer gives the thrill and pleasure it once did. But the addict can no longer find pleasure in anything else. Pleasure is not the same thing as happiness. The gratification Of desire yields pleasure, not lasting happiness. Happiness comes from fulfillment, from living up to your potential, which means more than playing online video games.

Don't count on me to take you in because I'm angry. I'm angry at you for leading us on such a song and dance all these years, not just these few years but all the years, skipping all those holidays and staying away from beach trips and missing Mom and Dad's thirtieth anniversary and their thirty-fifth and Jeannie's baby and not attending my wedding that time or even sending a card or calling to wish me well. But most of all Denny, most of all: I will never forgive you for consuming every last little drop of our parents' attention and leaving nothing for the rest of us.

What the hell is all this I read in the papers?" "Narrow it down for me," Alan suggested. "I suppose it might have been a misprint," Daniel considered, frowning at the tip of his cigar before he tapped it in the ashtray he kept secreted in the bottom drawer of his desk. "I think I know my own flesh and blood well enough." "Narrow it just a bit further," Alan requested, though he'd already gotten the drift.It was simply too good to end it too soon. "When I read that my own son-my heir, as things are-is spending time fraternizing with a Campbell, I know it's a simple matter of misspelling. What's the girl's name?" Along with a surge of affection, Alan felt a tug of pure and simple mischief. "Which girl is that?" "Dammit,boy! The girl you're seeing who looks like a pixie.Fetching young thing from the picture I saw.Good bones; holds herself well." "Shelby," Alan said, then waited a beat. "Shelby Campbell." Dead silence.Leaning back in his chair, Alan wondered how long it would be before his father remembered to take a breath. It was a pity, he mused, a real pity that he couldn't see the old pirate's face. "Campbell!" The word erupted. "A thieving, murdering Campbell!" "Yes,she's fond of MacGregor's as well." "No son of mine gives the time of day to one of the clan Campbell!" Daniel bellowed. "I'll take a strap to you, Alan Duncan MacGregor!" The threat was as empty now as it had been when Alan had been eight, but delivered in the same full-pitched roar. "I'll wear the hide off you." "You'll have the chance to try this weekend when you meet Shelby." "A Campbell in my house! Hah!" "A Campbell in your house," Alan repeated mildly. "And a Campbell in your family before the end of the year if I have my way." "You-" Emotions warred in him. A Campbell versus his firmest aspiration: to see each of his children married and settled, and himself laden with grandchildren. "You're thinking of marriage to a Campbell?" "I've already asked her.She won't have me...yet," he added. "Won't have you!" Paternal pride dominated all else. "What kind of a nitwit is she? Typical Campbell," he muttered. "Mindless pagans." Daniel suspected they'd had some sorcerers sprinkled among them. "Probably bewitched the boy," he mumbled, scowling into space. "Always had good sense before this.Aye, you bring your Campbell to me," he ordered roundly. "I'll get to the bottom of it." Alan smothered a laugh, forgetting the poor mood that had plagued him only minutes earlier. "I'll ask her." "Ask? Hah! You bring the girl, that daughter of a Campbell, here." Picturing Shelby, Alan decided he wouldn't iss the meeting for two-thirds the popular vote. "I'll see you Friday, Dad.Give Mom my love." "Friday," Daniel muttered, puffing avidly on his cigar. "Aye,aye, Friday." As he hung up Alan could all but see his father rubbing his huge hands togther in anticipation. It should be an interesting weekened.

When I finally leave the market, the streets are dark, and I pass a few blocks where not a single electric light appears – only dark open storefronts and coms (fast-food eateries), broom closet-sized restaurants serving fish, meat, and rice for under a dollar, flickering candles barely revealing the silhouettes of seated figures. The tide of cyclists, motorbikes, and scooters has increased to an uninterrupted flow, a river that, given the slightest opportunity, diverts through automobile traffic, stopping it cold, spreads into tributaries that spill out over sidewalks, across lots, through filling stations. They pour through narrow openings in front of cars: young men, their girlfriends hanging on the back; families of four: mom, dad, baby, and grandma, all on a fragile, wobbly, underpowered motorbike; three people, the day’s shopping piled on a rear fender; women carrying bouquets of flapping chickens, gathered by their feet while youngest son drives and baby rests on the handlebars; motorbikes carrying furniture, spare tires, wooden crates, lumber, cinder blocks, boxes of shoes. Nothing is too large to pile onto or strap to a bike. Lone men in ragged clothes stand or sit by the roadsides, selling petrol from small soda bottles, servicing punctures with little patch kits and old bicycle pumps.

Moms come in all shapes and sizes. There is no formula for the perfect mom. But there is one thing we all have in common - and that is the deep love we carry for our sons & daughters. Love takes many forms: It looks like a cuddle after a scraped knee. It looks like working two jobs to make ends meet. It looks like giving your last mouthful to your child who asks for a bite. It looks like sleepless nights with the kid who has a temperature. It looks like enforcing consequences for actions. It looks like a thousand packed lunchboxes. It looks like being your child’s biggest fan. It looks worn knees from praying and it looks like “I love you” said a million times. Mothers are the glue that holds a family together.

I'm so excited to meet you, Emma," she says. "Now I know why Galen won't shut up about you." Her smile seems to contradict the decades' worth of frown lines rippling from her mouth. In fact, it's so genuine and warm that I almost believe she is excited to meet me. But isn't that what all moms say when introduced to their son's girlfriend? You're not his girlfriend, stupid. Or does she think we're dating, too? "Thanks, I think," I smile generically. "I'm sure he's told you a million times how clumsy I am." Because how else am I supposed to take that? "A million and one, actually. Wish you'd do something different for a change," Rayna drawls without looking up. Rayna has outstayed her welcome on my nerves. "I could teach you how to color in the lines," I shoot back. The look she gives me could sour milk. Toraf puts his hands on her shoulders and kisses the top of her head. "I think you're doing a great job, my princess." She wiggles out of his grasp and shoves the polish brush back into its bottle. "If you're so good at it, why don't you paint your toes? They probably stay injured all the time from you running into stuff. Am I right?" Yeah? And? I'm about to set her straight on a few things-like how wearing a skirt and sitting Indian-style ruins the effect of pretty toes anyway-when Galen's mom puts a gentle hand on my arm and clears her throat. "Emma, I'm so glad you're feeling better," she says. "I bet dinner would just about complete your recovery, don't you?

Where? Are you hiding a turkey habitat up your ass, son? Where, in our historically protected house, am I going to put a couple of turkeys until I pardon them tomorrow?” “Put them in my room. I don’t care.” She outright laughs. “No.” “How is it different from a hotel room? Put the turkeys in my room, Mom.” “I’m not putting the turkeys in your room.” “Put the turkeys in my room.” “No.” “Put them in my room, put them in my room, put them in my room—” That night, as Alex stares into the cold, pitiless eyes of a prehistoric beast of prey, he has a few regrets. THEY KNOW, he texts Henry. THEY KNOW I HAVE ROBBED THEM OF FIVE-STAR ACCOMMODATIONS TO SIT IN A CAGE IN MY ROOM, AND THE MINUTE I TURN MY BACK THEY ARE GOING TO FEAST ON MY FLESH.

I believe that happened in Genesis 2:5. Though God spoke seed bearing vegetation into existence in the previous chapter, nothing grew until after Adam and Eve had worked the grounds and God sent His rain.            When God sees that we are working a process that He put into place from the beginning of creation, it moves Him. Our faith in sowing and reaping pleases Him. And He sends His rain to bless our faithful efforts. When you work this process, you set into motion a chain of events that God Himself has ordained to bring forth results. All it takes is for God to send His rain on your situation and you will see victory. In the meantime, keep watering.            I never stopped praying and thanking God that my son, the seed of the righteous, was blessed.

He finally left.” It took you an hour. After you’re gone, my mom says, “I’m proud of you. I know that must’ve been tough.” “I’m surprised the son of a bitch respected her wishes,” my dad says. “He never respected mine when I told him to stay away from my daughter.” “Michael,” my mom warns. “Now’s not the time.” He holds his hands up. “I’m not surprised he listened,” she continues. “He’s a good guy.” My dad lets out a loud laugh. “He is,” my mom says. “He’s just an addict, and your daughter was his first high. That boy would’ve run right into traffic if she said she needed him to.” My dad looks at me. “I’ll pay you fifty bucks to do it.” “Michael!” “Geez, okay, don’t bite my head off, woman,” he says, squeezing my shoulder as he says, “I’ll throw in some free babysitting, too.” My mom laughs. “You’ll be babysitting for free as it is, Gramps.” He makes a face, mumbling, “Gonna need a better nickname.

As he stood with his fingers in the iceflower bowls, he heard his mom and Cyra talking. “My son was eager for me to meet you, I could tell,” his mom said. “You must be a good friend.” “Um…yes,” Cyra said. “I think so, yes.” You think so, Akos thought, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. He’d given her clear enough labels, back in the stairwell, but she still couldn’t quite believe it. That was the problem with being so convinced of your own awfulness--you thought other people were lying when they didn’t agree with you. “I have heard that you have a talent for death,” his mom said. At least Akos had warned Cyra about Sifa’s lack of charm. He glanced at Cyra. She held her armored wrist against her gut. “I suppose I do,” she said. “But I don’t have a passion for it.” Vapor slipped from the nose of the water kettle, not yet thick enough for Akos to pour. Water had never boiled so slowly. “You two have spent a lot of time together,” his mom said. “Yes.” “Are you to blame for his survival these past few seasons?” “No,” Cyra said. “Your son survives because of his own will.” His mom smiled. “You should defensive.” “I don’t take credit for other people’s strength,” Cyra said. “Only my own.” His mom’s smile got even bigger. “And a little cocky.” “I’ve been called worse.” The vapor was thick enough. Akos grabbed the hook with the wooden handle that hung next to the stove, and attached it to the kettle. It caught, and locked in place as he poured water in each of the mugs. Isae came forward for one, standing on tiptoe so she could whisper in his ear. “If it hasn’t already, it should be dawning on you right about now that your girl and your mother are very similar people,” she said. “I will pause as that irrefutable fact chills you to the core.” Akos eyed her. “Was that humor, Chancellor?” “On occasion, I have been known to make a humorous remark.

