LINDSAY SCHLEGEL

Lindsay Schlegel is a freelance writer and editor, who has served in various roles in traditional publishing for nearly twenty years. Much of her editorial work concerns children’s literature, while her writing is thus far mainly for adults. Her writing has appeared in Verily, America, Word on Fire, The Windhover, Aleteia, and more, both online and in print.

Lindsay is the author of Don’t Forget to Say Thank You: And Other Parenting Lessons That Brought Me Closer to God as well as the co-author of The Road to Hope: Responding to the Crisis of Addiction. She hosts the podcast Quote Me with Lindsay Schlegel, which is currently on hiatus while Lindsay pursues a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing at the University of St. Thomas, Houston.

She lives in New Jersey with her husband and their five children. Connect with Lindsay at her website, her Substack, or on Twitter or Instagram.

AN EXCERPT FROM “CHEERS TO FIFTY YEARS”

Across the street, in a mirror image of the same colonial style house, the Dottinghams were raising their four children. There was talk that Karen’s husband welcomed the travel he did for work, because things weren’t good at home. Sandra listened to the playground gossip, curious what it looked like from the inside when “things weren’t good.”

The affair started Mark’s senior year, Joanie’s third anniversary. Why then, Sandra could never figure out. She learned to speak the language of household chores with fluency. Dishes could communicate aggression, piles of laundry shouted anxiety, a full garbage can left unemptied in a nearly dark kitchen at midnight said, “I am not as stupid as you think.”

David began to whistle on Saturday mornings, when he did odd jobs around the house. Sandra hadn’t registered the silence until there was something to replace it. He started to bring her coffee in bed, and didn’t say anything when it was still beside her, cold, when Mark got home from an afternoon meet. He took it back downstairs, rinsed the mug clean, left it in the sink.

Read more of “Cheers to Fifty Years” in Solum Journal Volume IV.