My First Inkling

When I was 7, my grandmother told me she saw Halley’s comet in 1910. As a young woman in rural Tennessee, she was amazed. She explained it would return in 1986, when she’d be in Heaven and I’d be a grown man. That was my first inkling, lovingly and mysteriously rendered, that all things change — and people we love pass away, though the stars appear to stay the same. In Seattle, 1986, I watched the comet scar the darkness, my grandmother’s memory burning bright within me. By the time Halley returns in 2061, I will have joined her in infinity. — T.S. Davis

Little Allies

My 10-year-old nephew and his friends were playing in the yard when my sister overheard them using the word “gay” as a put-down. She pulled my nephew aside: “You know Uncle Corey’s gay, right? Have you ever told your friends that?” In the school parking lot the next day, my sister overheard the same boys using “gay” pejoratively again. “Do you even know what that word means?” my nephew asked his friends. “I have a gay uncle and he’s awesome.” The boys didn’t respond, but a little girl standing nearby chimed in: “I have a gay uncle, too!” — Corey Gerard Lambert

Three Shots After it Was Over

I called you when I left the gynecologist. You, whom I’d been with for years until recently. We’d already started seeing other people. Yet we found ourselves together at Dr. Chiu’s office treating an S.T.D. one of us had given the other. While there, we were recommended a course of vaccines for HPV. Three shots over the course of the next nine months became our relationship’s post-mortem. You squeezed my hand as I flinched at the needle. I laughed at you for always forgetting your vaccine record. After, we rewarded ourselves with Dairy Queen and banter. — Lauren Lim

Accidental Thief

Today I came across a butter knife that we’d accidentally stolen from our wedding reception. My memories are not quite as vivid as they used to be, although I thought I’d be able to recall all of it. The one thing I’ll never forget is how I felt that entire day, excited and bursting with joy. I was the happiest woman on earth, without a care in the world, including no guilt for stolen things. I was stealing time and memories. — Mesa Fama

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