On the day of Calvin’s arrival, Mark was on a business trip with our high-school kids, so I went to the airport with the younger ones. I greeted Calvin as he got off the plane; mom and son—total strangers. He smiled nervously. I loaded everyone into our van and began driving. As I looked in the rearview mirror and saw Calvin talking with the younger children, a wave of peace washed over me. Everything was going to be okay. When Mark returned with the older kids, Tyler, the same age as Calvin, was thrilled that his long-awaited “brother from the other color mother” had finally arrived. Luke, our seventeen-year-old, had persistently warned us that taking in another child would be too chaotic. Before he went to bed on Calvin’s first night, he told me, “I’m glad he’s here.” I thought we were just trying to be good Christians and help someone in need, but when I learned the rest of the story, I realized that we were the ones who had been blessed.

So let’s imagine for now that our love for our children and our thankfulness for their existence is a given. Let’s imagine that no one can possibly doubt the depths of our feelings for our sons and daughters. Let’s imagine that everyone in the world knows exactly how much we love all the many things there are to love about our children and the relationships we have with them. Let’s imagine that we are all most definitely Good Moms, and, with all that on our side, admit for a moment what we don’t love. I’ll give you my list, you add your own. I don’t love every minute of going to the playground. I don’t love every minute of going to the museums. I don’t love every minute of watching Elmo. I don’t love every minute of having to wake up early in the morning. I don’t love every minute of having interrupted sleep at night. I don’t love every minute of having to be the one to make the rules and the one who must enforce them. I don’t love every minute of laundry. I don’t love every minute of changing diapers. I don’t love every minute of having to endure the stares of people when my child freaks out in public. I don’t love every minute of making food that my kid ends up throwing on the floor. I don’t love every minute that I have the Barney song stuck in my head. I don’t love every minute of having to reason with a tantrum-throwing toddler. I don’t love every minute of being peed on, pooped on, and thrown-up on. I don’t love every minute of weaning. I don’t love every minute of sidewalk chalk. I don’t love every minute of having to pick up the blocks fifteen times a day. I don’t love every minute of putting my life on hold. I don’t love every minute of tantrums. I don’t love every minute of going to story time at the library. I HATE the Teletubbies. I don’t love every minute of being chained to someone else’s routine. I don’t love every minute of not being able to go to the bathroom without company. I don’t love every minute of being a mother.

Dear father, It's been five years today, but makes no difference! Not a day goes by without me remembering your pure green eyes, the tone of your voice singing In Adighabza, or your poems scattered all around the house. Dear father, from you I have learned that being a girl doesn't mean that I can't achieve my dreams, no matter how crazy or un-urban they might seem. That you raised me with the utmost of ethics and morals and the hell with this cocooned society, if it doesn't respect the right to ask and learn and be, just because I'm a girl. Dear father, from you I have learned to respect all mankind, and just because you descend from a certain blood or ethnicity, it doesn't make you better than anybody else. It's you, and only you, your actions, your thoughts, your achievements, are what differentiates you from everybody else. At the same time, thank you for teaching me to respect and value where I came from, for actually taking me to my hometown Goboqay, for teaching me about my family tree, how my ancestors worked hard and fought for me to be where I am right now, and to continue on with the legacy and make them all proud. Dear father, from you and mom, I have learned to speak in my mother tongue. A gift so precious, that I have already made a promise to do the same for my unborn children. Dear father, from you I have learned to be content, to fear Allah, to be thankful for all that I have, and no matter what, never loose faith, as it's the only path to solace. Dear father, from you I have learned that if a person wants to love you, then let them, and if they hurt you, be strong and stand your ground. People will respect you only if you respect yourself. Dear father, I'm pretty sure that you are proud of me, my sisters and our dear dear Mom. You have a beautiful grand daughter now and a son in-law better than any brother I would have ever asked for. Till we meet again, Shu wasltha'3u. الله يرحمك يا غالي. (الفاتحة) على روحك الطاهرة.

This is unbelievable,” James said. “I mean, you guys are out here planning to build an armored car out of my dad’s old, and I mean old, car. Mom is in the house making cookies like this is just an everyday occurrence. Once this starts, you guys probably won’t live through it, and nobody is acting like it’s a big deal. I don’t know that I’m comfortable with my parents preparing for their funeral.” “Everyone has to die of something, son,” Rick said. James looked stunned. “So you are thinking about that as a possibility? Then why go to all the trouble of putting armor on the car and putting in that big engine?” “Because I have to get back to the starting point, which in this case is the Deal’s Gap,” Rick answered. “And the car won’t make it if I don’t make modifications.” “Once they figure out what you’re doing and where you’re going, they’ll ambush you. You won’t be able to get out of it. They’ll gun you and Mom down in cold blood.” James was trying to hide the emotion from his face.

No one called him Fai except his grandmother. What sort of name is Frank? she would scold. That is not a Chinese name. I’m not Chinese, Frank thought, but he didn’t dare say that. His mother had told him years ago: There is no arguing with Grandmother. It’ll only make you suffer worse. She’d been right. And now Frank had no one except his grandmother. Thud. A fourth arrow hit the fence post and stuck there, quivering. “Fai,” said his grandmother. Frank turned. She was clutching a shoebox-sized mahogany chest that Frank had never seen before. With her high-collared black dress and severe bun of gray hair, she looked like a school teacher from the 1800s. She surveyed the carnage: her porcelain in the wagon, the shards of her favorite tea sets scattered over the lawn, Frank’s arrows sticking out of the ground, the trees, the fence posts, and one in the head of a smiling garden gnome. Frank thought she would yell, or hit him with the box. He’d never done anything this bad before. He’d never felt so angry. Grandmother’s face was full of bitterness and disapproval. She looked nothing like Frank’s mom. He wondered how his mother had turned out to be so nice—always laughing, always gentle. Frank couldn’t imagine his mom growing up with Grandmother any more than he could imagine her on the battlefield—though the two situations probably weren’t that different. He waited for Grandmother to explode. Maybe he’d be grounded and wouldn’t have to go to the funeral. He wanted to hurt her for being so mean all the time, for letting his mother go off to war, for scolding him to get over it. All she cared about was her stupid collection. “Stop this ridiculous behavior,” Grandmother said. She didn’t sound very irritated. “It is beneath you.” To Frank’s astonishment, she kicked aside one of her favorite teacups. “The car will be here soon,” she said. “We must talk.” Frank was dumbfounded. He looked more closely at the mahogany box. For a horrible moment, he wondered if it contained his mother’s ashes, but that was impossible. Grandmother had told him there would be a military burial. Then why did Grandmother hold the box

There are people in this country who will argue that because of the demise of morals in general, and Sunday school in particular, kids today are losing their innocence before they should, that because of cartoons and Ken Starr and curricula about their classmates who have two mommies, youth learn too soon about sex and death. Well, like practically everyone else in the Western world who came of age since Gutenberg, I lost my innocence the old-time-religion way, by reading the nursery rhyme of fornication that is the Old Testament and the fairy tale bloodbath that is the New. Job taught me Hey! Life's not fair! Lot's wife taught me that I'm probably going to come across a few weird sleazy things I won't be able to resist looking into. And the book of Revelation taught me to live in the moment, if only because the future's so grim. Being a fundamentalist means going straight to the source. I was asked to not only read the Bible, but to memorize Bible verses. If it wasn't for the easy access to the sordid Word of God I might have had an innocent childhood. Instead, I was a worrywart before my time, shivering in constant fear of a god who, from what I could tell, huffed and puffed around the cosmos looking like my dad did when my sister refused to take her vitamins that one time. God wasn't exactly a children's rights advocate. The first thing a child reading the Bible notices is that you're supposed to honor your mother and father but they're not necessarily required to reciprocate. This was a god who told Abraham to knife his boy Isaac and then at the last minute, when the dagger's poised above Isaac's heart, God tells Abraham that He's just kidding. This was a god who let a child lose his birthright because of some screwball mix-up involving fake fur hands and a bowl of soup. This was a god who saw to it that his own son had his hands and feet nailed onto pieces of wood. God, for me, was not in the details. I still set store by the big Judeo-Christian messages. Who can argue with the Ten Commandments? Don't kill anybody: don't mess around with other people's spouses: be nice to your mom and dad. Fine advice. It was the minutiae that nagged me.

