Frank’s Super Pump
After illness forced my father, Frank, into early retirement, our kidney-shaped pool became his occupation, hobby, religion and full-time source of financial ruin. He skimmed it. Shocked it. Tested it. Discussed chlorine like a man briefing NASA. When the pump broke, a large “Super Pump” arrived. My mother stared at it, saying, “Well, I didn’t know they made those that big.” I almost died laughing. Dad tried hard to look offended, but a mustachioed grin gave him away. When Mom told him to pose with the pump, he did. He never liked being the joke, but he liked being ours. — Bethany O’Brien
The Family Plan
Our youngest was twirling in front of the screen protectors at T-Mobile when the saleswoman asked, “Do you want more kids?” I locked eyes with my husband. “No,” I wanted to say. “He has a girlfriend and I’m dating women now. I have an apartment and he’s keeping the house.” When I saw his lock screen held his new girlfriend’s picture, I sobbed. But when I was laid off, he insisted I stay on the family plan. Although the answer to more children is a definitive “no,” I take solace in the fact that we’ll always be a family. — Erin Hug
Grandma’s Humble Brag
Two years ago, when I decided to quit my job to study creative writing, my grandmother wouldn’t stop sighing at me over the phone. But this month, while visiting her in Seoul, I overheard her talking about me with her church friend in the living room. “She moved to New York all by herself; she’s out there doing what she loves,” my grandma said. “But who knows.” (There’s inevitably an ending qualifier, so she won’t come off as a braggart.) Korean elders just have a roundabout way, and an elongated timeline, to get to the words “I’m proud of you.” — Iris Kim
We Three Who Made a Fourth
“You’re perfect,” my daughter’s birth mother, Stephanie, cried, as she barreled out of the hotel lobby to greet Dayna, cradling her sunlit face on the Los Angeles sidewalk. After kissing Dayna on the cheek, Stephanie turned to my husband and me. We three adults, who had been matched in an open adoption 18 years before, huddled, foreheads pressed together, weeping. That night, Dayna told me her favorite image was that of her birth mother and her parents embracing, to see those who had brought her to be, joined in a fierce circle, fueled by love. — Diana Daniele
