Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins disappointed Republicans again this week. Collins broke with Senate Republican leadership and voted with Democrats on a key vote. Collins voted with Democrats on a Democratic-backed motion to send the Senate’s $70 billion budget reconciliation package back to committee for further review. The procedural motion, offered continue reading …
The Republican-controlled U.S. House took a strong stand this week to protect hardworking American taxpayers from the endless cycle of government waste, fraud, and abuse. The House has passed the Stopping Fraudulent Payments Act by a vote of 218-200. Republicans stood united in support of this commonsense reform. At the same time, nearly every Democrat … Read more
“Security. Remove this useless woman.” My stepmother said that into a microphone in front of 200 guests at my father’s retirement party. And my father, standing three steps away in his custom tuxedo, looked at the floor and said nothing. I walked out. I didn’t run. I didn’t cry. Within 47 minutes, I moved $17 … Read more
The boutique owner grabbed my wrist so firmly I nearly dropped my purse, pulled me behind a rack of evening gowns that rustled like birds startled from a branch, and put her lips close enough to my ear that I could feel the warmth of her breath. “Do not say a word,” she whispered. “Stay … Read more
The Empty Well I am Amelia, thirty-five years old, and today I buried my husband, James, in soil that wasn’t ours. After thirty sleepless hours of transit, my body felt less like flesh and bone and more like a collection of aches held together by grief. The flight from Singapore had been a marathon of … Read more
Three Arrangements My phone buzzed against the kitchen counter just as I finished my first cup of coffee. Outside, the maple trees along our quiet cul de sac in the suburbs of Columbus were beginning to turn gold. A school bus groaned to a stop at the corner and let out its hydraulic sigh. Somewhere … Read more
Rain stitched the April air into a gray veil as the mahogany casket descended into earth that should never have been opened for my child. Every drop felt deliberate, as if the sky itself was driving nails into the truth I couldn’t accept: my son was gone. Richard. Thirty-eight years old. Brilliant, kind, impossibly young … Read more
It cost three thousand two hundred dollars to save my life. That was the number. Not a metaphor, not a figure of speech, just a plain arithmetic fact that sat on my kitchen table in a windowed envelope for eleven days before I finally picked up the telephone and called my son. My name is … Read more
The Seam At the baby shower, my daughter in law dropped the blanket I had spent four months knitting into a trash can and smiled. “We only use designer things here,” she said. I took it back out, folded it carefully, and went home without arguing. That night my son called me from his car, … Read more
My parents threw me out on a Thursday night. Not because I had hurt anyone. Not because I had lied to them or stolen from them or embarrassed them at a dinner party. They threw me out because I refused to sign over the estate my grandparents had left me. The same grandparents who taught … Read more