Help your children grow and excel in the gifts God has given them. Let them know you're on their team. s a mom I want to leave a legacy that goes way beyond ordinary life skills such as cooking and cleaning. I want to teach values about caring for ourselves and others and shaping a godly atmosphere at home and in our lives. The time you spend teaching your daughters the joys and responsibilities of womanhood will benefit generations to come. And we teach best by what we are, don't we? Not by what we say. And how we raise our sons demonstrates how they should treat the women they encounter: teachers, moms, their wives, and daughters. My prayer is, "Lord, may Your love permeate my heart and life. May the gentle but strong spirit of being a woman of Yours add beauty and meaning to generations to come. Amen." on't you love springtime? It's a time for planting, for growing, for awakening. There's no better place to be than your garden. My first garden was nothing more than a sweet potato in a jar. Remember those? And flowers! They're food to my soul. My mama would always pick a few to float in a bowl or gather in a jelly jar. And once in a while we'd splurge and spend precious money on daisies or carnations from a

So shoot.” “I don’t know how to say this.” “I haven’t got all day, you know.” “I kissed Alex,” I blurt out. “Alex? ¡Benditaǃ Was that before or after the Colin breakup?” I wince. “I didn’t plan it.” Isabel laughs so hard and loud, I have to take the phone away from my ear. “You sure he didn’t plan it?” she asks once she can get words out. “It just happened. We were at his house and then we were interrupted when his mom came home and saw us--” “What? His ma saw you guys? In his house? ¡Benditaǃ” She goes off in Spanish, and I have no clue what the hell she’s saying. “I don’t speak Spanish, Isabel. Help me out here.” “Oh, sorry. Carmen is gonna shit a brick when she finds out.” I clear my throat. “I won’t tell her,” Isabel is quick to say. “But Alex’s mom is one tough woman. When Alex dated Carmen, he kept her far away from his mama. Don’t get me wrong, she loves her sons. But she’s overprotective, just like most Mexican mothers. Did she kick you out?” “No, but she pretty much called me a whore.” More laughing from the other end of the line. “It wasn’t funny.” “I’m sorry.” More laughing. “I would have loved to be a fly on the wall when she walked in on you two.” “Thanks for your compassion,” I say dryly. “I’m hanging up now.

As he stood with his fingers in the iceflower bowls, he heard his mom and Cyra talking. “My son was eager for me to meet you, I could tell,” his mom said. “You must be a good friend.” “Um…yes,” Cyra said. “I think so, yes.” You think so, Akos thought, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. He’d given her clear enough labels, back in the stairwell, but she still couldn’t quite believe it. That was the problem with being so convinced of your own awfulness--you thought other people were lying when they didn’t agree with you. “I have heard that you have a talent for death,” his mom said. At least Akos had warned Cyra about Sifa’s lack of charm. He glanced at Cyra. She held her armored wrist against her gut. “I suppose I do,” she said. “But I don’t have a passion for it.” Vapor slipped from the nose of the water kettle, not yet thick enough for Akos to pour. Water had never boiled so slowly. “You two have spent a lot of time together,” his mom said. “Yes.” “Are you to blame for his survival these past few seasons?” “No,” Cyra said. “Your son survives because of his own will.” His mom smiled. “You should defensive.” “I don’t take credit for other people’s strength,” Cyra said. “Only my own.” His mom’s smile got even bigger. “And a little cocky.” “I’ve been called worse.

The next morning I showed up at dad’s house at eight, with a hangover. All my brothers’ trucks were parked in front. What are they all doing here? When I opened the front door, Dad, Alan, Jase, and Willie looked at me. They were sitting around the living room, waiting. No one smiled, and the air felt really heavy. I looked to my left, where Mom was usually working in the kitchen, but this time she was still, leaning over the counter and looking at me too. Dad spoke first. “Son, are you ready to change?” Everything else seemed to go silent and fade away, and all I heard was my dad’s voice. “I just want you to know we’ve come to a decision as a family. You’ve got two choices. You keep doing what you’re doing--maybe you’ll live through it--but we don’t want nothin’ to do with you. Somebody can drop you off at the highway, and then you’ll be on your own. You can go live your life; we’ll pray for you and hope that you come back one day. And good luck to you in this world.” He paused for a second then went on, a little quieter. “Your other choice is that you can join this family and follow God. You know what we stand for. We’re not going to let you visit our home while you’re carrying on like this. You give it all up, give up all those friends, and those drugs, and come home. Those are your two choices.” I struggled to breathe, my head down and my chest tight. No matter what happened, I knew I would never forget this moment. My breath left me in a rush, and I fell to my knees in front of them all and started crying. “Dad, what took y’all so long?” I burst out. I felt broken, and I began to tell them about the sorry and dangerous road I’d been traveling down. I could see my brothers’ eyes starting to fill with tears too. I didn’t dare look at my mom’s face although I could feel her presence behind me. I knew she’d already been through the hell of addiction with her own mother, with my dad, with her brother-in-law Si, and with my oldest brother, Alan. And now me, her baby. I remembered the letters she’d been writing to me over the last few months, reaching out with words of love from her heart and from the heart of the Lord. Suddenly, I felt guilty. “Dad, I don’t deserve to come back. I’ve been horrible. Let me tell you some more.” “No, son,” he answered. “You’ve told me enough.” I’ve seen my dad cry maybe three times, and that was one of them. To see my dad that upset hit me right in the gut. He took me by my shoulders and said, “I want you to know that God loves you, and we love you, but you just can’t live like that anymore.” “I know. I want to come back home,” I said. I realized my dad understood. He’d been down this road before and come back home. He, too, had been lost and then found. By this time my brothers were crying, and they got around me, and we were on our knees, crying. I prayed out loud to God, “Thank You for getting me out of this because I am done living the way I’ve been living.” “My prodigal son has returned,” Dad said, with tears of joy streaming down his face. It was the best day of my life. I could finally look over at my mom, and she was hanging on to the counter for dear life, crying, and shaking with happiness. A little later I felt I had to go use the bathroom. My stomach was a mess from the stress and the emotions. But when I was in the bathroom with the door shut, my dad thought I might be in there doing one last hit of something or drinking one last drop, so he got up, came over, and started banging on the bathroom door. Before I could do anything, he kicked in the door. All he saw was me sitting on the pot and looking up at him while I about had a heart attack. It was not our finest moment. That afternoon after my brothers had left, we went into town and packed up and moved my stuff out of my apartment. “Hey bro,” I said to my roommate. “I’m changing my life. I’ll see ya later.” I meant it.

While the above term may seem too gimmicky for a subheading in an official file, it’s truly the best word to describe the strange relationship dynamic between Tam and Keefe Sencen. The two boys are decidedly not friends—in fact, reports suggest they disliked each other almost immediately (and the nicknames they use for each other range from the clever and witty to downright mean-spirited). Some suspect it’s because Tam violated Keefe’s privacy and read Keefe’s shadowvapor without his permission when they first met, while others would argue it’s because Keefe refused to have his shadowvapor read as though he had something to hide. Others still might suggest it’s actually because the two have quite a bit in common—but prefer to think of themselves as uniquely alone in their challenges and principles. Whatever the cause, it’s doubtful that Tam and Keefe will ever truly be friends. But it’s important to note that they have never appeared to truly be enemies, either—a fact that became increasingly vital when Tam was taken by the Neverseen and Keefe’s mom (Lady Gisela) forced him to use his ability on her son. Had there been true ill will between the boys, Tam wouldn’t have attempted to warn Keefe about what his mom was planning—and Keefe would’ve tried to harm Tam in their final showdown.

Miss Kay Alan had a run-in with the police one Sunday morning while he was in New Orleans and as best he can recall, one of the officers said to him, “Let me talk to you. What are your mom and dad doing right now?” “They’re in church, where they always go,” Alan answered. “I knew,” said the officer, “that you were raised different.” In other words, the policeman could tell Alan was not what some people might call a “common criminal.” The officer went on to speak some very strong words: “You have just done something really bad. Whatever you’re doing here, pack it up. Go home and live like your mom and dad; go live like you were raised. I don’t know your parents, but I have a feeling they will welcome you back like the Prodigal Son.” Phil and I had not been able to get through to Alan or influence him to change his ways while he was living with us, but that policeman in New Orleans sure got through to him. Sometimes we wonder if that policeman was an angel. Whether he was or was not, God definitely used him to get Alan back where he needed to be. Alan left “the Big Easy” right away and came back to us. He started walking with God again; he reconnected with Lisa. He and Phil began studying the Bible together; Phil baptized him in the river by our house, and he has been a totally different person ever since.

she feels lucky to have a job, but she is pretty blunt about what it is like to work at Walmart: she hates it. She’s worked at the local Walmart for nine years now, spending long hours on her feet waiting on customers and wrestling heavy merchandise around the store. But that’s not the part that galls her. Last year, management told the employees that they would get a significant raise. While driving to work or sorting laundry, Gina thought about how she could spend that extra money. Do some repairs around the house. Or set aside a few dollars in case of an emergency. Or help her sons, because “that’s what moms do.” And just before drifting off to sleep, she’d think about how she hadn’t had any new clothes in years. Maybe, just maybe. For weeks, she smiled at the notion. She thought about how Walmart was finally going to show some sign of respect for the work she and her coworkers did. She rolled the phrase over in her mind: “significant raise.” She imagined what that might mean. Maybe $2.00 more an hour? Or $2.50? That could add up to $80 a week, even $100. The thought was delicious. Then the day arrived when she received the letter informing her of the raise: 21 cents an hour. A whopping 21 cents. For a grand total of $1.68 a day, $8.40 a week. Gina described holding the letter and looking at it and feeling like it was “a spit in the face.” As she talked about the minuscule raise, her voice filled with anger. Anger, tinged with fear. Walmart could dump all over her, but she knew she would take it. She still needed this job. They could treat her like dirt, and she would still have to show up. And that’s exactly what they did. In 2015, Walmart made $14.69 billion in profits, and Walmart’s investors pocketed $10.4 billion from dividends and share repurchases—and Gina got 21 cents an hour more. This isn’t a story of shared sacrifice. It’s not a story about a company that is struggling to keep its doors open in tough times. This isn’t a small business that can’t afford generous raises. Just the opposite: this is a fabulously wealthy company making big bucks off the Ginas of the world. There are seven members of the Walton family, Walmart’s major shareholders, on the Forbes list of the country’s four hundred richest people, and together these seven Waltons have as much wealth as about 130 million other Americans. Seven people—not enough to fill the lineup of a softball team—and they have more money than 40 percent of our nation’s population put together. Walmart routinely squeezes its workers, not because it has to, but because it can. The idea that when the company does well, the employees do well, too, clearly doesn’t apply to giants like this one. Walmart is the largest employer in the country. More than a million and a half Americans are working to make this corporation among the most profitable in the world. Meanwhile, Gina points out that at her store, “almost all the young people are on food stamps.” And it’s not just her store. Across the country, Walmart pays such low wages that many of its employees rely on food stamps, rent assistance, Medicaid, and a mix of other government benefits, just to stay out of poverty. The

