You know that moment when a man who wants something thinks he sees an opportunity to charm an easy mark? A common version is specific to mothers, and it goes like this: A mom and her kid are out somewhere together, and they meet a guy. It doesn’t really matter who. He may be a service worker looking for tips, an acquaintance of the child looking to get in good with the mom, or a garden-variety slimeball. What matters is that he’s meeting this woman for the first time.

Because to God must be given
the things that belong to God,
and to the world must be given
the things that belong to the world,
I kiss you with both lips, upper and lower.
Because the world keeps beginning
and ending the same way,
with the slaughter of the innocent,
with the massacre of the blameless,
and there’s not a thing anyone can do.

In 2021, in a moment of morbid curiosity, Charlotte and Raffi Grinberg decided to calculate how much they would see their best friends for the rest of their lives if they continued visits at their current rate. The math was bleak: They’d spent more days with their friends in the years when they were ages 13 to 30 than they would spend from ages 30 to 100.
Charlotte and Raffi, who’d been married for six years, each had been inseparable from their respective best friends in adolescence.

Our home burned down in the January 7 Palisades Fire. After such a calamity, the grief and sense of displacement never really go away, but dealing with the aftermath is itself all-consuming. My wife and I have so much to do: meet with insurance companies, city agencies, and attorneys; visit our burned-out lot to oversee debris removal; hire engineers and architects to determine the condition of our foundation and the prospects of rebuilding.

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