One thing I have always been is too short. It's adorable when you're in junior high. After that, it's a pain in the ass for the rest of your life.

This is one rule about mixing boys and girls: that a date always comes first.

I would make an anonymous call and say, this is someone who cares, do you know what kind of children you have?

Sometimes I try to remember things my mother told me about the awful way he was raised. But why does he have to keep on going? Why would you take something bad out of your mouth and hand it to another, saying, Here, eat this?

There are random moments - tossing a salad, coming up the driveway to the house, ironing the seams flat on a quilt square, standing at the kitchen window and looking out at the delphiniums, hearing a burst of laughter from one of my children's rooms - when I feel a wavelike rush of joy. This is my true religion: arbitrary moments of of nearly painful happiness for a life I feel privileged to lead.

I remove my wedding rings and put them in the jewelry box. So many others have done this. I am not the only one. I am not the only one. But here, I am the only one.

I wondered what my father had looked like that day, how he had felt, marrying the lively and beautiful girl who was my mother. I wondered what his life was like now. Did he ever think of us? I wanted to hate him, but I couldn't; I didn't know him well enough. Instead, I wondered about him occasionally, with a confused kind of longing. There was a place inside me carved out for him; I didn't want it to be there, but it was. Once, at the hardware store, Brooks had shown me how to use a drill. I'd made a tiny hole that went deep. The place for my father was like that.