When Dad came home a couple of days later, Mom told him about the fish I’d caught and how much money we’d made. I could see the smile on his face. But then he went outside to check his boat and noticed that a paddle was missing. Instead of saying, “Good job, son,” he yelled at me for losing a paddle! I couldn’t believe he was scolding me over a stupid oar! I’d worked from daylight to dusk and earned enough money for my family to buy a dozen paddles! Where was the gratitude? I was so mad that I jumped in the boat and headed to the nets to see if I could find the missing paddle. After checking about seventy nets, I was resigned to the fact that it was probably gone. But when I finally reached the seventy-ninth net, I saw the paddle lying in a few bushes where I’d tied up a headliner, which is a rope leading to the net. It was almost like a religious experience for me. What were the odds of my finding a lost paddle floating in a current on a washed-out river? It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. I took the paddle back to my dad, but he was still mad at me for losing it in the first place. I have never liked the line “up a creek without a paddle” because of the trouble boat paddles caused me. I swore I would never lose another one, but lo and behold, the next year, I broke the same paddle I’d lost while trying to kill a cottonmouth water moccasin that almost bit me. My dad wasn’t very compassionate even after I told him his prized paddle perhaps saved my life. I finally concluded that everyone has quirks, and apparently my dad has some sort of weird love affair with boat paddles.

Come over early tomorrow morning,” Marlboro Man asked over the phone one night. “We’re gathering cattle, and I want you to meet my mom and dad.” “Oh, okay,” I agreed, wondering to myself why we couldn’t just remain in our own isolated, romantic world. And the truth was, I wasn’t ready to meet his parents yet. I still hadn’t successfully divorced myself from California J’s dear, dear folks. They’d been so wonderful to me during my years of dating their son and had become the California version of my parents, my home away from home. I hated that our relationship couldn’t continue despite, oh, the minor detail of my breaking up with their son. And already? Another set of parents? I wasn’t ready. “What time do you want me there?” I asked. I’d do anything for Marlboro Man. “Can you be here around five?” he asked. “In the evening…right?” I responded, hopeful. He chuckled. Oh, no. This was going to turn out badly for me. “Um…no,” he said. “That would be five A.M.” I sighed. To arrive at his ranch at 5:00 A.M. would mean my rising by 4:00 A.M.--before 4:00 A.M. if I wanted to shower and make myself presentable. This meant it would still be dark outside, which was completely offensive and unacceptable. There’s no way. I’d have to tell him no. “Okay--no problem!” I responded. I clutched my stomach in pain. Chuckling again, he teased, “I can come pick you up if you need me to. Then you can sleep all the way back to the ranch.” “Are you kidding?” I replied. “I’m usually up by four anyway. That’s when I usually do my running, as you well know.” “Uh…huh,” he said. “Gotcha.” Another chuckle. Lifeblood to my soul.

A BLESSING FROM MY SIXTEEN YEARS’ SON I have this son who assembled inside me during Hurricane Gloria. In a flash, he appeared, in a tiny blaze. Outside, pines toppled. Phone lines snapped and hissed like cobras. Inside, he was a raw pearl: microscopic, luminous. Look at the muscled obelisk of him now pawing through the icebox for more grapes. Sixteen years and not a bone broken, not a single stitch. By his age, I was marked more ways, and small. He’s a slouching six foot two, with implausible blue eyes, which settle on the pages of Emerson’s “Self Reliance” with profound belligerence. A girl with a navel ring could make his cell phone buzz, or an Afro’d boy leaning on a mop at Taco Bell— creatures strange as dragons or eels. Balanced on a kitchen stool, each gives counsel arcane as any oracle’s. Dante claims school is harshing my mellow. Rodney longs to date a tattooed girl, because he wants a woman willing to do stuff she’ll regret. They’ve come to lead my son into his broadening spiral. Someday soon, the tether will snap. I birthed my own mom into oblivion. The night my son smashed the car fender, then rode home in the rain-streaked cop cruiser, he asked, Did you and Dad screw up so much? He’d let me tuck him in, my grandmother’s wedding quilt from 1912 drawn to his goateed chin. Don’t blame us, I said. You’re your own idiot now. At which he grinned. The cop said the girl in the crimped Chevy took it hard. He’d found my son awkwardly holding her in the canted headlights, where he’d draped his own coat over her shaking shoulders. My fault, he’d confessed right off. Nice kid, said the cop.

He shoulders past me, pours himself a glass of milk from the fridge, and downs it. “Of course you don’t just get them, Mom. You have to earn them.” “I see. And how does that happen?” Another glass of milk disappears down Steven’s gullet. “Save some for cereal tomorrow,” I say. “You’re not the only human in this house.” “Maybe you should go out and get another carton, then. It’s your job, right?” My hand flies with a will of its own, makes contact; and a bright palm print blooms on the right side of Steven’s face. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t raise his own hand, doesn’t react at all, except to say, “Nice, Mom. Real nice. One day, that’s gonna be a crime.” “You little shit.” He’s smug now, which makes everything worse. “I’ll tell you how I earned the pin. I got recruited. Recruited, Mom. They needed volunteers from the boys’ school to make the rounds to the girls’ schools and explain a few things. I accepted. And for the past three days, I’ve been going out in the field and demonstrating how the bracelets work. Look.” He pushes up one sleeve and brandishes the burn mark around his wrist. “We go in pairs, and we take turns. All so girls like Sonia know what will happen.” As if to defy me once more, he drains his glass of milk and licks his lips. “By the way, I wouldn’t encourage her to pick the sign language back up.” “Why the hell not?” I’m still trying to absorb the fact that my son has purposefully shocked himself “so girls like Sonia know what will happen.” “Mom. Honestly. You of all people should get it.” His voice has taken on the timbre of someone much older, someone tired of explaining how things are. “Signing defeats the purpose of what we’re trying to do here.

The banishing of a leper seems harsh, unnecessary. The Ancient East hasn’t been the only culture to isolate their wounded, however. We may not build colonies or cover our mouths in their presence, but we certainly build walls and duck our eyes. And a person needn’t have leprosy to feel quarantined. One of my sadder memories involves my fourth-grade friend Jerry.1He and a half-dozen of us were an ever-present, inseparable fixture on the playground. One day I called his house to see if we could play. The phone was answered by a cursing, drunken voice telling me Jerry could not come over that day or any day. I told my friends what had happened. One of them explained that Jerry’s father was an alcoholic. I don’t know if I knew what the word meant, but I learned quickly. Jerry, the second baseman; Jerry, the kid with the red bike; Jerry, my friend on the corner was now “Jerry, the son of a drunk.” Kids can be hard, and for some reason we were hard on Jerry. He was infected. Like the leper, he suffered from a condition he didn’t create. Like the leper, he was put outside the village. The divorced know this feeling. So do the handicapped. The unemployed have felt it, as have the less educated. Some shun unmarried moms. We keep our distance from the depressed and avoid the terminally ill. We have neighborhoods for immigrants, convalescent homes for the elderly, schools for the simple, centers for the addicted, and prisons for the criminals. The rest simply try to get away from it all. Only God knows how many Jerrys are in voluntary exile—individuals living quiet, lonely lives infected by their fear of rejection and their memories of the last time they tried. They choose not to be touched at all rather than risk being hurt again.

Nothing,” said Margaret. “So there once was an Indian chief with three daughters, or squaws. All the braves in the tribe wanted to marry them, so he decided to hold a contest—all the braves would go out hunting, and the three who brought back the best hides would get to marry his squaws.” “Everyone knows this one,” said Lauren, rolling her eyes. “I don’t,” said Mom. I didn’t either. “Then I’ll keep going,” said Margaret, smiling, “and don’t you dare give it away. So anyway, all the braves went out, and after a long time they started to come back with wolf hides and rabbit hides and things like that. The chief was unimpressed. Then one day, a brave came back with a hide from a grizzly bear, which is pretty amazing, so the chief let him marry his youngest daughter. Then the next guy came back with a hide from a polar bear, which is even more amazing, so the chief let him marry his middle daughter. They waited and waited, and finally the last brave came back with the hide from a hippopotamus.” “A hippopotamus?” asked Mom. “I thought this was in North America.” “It is,” said Margaret, “that’s why a hippopotamus hide was so great. It was the most amazing hide the tribe had ever seen, and the chief let that brave marry his oldest and most beautiful daughter.” “She’s two minutes older than I am,” said Mom, glancing at me with a mock sneer. “Never lets me forget it.” “Stop interrupting,” said Margaret, “this is the best part. The squaws and the braves got married, and a year later they all had children—the youngest squaw had one son, the middle squaw had one son, and the oldest squaw had two sons.” She paused dramatically, and we stared at her for a moment, waiting. Lauren laughed. “Is there a punchline?” I asked. Lauren and Margaret said it in unison: “The sons of the squaw of the hippopotamus are equal to the sons of the squaws of the other two hides.

