She

                 Christopher and I walked down the isles at Blockbuster, looking for something fun to watch over the upcoming weekend. A six-year-old Christopher held my hand and touched every movie he passed with his other hand, moving them all just a little bit. His hand touched a DVD that had a big blue house on the cover, and he grabbed it.             “Mom can I have this one?” he asked.             I took the movie and looked at it. The movie was called ‘House’ and on the back it had a zombie hand ringing the doorbell. I knew the movie; it was an old 80’s horror flick. I put it back on a shelf a little higher than Christopher could reach.             “Sorry baby, it’s a scary movie, it’s not for kids” I said and started walking away from the movie still holding Ch...

              We just moved into a new house. We moved out of what we considered our hometown six years ago and were finally able to come back. That was what mattered when getting the new house; that it was in the right city. I never really gave up that we were going to come back home someday, so I never changed Michaels elementary school and we still did all our grocery shopping in the area. Either Christopher or I would make a 30-minute one way commute twice a day to drop off and then pick up Michael from school. It was important to me that I made sure Michael could stay close to his friends and teachers who knew him. We had to wake earlier, and I would get home later, but it was worth it. There were boxes, bags and dissembled furniture scattered around the whole house. The only free space was the long hallway. Every other room had furniture and everyone’s personal items cluttered about. My Daughter Michelle stood up in her crib in the bedro...

  Michael and I got out of the car in the Walmart parking lot. I closed the door to my silver Mitsubishi Galant and beeped the alarm twice. Once to lock the doors and again to set the alarm. Michael is seven years old and is so independent I let him roll his eyes at me when I ask him to hold my hand in the parking lot. “Come on Michael, you know the drill, not every vehicle is paying attention baby. I need to keep you safe” I tell him. “Ya, I know, I know” he said as he walked around the car to grab my hand. Michael wants to be as tall as his older brother so badly, he even walks slightly on his tip toes in order to seem taller. He has a long way to go, his older brother Christopher is sixteen years old and already 6’. Michael is 4’ exactly and has always taken more after my side of the family. Michael has shaggy dark brown hair that just barely goes past his ears, violating his school dress code; he has my dark brown eyes and olive complected skin. Michael has such an angel ...

  “Who wants to play hide and seek in the dark?” I asked the boys. Christopher and Michael shouted with excitement at the same time “Yeah!!”             “With flashlights” Michael said as he began to run and turn off the lights in the house.             “No flashlights” Christopher responded while he shut the blinds and curtains.             “Michael, how about when you are ‘it’ you can use a flashlight and until then you can hide with me?” I asked, “It defeats the purpose of you knowing your way around the house in the dark if you need a flashlight. Sometimes emergencies don’t give you the time to look for a flashlight.”             “That works” said Michael relived to not be in the dark alone.          ...

She had her hands tangled in my long brown hair and shook my head hard from side to side, and back and forth; like She was shaking a little rag doll. With her hands still twisted in my hair She pulled me from my room, dragging me down the hallway, through the dining room and into the kitchen. I tripped and slipped on the hard wood floors several times and kept scrambling to stay on my feet. She never slowed her step when I fell, She would just yank me along by my hair and I could feel the hairs ripping from my scalp. She was yelling at me, but I don’t know what She was saying. My screams were as ringing as her words. One of her hands let go of my hair and fumbled with the garage door lock. The other hand still grasping my hair lifted higher until I was forced to stand on my tip toes. I squinted my eyes and kept screaming, my fingers trying to open hers and free her grasp. When the garage door would fail to unlock, She shook me by my hair, twisting her hand to get a better hold on me....