My Family Laughed At Me On My Birthday Without Knowing The House Was In My Name

coming from the kitchen behind me. The sky went from gold to purple to the particular blue of Mediterranean darkness, specific and unhurried.

I touched the locket where it rested at my collarbone. The world map, small and exact, warm from my skin.

I had given myself that promise on my thirty-fourth birthday in a room full of people who were laughing continue reading …