When I was in my sixteenth year, a friend of my father’s, who worked for the state, came by my father’s store and had mentioned that the state psychiatric hospital in Waltham was looking for a piano player, a musician, to entertain their patients, one night a week, midweek. My father, of course, immediately thought of me. ...

She was my sign language teacher. It wasn’t until the end of the semester that I’d finally learned enough signs to ask her out. And even then I wasn’t sure if I’d asked her out on a DATE or on…

The rising sun shines thin and white across a small kitchen in Opole, Poland. Eli Sigmund, a ten-year-old boy sits at the breakfast table, waiting. His mother anxiously paces back and forth, frantically packing suitcases for Eli’s father and his…