About five months after I moved in, another woman joined us upstairs. PiMam*. She was another relative of the owner, and she too hoped to make a name for herself and earn a profit. The family voted to grant her an equal share in the restaurant’s ownership, and she was given a room towards theContinue reading “PiMam”
Tag Archives: family
The Thai Women
I was crap at waiting tables. I was even crap at bussing them. I spilled water on cell phones and purses. I stumbled into my coworkers. Eddie, one of Top’s cousins, shouted at me regularly. Look where you’re going, girl. I could not, for the life of me, memorize the menu, even though I ate fluffyContinue reading “The Thai Women”
My Other Grandfather
My father’s father was made of different stuff. I never knew him as Grandpa because he died the year I was born. There is only one picture of us together, and in it, he sits stiff and unsmiling, his wire-rim glasses glinting at the camera. He has my father’s long solemn face and the sameContinue reading “My Other Grandfather”
Kitty
The winter I am six years old, I meet a cat. She will determine the shape of my life, but of course I don’t know this yet. She is standing atop a fence in three inches of snow. In my amazement, I drop the snowball in my mittened hands. My plans for a snowman areContinue reading “Kitty”
On Seeing My Father’s Face for the First Time in Nine Years
I can’t say for sure exactly why, but two days ago, I sat down at my computer, opened Google, and typed in my parents’ names. I was overcome with longing to find out what had ever happened to them. We haven’t spoken in nine years. I hadn’t felt the least bit curious before in allContinue reading “On Seeing My Father’s Face for the First Time in Nine Years”
The Wiffle Bat
“You remember the time I tried to kill you?” My brother asks, “Which one?” “The one in the backyard with the wiffle bat.” He doesn’t remember that particular attempt. He says, “We both did a lot of things we regret.” “Yeah.” But what is regret? The recognition that something could have been different—but wasn’t? HowContinue reading “The Wiffle Bat”
Circa 1939
Grandpa Ellis didn’t talk about the time he spent riding the rails. He didn’t talk much at all. He’d come of age in the company of hungry, hollow-eyed men, and he’d learned their silence well. Latched on like barnacles to the roofs of freight cars, they clicked off the miles of open country. He diedContinue reading “Circa 1939”
Truth Will Out: Stop Silencing and Start Talking
When I was 25 years old, I opened a conversation with my parents about the past. Or tried to. I asked my parents some difficult questions. I wanted to hear their own experience of our family history. I wanted to rip off the blood-crusted bandages, so we could all begin to heal. My family had operatedContinue reading “Truth Will Out: Stop Silencing and Start Talking”
The Meaning Plot
The hardest part after the holidays is seeing off the family and friends I love best. Saturday night on Seattle’s light rail line, it was far too quiet with my brother boarding his flight to DC. So I got to thinking. What does it mean to live in the modern world? What does it mean to liveContinue reading “The Meaning Plot”
Something Like Family
Every year in June, one block south on Midvale Avenue, the parents throw a big birthday bash for their little boy. This year it was a mariachi bouncy castle. Latino children streamed down the street for hours, in twos and threes, black hair bobbed in bowl cuts, their mothers close behind, arms swinging, dressed inContinue reading “Something Like Family”
The Trailer Park MFA 
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