“My Father Said You Needed A Wife,” She Whispered… And I Said, “He Was Right”

and asked if it was bad, I told her it was so good I was embarrassed I’d been calling dry bread breakfast for years. She smiled with a smile that reached her eyes, and we talked about our mothers dying when we were young, sharing a silence that felt like recognizing the same shape of loneliness in each other.

Later in the hallway by our rooms—hers on continue reading …