Prologue A few days ago I took a cross country train excursion from New York City to Norman, Oklahoma. The events leading up to the trip are varied, and frankly, none of your business. But for transparency sake two main points forced me to do this: my mother’s rapidly declining

We were somewhere in between Phoenix Arizona and Houston Texas on an Amtrak train headed for New Orleans when three hard knocks rocked the bathroom door. “Who the fuck is that?” I whispered.  Recently, I had been accepted to the masters program at SF State in creative fiction. I was