By Erin Jamieson

Short, yet endless gray Ohio winters weighed down my mind, even as a child. 

In the thick of January, my mother set out striped beach towels, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches cut diagonally, slices of kiwi and starfruit. We listened to the Beach Boys and bathed in the sunlight streaming in from the back door.

It was only years later, with an apartment of my own, that I realized why she did this – and why we both needed it. 

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Erin Jamieson holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Miami University of Ohio. Her writing has been published in more than eighty literary magazines, and her fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She teaches at the Ohio State University.