The foam pillow, one of several retrieved from his parent’s house after the sale, smelled of Bengay. Meant for the guest bedroom, which his wife at the time redecorated in what she called “Victorian Chic”—an effort, under compromise, to both appropriate and purge the...
In a blur, a blind of grass, the horse. Dunes. At your right, ocean collapsing on the edge of Virginia. The flea-bitten mare ahead, returning with her empty saddle. Here comes a horse: head bobbing, miff of sand from lifting hooves, to pause two strides off. The mare,...
From her window seat on the train, Ruth watches the cluster of teenage boys on the platform. They posture in the dusk as a tall girl, black hair swinging in a high ponytail, draws near. As she skirts the group, their boldness swells, and the boys whoop and...
Agnes rocked us in her boat. Cradled between waves, we were sleepy. She sang a song from her deepest throat: A cup will fit perfectly into your mouth. A bowl and a spoon, too. A sun will release brilliance that you must not look at. But a moon will softly glow, will...
It is my job to gag her. Mike and some of the others have her pinned to the ground. The rest are watching us. My hand is covering her wildly-moving mouth. She is trying to bite me. This enrages me. I reach my other hand into my coat pocket feeling for the...
Mom and I got really into the arcade claw machine one elementary school summer. Handful of tokens, a frappé from the neighboring cafe, ready. We aren't even coffee drinkers. Our eyes scan a sea of tightly packed yellow polyester lions with auburn manes. "哪個?" "That...
Mom flosses me every night with my limbs starfished across the kitchen counter and my head hanging off the edge. She kneels over me with a spool of minted thread and works the string between my teeth. She says nothing used to come out of there, just berry skins and...
When Mamá’s apron catches fire, my first reaction is to grab Mamá’s body and share the fire with her. Pimientos en nogada is a dish that people eat in México at weddings and important occasions. Mamá is set on making it on our special day since she wants to prove to...
We’re having lunch at the faux restaurant. My mom is eating her fish at a glacial pace, and I’ve moved on to dessert. Without warning, she reaches over, scoops up a forkful of my ice cream, and spreads it over her fish. Disgusting, I think, but I say nothing. Why?...
A shrimp’s heart is in its head. You used to say your heart was in your stomach when you couldn’t get out of bed all day. You won’t eat shrimp because your dead dad who you hated used them as bait when he took you catfishing as a kid. I found that out when I made...
The hole drinks the grass, the leaves, the twigs, and our favorite park bench. Insatiable. Thirsting. It then drinks the sidewalk where little kids and their mothers play games like ‘avoid the shark’ and ‘alphabet hop’. But children don’t play on the sidewalks...
When you start needing a place to scream, you try most of the rooms in the house. You start with the shower. At first, you take a weird pleasure in screaming behind the shower curtain. In college, you had a film major roommate, and the two of you would take over the...