… The frayed and gritty edges of everyone’s world were being worried away by neighbors you’d never noticed until the air spilled over with the tragedy of their loss. The war had taken them or their children; killed them, lost them, torn off body parts, shipped them back brain-fried…. … Tales fell from hearts in heavy, wet tones of grief and confusion…. … Even when rare moments of relative calm and clarity crept briefly through our days, they crawled in with head hanging through that most familiar of all tunnels, our sense of loss. Each new friend seemed only to step in and announce himself with his last breath. Why hadn’t we loved him earlier when there had been more time? That overriding sense of loss was the dismal cloud through which you viewed the world. Dreading life’s relentless advance, but knowing your locks could never keep it out…. … As the late 60’s gave in and died, and I trudged through my first year as an art student in college, even the old folks were growing up. Their World War II glories clouded over. Someone had shot the president, his brother, and a great civil rights leader, dragging us all out of our warm, snuggly innocence. People seemed infested by life, burdened by the stifling weight of it, until we could only force shallow, labored breaths. Each new day was just an old one playing through again, a dust-laden August, a storm always riding right on top of you that never quite cut loose. It settled into your joints until they grew achy, too heavy to lift; tarring all hearts with a dark, heavy plaque. Days stuck together as walking and breathing grew tedious. Until even my bubbly sister couldn’t offer up a smile without a shadow lurking inside it. We trudged through life as our mighty nation killed our sons and broke our buddies, defending itself from skinny barefoot farmers with sticks, in rice swamps somewhere on the other side of existence, where you couldn’t tell the good guys from the bad. Some lost tiny nowhere that hadn’t even existed when you’d been a kid; when the world had been innocent and untainted. Back when Father Knew Best, Beaver’s mom fed his dad all the answers, and Annie Oakley never had to shoot to kill…. - From “Entertaining Naked People

After my dad started making duck calls, he’d leave town for a few days, driving all over Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Texas trying to sell them. He left me in charge of the fishing operation. I was only a teenager, but it was my responsibility to check almost eighty hoop nets three times a week. Looking back now, it was pretty dangerous work for a teenager on the river, especially since I’d never done it alone. If you fell out of the boat and into the river, chances were you might drown if something went wrong and you were alone. But I was determined to prove to my father that I could do it, so I left the house one morning and spent all day on the river. I checked every one of our hoop nets and brought a mound of fish back to Kay to take to market. I was so proud of myself for pulling it off without anyone’s help! When Dad came home a couple of days later, Mom told him about the fish I’d caught and how much money we’d made. I could see the smile on his face. But then he went outside to check his boat and noticed that a paddle was missing. Instead of saying, “Good job, son,” he yelled at me for losing a paddle! I couldn’t believe he was scolding me over a stupid oar! I’d worked from daylight to dusk and earned enough money for my family to buy a dozen paddles! Where was the gratitude? I was so mad that I jumped in the boat and headed to the nets to see if I could find the missing paddle. After checking about seventy nets, I was resigned to the fact that it was probably gone. But when I finally reached the seventy-ninth net, I saw the paddle lying in a few bushes where I’d tied up a headliner, which is a rope leading to the net. It was almost like a religious experience for me. What were the odds of my finding a lost paddle floating in a current on a washed-out river? It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. I took the paddle back to my dad, but he was still mad at me for losing it in the first place. I have never liked the line “up a creek without a paddle” because of the trouble boat paddles caused me. I swore I would never lose another one, but lo and behold, the next year, I broke the same paddle I’d lost while trying to kill a cottonmouth water moccasin that almost bit me. My dad wasn’t very compassionate even after I told him his prized paddle perhaps saved my life. I finally concluded that everyone has quirks, and apparently my dad has some sort of weird love affair with boat paddles.

Dear Mom and Dad How are you? If you are reading this it means your back from the wonderful cruise my brothers and I sent you on for your anniversary. We’re sure you both had a wonderful time. We want you to know that, while you were away, we did almost everything you asked. All but one thing, that is. We killed the lawn. We killed it dead. You asked us not to and we killed it. We killed it with extreme prejudice and no regard for its planty life. We killed the lawn. Now we know what you’re thinking: “But sons, whom we love ever so much, how can this be so? We expressly asked you to care for the lawn? The exactly opposite of what you are now conveying to us in an open digital forum.” True enough. We cannot dispute this. However, we have killed the lawn. We have killed it good. We threw a party and it was quite a good time. We had a moon bounce and beer and games and pirate costumes, oh it was a good time. Were it anyone else’s party that probably would have been enough but, hey, you know us. So we got a foam machine. A frothy, wet, quite fun yet evidently deadly, foam machine. Now this dastardly devise didn’t kill the lawn per se. We hypothesize it was more that it made the lawn very wet and that dancing in said area for a great many hours over the course of several days did the deed. Our jubilant frolicking simply beat the poor grass into submission. We collected every beer cap, bottle, and can. There is not a single cigarette butt or cigar to be found. The house is still standing, the dog is still barking, Grandma is still grandmaing but the lawn is no longer lawning. Now we’re sure, as you return from your wonderful vacation, that you’re quite upset but lets put this in perspective. For one thing whose idea was it for you to leave us alone in the first place? Not your best parenting decision right there. We’re little better than baboons. The mere fact that we haven’t killed each other in years past is, at best, luck. Secondly, let us not forget, you raised us to be this way. Always pushing out limits, making sure we thought creatively. This is really as much your fault as it is ours, if not more so. If anything we should be very disappointed in you. Finally lets not forget your cruise was our present to you. We paid for it. If you look at how much that cost and subtract the cost of reseeding the lawn you still came out ahead so, really, what position are you in to complain? So let’s review; we love you, you enjoyed a week on a cruise because of us, the lawn is dead, and it’s partially your fault. Glad that’s all out in the open. Can you have dinner ready for us by 6 tonight? We’d like macaroni and cheese. Love always Peter, James & Carmine

Of course, no china--however intricate and inviting--was as seductive as my fiancé, my future husband, who continued to eat me alive with one glance from his icy-blue eyes. Who greeted me not at the door of his house when I arrived almost every night of the week, but at my car. Who welcomed me not with a pat on the arm or even a hug but with an all-enveloping, all-encompassing embrace. Whose good-night kisses began the moment I arrived, not hours later when it was time to go home. We were already playing house, what with my almost daily trips to the ranch and our five o’clock suppers and our lazy movie nights on his thirty-year-old leather couch, the same one his parents had bought when they were a newly married couple. We’d already watched enough movies together to last a lifetime. Giant with James Dean, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Reservoir Dogs, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, The Graduate, All Quiet on the Western Front, and, more than a handful of times, Gone With the Wind. I was continually surprised by the assortment of movies Marlboro Man loved to watch--his taste was surprisingly eclectic--and I loved discovering more and more about him through the VHS collection in his living room. He actually owned The Philadelphia Story. With Marlboro Man, surprises lurked around every corner. We were already a married couple--well, except for the whole “sleepover thing” and the fact that we hadn’t actually gotten hitched yet. We stayed in, like any married couple over the age of sixty, and continued to get to know everything about each other completely outside the realm of parties, dates, and gatherings. All of that was way too far away, anyway--a minimum hour-and-a-half drive to the nearest big city--and besides that, Marlboro Man was a fish out of water in a busy, crowded bar. As for me, I’d been there, done that--a thousand and one times. Going out and panting the town red was unnecessary and completely out of context for the kind of life we’d be building together. This was what we brought each other, I realized. He showed me a slower pace, and permission to be comfortable in the absence of exciting plans on the horizon. I gave him, I realized, something different. Different from the girls he’d dated before--girls who actually knew a thing or two about country life. Different from his mom, who’d also grown up on a ranch. Different from all of his female cousins, who knew how to saddle and ride and who were born with their boots on. As the youngest son in a family of three boys, maybe he looked forward to experiencing life with someone who’d see the country with fresh eyes. Someone who’d appreciate how miraculously countercultural, how strange and set apart it all really is. Someone who couldn’t ride to save her life. Who didn’t know north from south, or east from west. If that defined his criteria for a life partner, I was definitely the woman for the job.

What no one tells you is that there will be a last time you ever carry your child. A last time you tuck them in. A last time they run into your arms off the school bus. All through his infancy, Dylan was attached to me, almost literally. I nursed him, and he was fussy, so I carried him almost constantly, patting his back, humming to him, breathing in his delicious baby scent. He didn’t walk till he was fourteen months old, and I loved that, because I got to carry him that much longer. I took him for hikes in a backpack, his little knees hitting my ribs. I carried him on my shoulders, him clinging to fistfuls of my hair. I loved every minute. He was an affectionate boy full of drooly kisses and cuddles. He was generous with his hugs, from Paul at the post office to Christine, our librarian. And especially with me. Every night when I read him bedtime stories, his sweet little head would rest against my shoulder, and he’d idly stroke my arm, smelling like Dove soap and baby shampoo. Driving in the car was like a tranquilizer dart for Dylan . . . even bumping down our long dirt road wouldn’t wake him up, and I’d park the car, get out and unbuckle him, then lift his sweaty little body into my arms to carry him inside and just sit on the couch with him in my arms, heart against heart. And then one day, he no longer needed that. The bedtime stories stopped when he was about ten and wanted to read to himself. The last time I attempted to carry him from the car, he woke up and said, “It’s okay, Mom. I’m awake.” He never needed that again. Had someone told me “This is the last time you’ll get to carry your son,” I would have paid more attention. I would have held him as long as I could. They don’t tell you that your son will stop kissing you with sweet innocence, and those smooches will be replaced with an obligatory peck. They don’t tell you that he won’t want a piggyback ride ever again. That you can’t hold his hand anymore. That those goofy, physical games of chasing and tickling and mock wrestling will end one day. Permanently. All those natural, easy, physical gestures of love stop when your son hits puberty and is abruptly aware of his body . . . and yours. He doesn’t want to hug you the same way, finding your physicality perhaps a little . . . icky . . . that realization that Mom has boobs, that Mom’s stomach is soft, that Mom and Dad have sex, that Mom gets her period. The snuggles stop. This child, the deepest love of your life, won’t ever stroke your arm again. You’ll never get to lie in bed next to him for a bedtime chat, those little talks he used to beg for. No more tuck-ins. No more comforting after a bad dream. The physical distance between the two of you is vast . . . it’s not just that he’ll only come so close for the briefest second, but also the simple fact that he isn’t that little boy anymore. He’s a young man, a fully grown male with feet that smell like death and razor stubble on his once petal-soft cheeks.

