
The day I pulled ninety-four million dollars out from under my sister’s company, the sky over downtown San Francisco was…

The last time I heard my name in that house, it wasn’t spoken. It was printed in tiny black letters…

The first thing I noticed was the sound of money. Not the numbers on a screen kind of money. Real,…

By six in the evening I was pouring champagne for New York’s richest people; twelve hours earlier I was on…

On the night my entire life bent in half, the kitchen lights in our Palo Alto bungalow were too bright….

By the time the sun climbed over the low skyline of San Diego and turned the Pacific into a strip…

The twenty–dollar bill hit my cheek, slid down, and landed in the cake frosting that nobody had bothered to light…

The night my boyfriend told me I was “draining his freedom,” the Seattle skyline was reflected in his phone screen…

The night New York thought John Harrison was burying his only child, he was really burying himself. He knelt in…

I watched my husband sign our divorce papers with a smile like he was autographing a fan’s T-shirt. We were…

By the time the first punch landed, Los Angeles had already disappeared. The neon wash of Koreatown, the traffic hum…

The night my grandfather finally snapped, the mashed potatoes were still steaming on the table and the American flag on…

By the time the seagull stole the moldy bagel out of my hand, I had my whole upper body inside…

The phone rang with the sharp, metallic insistence of a fire alarm, cutting straight through the quiet of my Connecticut…

By the time the birthday song reached the second verse, blood was already dripping into the buttercream roses of my…

In a crowded family restaurant off the interstate just outside Cleveland, Ohio, my little sister grabbed my 36th birthday cake…

By the time the waiter in the crisp white shirt asked if I wanted to give up the table, the…

They didn’t just rip my dress. They ripped my life open in front of two hundred rich strangers on a…

In an Allen County courtroom in Fort Wayne, Indiana, I sat at the plaintiff’s table and watched three strangers with…

The receipt that blew up my life cost $4.50 and came from a café I was absolutely sure I had…