cnu-At my fortieth birthday party, my sister swung a baseball bat into…

had caught strep throat.

I threw the card away. Emma kept the bear for two hours, then asked me to put it somewhere she could not see it.

Two weeks later, my mother called from a number I had not blocked yet.

“Sunday dinner is becoming awkward,” she said.

I was standing in the kitchen crushing Emma’s antibiotic pill into applesauce because swallowing hurt continue reading …