Breanne, I'm asking you nicely to please reconsider. Mom and Dad are coming to the game. They have a suite reserved and Mom is expecting you." Jayson almost sounded as if he were begging. I wasn't buying it. "Take Belinda or one of those other women," I huffed. "I don't do much in the leather department. I'm a vegetarian, remember?" "Mom loves that about you." "I'm sure she does. Her son, however, finds me grossly inadequate and walks away whenever he gets a chance. As much as I like your mother, I don't feel good about stringing her along. I'm just a front for you—admit it." "Bree, I'll invite Hank to come, too. I promise one of us will be with you." "Sure. That sounds so comfortable," I said. "Your mother will wonder what the hell is going on when Hank pays more attention than you do. Frankly, I don't want anything from either of you." Jayson was still trying to convince me to go to the basketball game the following evening, and he'd shown up at my front door to do it. I'd been grumpy ever since I'd come back after saving Teeg San Gerxon's ass. Sure, it would put the Campiaan Alliance in chaos, but for a blink, or maybe half a blink—I'd considered saving Stellan and his brothers and leaving Teeg behind to be flayed and swallowed by a sandstorm that had destroyed most of Thelik. "What can I possible do to convince you to come? Donate to Mercy Crossings or some other charity? What?" He'd arrived at my front door as if he'd been invited. I made him stand at the door instead of inviting him in. "Give Trina a raise. That car she's driving really needs to be retired." "What?" Jayson almost shouted. "Okay, the price just went up. Buy her a new car." Did I realize he'd take the bait? No. "All right. I agree, that piece of crap needs to go to the salvage yard. I'll buy her a new car." "A good one. She doesn't want a TinyCar, I know that much." "You think I'd let anybody out of the driveway in one of those things? I saw yours and almost gagged." "But since I'm nobody important to you, I can drive whatever the hell I want," I pointed out. "Besides, I got my car from a vending machine. Put in a dollar and it dropped out. It was too bad, too—I wanted a soda." The corners of Jayson's mouth threatened to turn up. Schooling his face, he said, "I never pegged you for an extortionist," instead. "I never pegged you for an asshole, either, but disappointment abounds. Sell that Mercedes you have and buy four decent cars with the proceeds. See? Everybody's happy." "That's a Mercedes McLaren," Jayson howled. "Then buy eight decent cars." "If you weren't so smart and my mother didn't like you so much," Jayson threatened. "You'd what? Have one of those bigger, taller, better-endowed women beat me up? Jayson Rome, feel free to bring anybody you want against me. They won't last ten seconds." "You'll come to the game? I still plan to invite Hank. I usually sit courtside, but since Dad's coming and bringing Mom," Jayson didn't finish. "Just don't make an ass out of yourself this time." I shut the door in his face before he could sputter a reply.

She tilts her head to the side after taking a sip of her tea, studying us. “You know, I can’t get over how beautiful you two are together. One of those couples you love to follow on Instagram, you know, the really cute ones that are so sickening in love that you can’t get enough of them.” Way to drop the love bomb, Mom. Jesus. Thankfully Emory doesn’t show any kind of hatred for the term but instead says, “Like Jennifer Lopez and A-Rod?” “Yes,” my mom answers with excitement. “Oh my gosh, I’m obsessed with watching their stories. The little videos they do together, I just can’t get enough of them. J-Rod,” my mom says dreamily. “Oh gosh, what would your couple name be?” She thinks about it for a second. “Emox . . . or Knemory. Oh I love Knemory. Sounds so poetic.” “Knemory does have a nice ring to it,” I add. “I don’t know, what about Emorox?” “Ohhh, that sounds like a name that belongs in The Game of Thrones.” Taking on a more masculine voice, my mom says, “Look out, Jon, Emorox is coming over the hill, with her fire-spitting dragons, Knemory and George.” “George?” Emory laughs out loud, covering her mouth. “Why George?” “Well, look at the names they have in that show? They’re all exotic names you’ve never heard before—Cersei, Gregor, Arya—and then in waltzes good old Jon Snow. It’s only fair that the dragons have a lemon in the bunch as well.” “Uh, Jon is anything but a lemon, Mom,” I defend. “He was raised from the dead.” My mom’s mouth drops, pure and utter shock in her face. “Jon Snow dies?” Shit. Emory elbows my stomach. “Where the hell is your GOT etiquette? You never talk about the facts of the show until the air is cleared about how far someone is in watching. You are one of those people who spoils everything for someone just catching up to the trend.” *Ahem* “I mean . . . uh . . . he doesn’t die.” “You just said he is raised from the dead,” my mom says. Feeling guilty, I reply, “Well, at least he’s still alive, right?” She slumps against the cushion of the couch and mutters, “Unbelievable.” “I’m sorry, Mrs. Gentry, that your son is a barbarian and broke your GOT trust.” Pressing her hand against her forehead, my mom says, “You know, I blame myself. I thought I taught him a shred of decorum, I guess not.” “Don’t blame yourself,” Emory coos. “You did everything right. It comes down to the hooligans he hangs out with. There’s only so much you can control after they leave the nest.” “You’re absolutely right,” my mom agrees and leans across the couch to smack me in the back of the head. “Hey,” I complain while rubbing the sore spot. I look between the two women in my life and I say, “I don’t like this ganging up on me shit.” “You wanted us to get along, right?” Emory asks. “Well, I happen to like your mom, especially since she complimented my bosom.” “Ah, I see.” I continue to look between the two of them. “You’re okay with my mom catching you with your shirt off now, moved past the embarrassment?” Emory’s eyes narrow. “With that kind of attitude, it might be the very last time you see me topless.” My mom raises her fist to the air, as if to say, “Girl Power.” And then she says, “You tell him, Emory. Don’t let him push you around.” “I wasn’t pushing her around—” “You keep that beautiful bosom under lock and key, and if you have a temptation to show anyone, just flash me.” “Mom, do you realize how wrong that is?” “Want to go to the bathroom right now, Mrs. Gentry?” “I would be delighted to.” They both stand but before they can make a move, I pull on Emory’s hand, bringing her back down to my lap. “No way in hell is that happening. Jesus, what is wrong with you?

Gentile’s office in downtown Las Vegas, I got on the elevator and turned around and there was a TV camera. It was just the two of us in the little box, me and the man with the big machine on his shoulder. He was filming me as I stood there silent. “Turn the camera off,” I said. He didn’t. I tried to move away from him in the elevator, and somehow in the maneuvering he bumped my chin with the black plastic end of his machine and I snapped. I slugged him, or actually I slugged the camera. He turned it off. The maids case was like a county fair compared with the Silverman disappearance, which had happened in the media capital of the world. It had happened within blocks of the studios of the three major networks and the New York Times. The tabloids reveled in the rich narrative of the case, and Mom and Kenny became notorious throughout the Western Hemisphere. Most crimes are pedestrian and tawdry. Though each perpetrator has his own rap sheet and motivation and banged-up psyche, the crime blotter is very repetitive. A wife beater kills his wife. A crack addict uses a gun to get money for his habit. Liquor-store holdups, domestic abuse, drug dealer shoot-outs, DWIs, and so on. This one had a story line you could reduce to a movie pitch. Mother/Son Grifters Held in Millionaire’s Disappearance! My mother’s over-the-top persona, Kenny’s shady polish, and the ridiculous rumors of mother-son incest gave the media a narrative it couldn’t resist. Mom and Kenny were the smart, interesting, evil criminals with the elaborate, diabolical plan who exist in fiction and rarely in real life. The media landed on my life with elephant feet. I was under siege as soon as I returned to my office after my family’s excursion to Newport Beach. The deluge started at 10 A.M. on July 8, 1998. I kept a list in a drawer of the media outlets that called or dropped by our little one-story L-shaped office building on Decatur. It was a tabloid clusterfuck. Every network, newspaper, local news station, and wire service sent troops. Dateline and 20/20 competed to see who could get a Kimes segment on-air first. Dateline did two shows about Mom and Kenny. I developed a strategy for dealing with reporters. My unusual training in the media arts as the son of Sante, and as a de facto paralegal in the maids case, meant that I had a better idea of how to deal with reporters than my staff did. They might find it exciting that someone wanted to talk to them, and forget to stop at “No comment.” I knew better. So I hid from the camera crews in a back room, so there’d be no pictures, and I handled the calls myself. I told my secretary not to bother asking who was on the line and to transfer all comers back to me. I would get the name and affiliation of the reporter, write down the info on my roster, and

