On Loma Vista Street, my writing space started out on a desk my father-in-law had found in his Johnstown, Pennsylvania, alley and refinished. I pushed it up against a window in the corner of our bedroom in 2002 and wrote nearly every day, a lifetime of words finally...
Mom shuffled along the pier stretching into the St. Lucie River beside her lifelong friend Reene Zeigler. I trailed behind, bright sun, a stiff November breeze, and memories of this sandy town where I’d lived during eighth, ninth, and tenth grades distracting me from...
I stare out the window of my Phoenix home office at gardenias like the ones that grew in our Miami yard where Dad built the Annie Lee. And I wonder if his naming the boat after me had been a grand gesture of his love for me. The Annie Lee was a dream Dad wrangled to...
May 8, 2003, Gilbert AZ—I idled down Loma Vista in our minivan—unlike my usual Mrs.-Miller-gets-airborne-over-speed-bumps reputation from the neighbor kids. One block till home. Twelve-year-old Annie sat shotgun. The back end of the van was stuffed with our sleeping...
Mom and Ralph, my stepfather of over 20 years, bustled into my Indianapolis house after a two-day car trip from Florida. “Where’s your father?” Mom strode through the kitchen. I pointed her toward the bedroom where Dad had camped out since his hernia surgery. Mom...
The food wars started innocently enough. Dad tagged along with Jim and I and our three-month-old firstborn for a cookout at Robin and Lanie Roberts’ farm house near Loudonville, Ohio. I glanced across the newly mown backyard at Dad. His hair still dark blond at...
