“Cold tears as salty as ocean spray wet my face. I wipe my...

“Cold tears as salty as ocean spray wet my face. I wipe my face with a handful of straw and look out on the floating ice. 

The day before my father died, my mother did something I still don’t understand. She took me out in our little fishing boat, out on the open water of the sea—the thrum and hiss of surf upon the shore behind us, the rhythm never ceasing. My mother waited until we were out of sight of land. She squinted against the bright sunlight, making sure we were alone. And then she taught me something: strange words in a foreign tongue, a lilting singsong cadence to it    She squinted against the bright sunlight, making sure of our isolation.”

— from the novel Sinful Folk