Introduction This book is devoted to the blessed Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Daily working together as unified Godhead for our best interest. Would be incomplete without Jesus direct love bestowed upon me, through a perpetual act of faith in God. Fully trusting Jesus to lead me into a carefully laid-out plan. Dedicating this book to my children: Faith is 6, Christian 11, Christina 12 years old. Izzabella, my niece, is also featured in the story, Sally Saved Three Times. These Children are the inspiration for the characters in the stories. Added some personal experiences acquired during my childhood. Appreciate the support of my Mom, Dad, brother, Jacob, for being here for me the last five years. They helped me through hard circumstances when I needed them the most. Thank You! My second family is at the Erie Wesleyan Methodist Church on the corner of 29th and Liberty. They covered my life with prayer; great friends from the Lord; Supporting me on my journey towards my heavenly home. I am also thankful for Mike Lawrence who encouraged me to keep writing. Thanks, brother! This spectacular close friend of mine wrote the Forward of this book. He is God-given for moral support and prayer. Friends forever from Erie, Pennsylvania! There are scripture references, along with Bible lessons featured in each story. These short stories are ideal for devotions or bedtime stories. Suitable for parents and grandparents to read to children, grandchildren. Forward It is rare today to find Christians who are in love with doing the Lord's service. Many would sit to the side and let others bush-wack the path, but Bryan has always been the one who delights in making the way clear for others. His determination, commitment to producing these writings was encouraging to watch come to fruition. Take time now see for yourself how God is directing these works to provide something sincere, pure, innocent for families to enjoy. A pleasant respite from a sin-sick world. So, please, feel free to find a quiet place today and enjoy them alone or with your family. This body of work calls upon us to take time to be holy. I believe with all my heart that this is the authors intent, the Lord's plan, my hearts prayer that they bless you as much as they have blessed me. May God bless the time and energies sacrificed by the author in its production. Sincerely in Christ, Michael Lawrence. When writing with Shirley Dye on messenger about editing the book, she commented that this book would be a blessing to many people. That is my solemn humble prayer. Short Story Content 1. Mr. B.G. (My Testimony) 2. Trevor Wins Three Times 3. Winning The Man ON Rock-Hill 4. Sally Saved Three Times 5. Jonathan and Family Find God 6. Upright and Prideful Key Text, (Matthew 18:3), “And (Jesus) said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Her face distressed, Astrid handed him off to Zarek. "Menoeceus wants his father." Zarek glared at her. "Bob is crying because he wants his mother to stop calling him that crap-ass name." Zarek cuddled the small boy to him as he rocked him gently against his shoulder while he continued to wail. Loudly. "It's all right, Bob. Daddy's got you now. I'm saving you from Mommy's bad naming taste. I'd be crying, too, if my mom named me after an idiot." "Menoeceus is a great name," Astrid said defensively. Zarek snorted. "For an old man or a feminine hygiene product. Not for my son. And next time I get to name the kid and it won't be something that sounds like meningitis." Astrid stood with her hands on her hips, toe to toe with her husband. "You keep that up and next time you'll be the one birthing it, and don't mess with me, bucko, I have connections in that department. A pregnant man is not an impossibility in my neighborhood." She started away from him. "Yeah, well, I'll be glad to birth it if it means I can name him something normal," Zarek called after her.

Why didn’t you go after her?” His father’s deep voice confronted his cowardice. Michael stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans, slumping his shoulders in the process as a child being scolded. He could not look at his father, he knew all too well the disapproving glare that was bound to chastise him. “Love isn’t easy, Son.” His father’s hand on his shoulder offered understanding and friendship, far from the reprove he expected. “But it is for you and mom.” “No, Son, it isn’t.” His father admitted. “I think we need to talk. How about ordering us a pizza, while I settle in.” Guiding his son back to the house, Joseph felt the prick of thorns from the guilt of past mistakes. “I can’t believe you and mom almost divorced.” Michael shook his head in disbelief at the story his father had shared with him. “We came very close. Thankfully, my father, your grandfather, sat me down and shared his own marital struggles with me. None of us are exempt from them. I know you and Abigail are not talking marriage yet, but I see the way you look at her and I know, that it is just a matter of time. Love is a commitment, Michael, not a contract.” Joseph sat his empty coffee cup down on the table and spoke honestly with his son. “Either you love her enough to fight for her, or you don’t love her at all.” “I do love her.” “Then fight for her, Michael. That includes forgiving her, not just once, but each time she messes up.” Standing, Joseph handed Michael his Bible. “I have marked two passages I want you to read. Start with Isaiah 53 and end with 1 Corinthians 13. I think you will find your answers there.” Reaching his hand down to his boy, Joseph pulled him up into his embrace. “Sleep well, Son. Your mom and I are praying for you.

The first said, “I built Mom a big house.” The second said, “Well, I got her the best Mercedes they make along with her own driver.” “I’ve got you both beat,” said the third. “You know how Mom enjoys the Bible, and you know she can’t see very well. I sent her a brown parrot that can recite the entire Bible. It took twenty monks in a monastery twelve years to teach him. I had to contribute $100,000 to the order every year for ten years for them to train him, but it was worth it. Mom just has to name the chapter and verse, and the parrot will recite it.” Soon thereafter, each of the sons received a note from their mother. To the first son she wrote,“Milton, the house you built is so huge. I live in only one room, but I have to clean the whole house.” To the second son she wrote,“Marty, I am too old to go anywhere. I stay home all the time, so I never use the Mercedes. Besides, the driver is so rude!” To the third son, her message was softer: “Dearest Melvin, you are the only son to have the good sense to know what your mother likes. The chicken was delicious

I punch Blake’s contact and put the phone to my ear. “What?” I walk into the kitchen and grab a beer. “I didn’t kill your son.” “Good, because it would be a real fucking bummer to have to buy my kid and my best friend while being incarcerated for murder, you asshole.” “Please tell me this kid is nothing like you, you walking fucking case of gonorrhoea.” “Fuck you. You kiss your wife with that mouth? Don’t act like your dick didn’t have just as much of a chance of fallin’ off as mine did back in the day.” I take a long swig from my beer and drop down onto a barstool with a groan. “What are the chances that our kids are better than us?” “Shit. With Layla and Raven being their moms? I’d say pretty fucking good.” “Good point.

Ah, guilt. One of the most painful human emotions that one can experience. Even without the burden of an illness, guilt is a part of life. But so many who live with a chronic condition feel intense guilt. When I had first found out that I was pregnant with my son, the very first emotion that kicked in wasn't pure joy or excitement, there were not any happy tears shed from me. My very first thought when I saw the positive pregnancy test was "What kind of mom am I going to be? What if my child grows up to hate me because I can't do everything he'll want to do?" Guilt is such a common emotion that surrounds us. Even those who aren't parents experience it in other ways, guilt over not being able to work anymore, guilt over not getting the chores finished, and the list can go on and on. It can turn into a relentless cycle of self-blame. There is something important to remember here, when guilt decides to sneak up on you. You did not ask for any of this. None of this is in your control, it is not your fault. I do not care if you have to repeat this out loud over and over again to make it stick, but I want you to know that you are still awesome, despite these shitty illnesses.

A few months after my mom died, he said he was tired of trying. He said he couldn't understand me or why I couldn't throw a football straight or hit a baseball farther than the baseline. He didn't understand why I loved our neighbor's shih tzu and would play with her whenever she dug her way out of her yard into ours to spend some time with me when I came home from school. He said it was a little girl's dog and that young men wouldn't play with dogs like that." He spoke distantly, as if reading a detached script, trying to avoid any emotion. He took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders. "He made his feelings about me very clear when he threw me head first into the grass and I landed inches away from one of the presents she'd left in our yard I hadn't had a chance to clean up yet. He laughed and called it ironic considering I was a shitty excuse for a son," he said in a mocking deep voice. He paused again and swallowed heavily before looking over to Aidan. "He gave up on me and told me to leave. If I'm going to be honest with you, I didn't want to stay. I was terrified of becoming him.

The child bounded onto the bed, landing on all fours, her round face wreathed in a smile. “Hein nei nan-ne-i-cut?” “What is your name?” Hunter translated, tousling the imp’s hair as he hunkered beside the bed. “Loh-rhett-ah, eh? Tohobt Nabituh, Blue Eyes.” To Loretta, he said, “Warrior’s daughter, To-oh Hoos-cho, Blackbird.” Blackbird giggled and glanced at her grandmother, who stood watching from across the room. “Loh-rhett-ah!” Loretta scooted toward the head of the bed to press her back against the taut leather wall. The little girl followed, reaching out with a small brown hand to lightly touch the flounces on Loretta’s bloomers. Loretta stared at her. At last, a Comanche she didn’t detest on sight. She was tempted to grab hold of her and never let go. Loretta guessed her to be about three years old, possibly four. While Blackbird satisfied her curiosity about Loretta and examined her form head to toe, Hunter carried on an unintelligible conversation with his mother. From the gestures he made, Loretta guessed he was relating that his captive refused to eat or drink and that her voice had returned. A look of concern flashed across the older woman’s dark face. Hunter rose and thumped the heel of his hand against his forehead, rolling his eyes toward the smoke hole above the firepit. “Ai-ee!” Woman with Many Robes crossed the packed grass-and-dirt floor and leaned forward to peer at Loretta. After babbling shrilly for several seconds, all the while waving her spoon, she crooned, “Nei mi-pe mah-tao-yo,” and placed a gentle hand on Loretta’s hair. “My mother says the poor little one must have no fear.” Woman with Many Robes cast her son a suspicious glance. When it became apparent that he planned to say no more, she brandished her spoon at him. With great reluctance he cleared his throat, eyed the people crowding the doorway, and said, in a very low voice, “You will have no fear of me, eh? If I lift my hand against you, I will be a caum-mom-se, a bald head, and she will thump me with her spoon.” He hesitated and looked as if he found it difficult not to smile. “She will make the great na-ba-dah-kah, battle, with me. And in the end, she will win. She is one mean woman.

