My dad didn’t just want to play the flugelhorn, he wanted to perform on Carnegie stage; he didn’t simply tell his grandchildren bedtime stories, he self-published …
Once rescue workers pulled the body from the water and motored it to shore on a small boat, they hoisted it onto a gurney and covered it with a white sheet that soaked up the water and clung to its outline.
Without hesitation she asks me how many children I have. I feel caught in a lie. I fumble through an explanation about no kids, wished for them, late second marriage, didn’t happen.
They say I knew you before I was born. The sound of your voice. The music you play from vinyl records—The Andrew Sisters, Dean Martin, Etta James. The light of your cigarette.
My father is traveling again, and my mother is sewing his shirts while a game show blares on TV. I stand by her chair, sifting through the jar of buttons. “Did you need something?” she asks.
We’re not the first people to work this 20-acre tract of Minnesota land we bought in May 2011. There’s abundant evidence of human activity… But has anyone tried to raise crops here?