1997: Kathleen turns 16, gets her license, and drives out the driveway while my face is plastered to the window. It doesn’t seem possible. Sam is 3 1/2 and he and Jack and Bobby are the three amigos. I have enough free time to think about going back to...
1996: Kathleen gets her learner’s license. I pay someone to plant daffodils in the yard–yes, pay. I have free time again–seven days this year, six in February and one in May. And I write on our new computer. I start a story about a woman who wants...
I wake up realizing that completely absent from my mind when I wrote yesterday’s post was the fact that Sam was born on our anniversary. It seems impossible I could ever forget that. 1994: We all go skiing except Sam. Cal’s mother and the housekeeper take...
1993: Bill Clinton is sworn in as President. Kathleen stars in a play. Cal and I go to Bermuda. For the first time, we can know the sex of the baby before he or she is born. I want to know; Cal doesn’t. So they tell me, and I keep it a secret. The baby is due...
1992: Late one night, when Cal arrives home from a business trip, he comes into the bedroom holding a scrap of paper. “You have to get this book,” he says, handing me the paper. “I heard her on NPR.” On the paper, Pam Houston, Cowboys Are My...
1991: We may have moved in, but the house is not finished. Every morning, trucks line the driveway and the street. I must be fully dressed when I come downstairs. Before I start the coffee, I can smell the possibility and hope. I can see all the light and the unfilled...