At what point in her life had she decided she didn’t deserve better than this? It was a startling discovery. The blinders had come off. Why was she putting up with this? She was prepared to end the entire thing when she looked up and saw Jarrod walk to the table. He leaned over and kissed his mom then held up a hand in greeting to the others before turning his gaze on her and Ryan. She broke into a cold sweat. Ryan stiffened beside her and the others fell silent. It was as if everyone in the room waited for the inevitable fireworks. Her head pounded viciously. Her stomach cramped and she wanted to die from the humiliation. More than that, she was so furious she couldn’t see straight. “Sorry, I’m late,” he said. “I got caught in traffic.” As he took the empty chair beside his mother, bile rose in Kelly’s throat. Her heart was shredded. She was bleeding on the inside, so hurt, so devastated she wanted to die. She refused to look at Ryan. How could he have done it? She didn’t believe for a moment that Ryan had actually invited his brother…had he? But why hadn’t he made it clear that he wasn’t welcome? Everyone stared at her. They likely thought she deserved whatever humiliation was heaped upon her tonight. But she refused to look back at them. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of seeing her so shattered. Instead her gaze locked onto Jarrod Beardsley and his mother. How they must hate her. The coldness in Ramona Beardsley’s eyes reached out to Kelly. They said, You’ll never win. I’ll never let you. What had she ever done besides love Ryan? Enough was enough. Kelly deserved better. She was through paying penance. She was done with being looked down on, condemned and forgiven. Forcing a smile in Ryan’s direction, she pushed back her chair and slowly rose as if she hadn’t a care in the world. She stared across the table at Jarrod and his mother and let the full force of her hatred shine. She didn’t care if they ever accepted her. She didn’t accept them. They could both go to hell. She’d buy them a first-class ticket. Then she turned to face the entire table. “I’m done here. You’ve all sat and stared your disapproval. You’ve sent pitying glances Ryan’s way. You’ve judged me and found me not good enough. To hell with all of you.” Then she turned back to Jarrod, her voice coming out in a low hiss. “You son of a bitch. You stay away from me and my child. I’ll see you in hell before I ever let you near me again.” Ryan started to rise, but she shoved him back into his seat. “By all means, you stay. You wouldn’t want to disappoint your family and friends.” Before he could react, she stalked away.

The Director’s Chair is with Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, etc.), and Robert refers later to this quote from Francis: “Failure is not necessarily durable. Remember that the things that they fire you for when you are young are the same things that they give lifetime achievement awards for when you’re old.” ROBERT: “Even if I didn’t sell Mariachi, I would have learned so much by doing that project. That was the idea—I’m there to learn. I’m not there to win; I’m there to learn, because then I’ll win, eventually. . . . “You’ve got to be able to look at your failures and know that there’s a key to success in every failure. If you look through the ashes long enough, you’ll find something. I’ll give you one. Quentin [Tarantino] asked me, ‘Do you want to do one of these short films called Four Rooms [where each director can create the film of their choosing, but it has to be limited to a single hotel room, and include New Year’s Eve and a bellhop]?’ and my hand went up right away, instinctively. . . . “The movie bombed. In the ashes of that failure, I can find at least two keys of success. On the set when I was doing it, I had cast Antonio Banderas as the dad and had this cool little Mexican as his son. They looked really close together. Then I found the best actress I could find, this little half-Asian girl. She was amazing. I needed an Asian mom. I really wanted them to look like a family. It’s New Year’s Eve, because [it] was dictated by the script, so they’re all dressed in tuxedos. I was looking at Antonio and his Asian wife and thinking, ‘Wow, they look like this really cool, international spy couple. What if they were spies, and these two little kids, who can barely tie their shoes, didn’t know they were spies?’ I thought of that on the set of Four Rooms. There are four of those [Spy Kids movies] now and a TV series coming. “So that’s one. The other one was, after [Four Rooms] failed, I thought, ‘I still love short films.’ Anthologies never work. We shouldn’t have had four stories; it should have been three stories because that’s probably three acts, and it should just be the same director instead of different directors because we didn’t know what each person was doing. I’m going to try it again. Why on earth would I try it again, if I knew they didn’t work? Because you figured something out when you’re doing it the first time, and [the second attempt] was Sin City.” TIM: “Amazing.

Ai-ee!” Woman with Many Robes crossed the packed grass-and-dirt floor and leaned forward to peer at Loretta. After babbling shrilly for several seconds, all the while waving her spoon, she crooned, “Nei mi-pe mah-tao-yo,” and placed a gentle hand on Loretta’s hair. “My mother says the poor little one must have no fear.” Woman with Many Robes cast her son a suspicious glance. When it became apparent that he planned to say no more, she brandished her spoon at him. With great reluctance he cleared his throat, eyed the people crowding the doorway, and said, in a very low voice, “You will have no fear of me, eh? If I lift my hand against you, I will be a caum-mom-se, a bald head, and she will thump me with her spoon.” He hesitated and looked as if he found it difficult not to smile. “She will make the great na-ba-dah-kah, battle, with me. And in the end, she will win. She is one mean woman.” Woman with Many Robes stroked Loretta’s hair and nodded, saying something more. She no sooner finished than Blackbird burst into giggles and rolled away from Loretta, planting a hand on her tummy. Whatever it was the woman had said, the child thought it hilarious. “You must eat,” Hunter translated. “And drink. Soon you will feel better, eh? And she will trade with the Comanchero for you a big spoon. If I ever again strike fear into your heart, you can do your own thumping.” Loretta concurred with Blackbird. She’d need much more than a spoon to do battle with Hunter.

Dad, I’m sorry about the report card and all that, but I didn’t do anything bad to Mrs. Lima. She told Jackson and me to do the walk and the driveway, but then she wouldn’t pay us for the walk, even though we did a good job. So we just put the snow back. That’s all.” “According to Mrs. Lima,” Dad said, “she never told you to do the walk because she doesn’t use it. She goes through her garage. And you wouldn’t take her word for it. That’s what upset her the most, that you acted as if she meant to cheat you.” “But she did, Dad.” “Willie--” Dad hesitated. Then he shook his head and said, “I don’t know who to believe.” “Me. I’m your son, and I don’t lie. Much,” Willie amended carefully to cover any white lies he might have told. “That’s true,” Mom said. “You know that’s true, Harold.” Dad lifted his bony shoulders and let them drop. “All right. It’s possible Mrs. Lima’s getting forgetful and thinks she told you just the driveway. In any case, I want to satisfy her, especially after we kept her up last night with the dog barking. So you just return the money for the walk and say you’re sorry. Say you must have misunderstood her.” “That’s not fair,” Willie said. “Fair or not, it’s foolish to make bad feelings with a neighbor over three dollars.” “But Dad--” Willie couldn’t find the words for it, but he knew there was a flaw in his father’s reasoning. Wasn’t Dad holding out for an admission from his boss that he’d been wrong? “Here.” Dad took three dollars out of his own wallet and handed it to Willie. “Go. Just give her this money and say you didn’t mean to upset her…Put on your shoes and your jacket first.” Willie looked at Mom, who shrugged her shoulders. It wasn’t fair, Willie thought resentfully as he marched down his driveway and up Mrs. Lima’s with Dad’s three dollars pinched between his thumb and index finger. Mrs. Lima answered her door, dressed in a wool suit with a lot of gold chains. “Here’s your three dollars back,” Willie said. And he added, “I’m sorry my dog kept you awake last night.” “You can keep the three dollars,” she said stiffly. “I just wanted to teach you a little respect for your elders, Willie.” He nodded. “Okay.” He turned to leave. “Willie,” she called. “You can do my driveway and walk again next time it snows.” “No, thank you, Mrs. Lima,” he called back politely. Her eyes went wide with surprise. Then she shut her door fast. She might have won, but that didn’t mean he was ever going to let her trick him again, Willie told himself. He went back home and returned Dad’s three dollars to him. “So, you and Mrs. Lima made friends?” “No,” Willie said. “But I did what you told me.

My mother and brother don’t need me to leave word to know where I am. And this is how things are between Cyra and me,” Akos said, defensive. “She plotted for weeks to send me away without telling me about it. How is this different?” “It is not particularly different,” Ara said. “But that doesn’t make it right, either time.” “Don’t scold him, Mom,” Jorek said. “He was basically born scolding himself.” “Scold me all you like,” Akos said. “Especially because I’m about to ask for something you won’t like.” Jorek’s arm snaked across the table, and he stole some meat from Akos’s plate. “I want you to let me into the back gate of Noavek manor,” Akos said. Jorek choked on the meat he was now chewing, prompting Ara to thump him on the back with her fist. “What are you going to do once you’re inside?” Ara said, narrowing her eyes. “It’s better if you don’t know,” Akos said. “Akos. Trust me. Even you, pupil of Cyra Noavek, are out of your depth with Lazmet,” Jorek said, after he had swallowed his bite. “There isn’t a single shred of decency in him. I don’t think he even has the capacity for it. If he finds you, he’ll turn you into a goddamn stew.” “He won’t kill me,” Akos said. “Why, because of your stunning good looks?” Jorek snorted. “Because I’m his son,” Akos said. Ara and Jorek stared at him in silence. Akos pushed his plate across the table, toward Jorek. “Want my roll?” he said.

At our next show, my mom came out as “Ma Rule,” holding a bottle of Cristal, sporting a dookie chain, and wearing a Ruff Ryders jumpsuit. No one can ever question this woman’s love for her son.

Know that your child is not gone. The veil that separates you from your son or daughter is as thin as a sheet of wax paper. And when we see them again, we will feel as though not one second has passed.