In the Right Hands
April 7, 2018“Let’s see what sort of surprises await us in Jennifer’s story,” Jean-Paul said wearily and shuffled the story pages on his desk, as though by doing so he would impose order on narrative chaos. What…
“Let’s see what sort of surprises await us in Jennifer’s story,” Jean-Paul said wearily and shuffled the story pages on his desk, as though by doing so he would impose order on narrative chaos. What…
Bobbie wants to marry me again. Fourteen months now I’ve been pointing out the kids, our wedding pictures, our marriage certificate. Gosh, I even show him the mail—”Mr. and Mrs. Robert Franklin,” right there on…
Lucille Wentworth sat in her working on her cross-stitch, watching Judy and Ray hold hands, sitting across from her on the couch. It was late, past one; they’d talked for hours, the conversation flowing around…
It’s six o’clock, time for dinner and Little House on the Prairie reruns. I walk up the stairs as my mom is pulling some string beans out of the microwave. She asks me if I’ll…
Jarring bang. Wheels leap up, rattling the heavy load of black piping destined for the oilrig. The truck rolls on. Oblivious to what it left behind. On the macadam, a coyote. From its sacrum back…
I grew up in Snowflake, which lies in desert country in Arizona, altitude 5600 feet. Alof Larson and May Hunt, my parents, were among the early arrivals to this pioneer settlement, named for Erastus Snow…
I have a different view of what I thought was important, and what I think a lot of people have. Of course, I shouldn’t be the one to define my own legacy–to say “this is…
Dialogue 53.2 (Summer 2020): 108–123
I felt free. I felt empowered. I might fall in love and get married, or
I might not. Either way would be fine. I didn’t need to have the same
life path as all of my friends and family. I realized that I am the way I
am, and I couldn’t change it. I needed to respect it. I had to listen to
myself, and not to everyone around me, including Church leaders. I
had to follow my heart and do what makes me happy, and it would all
get figured out in the end.
I suppose we all share the same space at one time or another. One can search out these spaces, as I have. Outside Paris I spent an afternoon mulling about in Malmaison, Napoleon and Josephine’s…
(1961) I sat waiting in the downstairs living room in the “House of Happiness” where only a correct, efficient, middle-aged nurse interrupted a grueling aura of lost wills, defeated pluck. The inmates, whose residence in…