I watch my daughter ready herself for the funeral. She smears on white foundation and black lipstick, the way her friend taught her to. Every time that girl came over, they’d practice dolling each other up in lacy dresses and ghostly face paint. I don’t know if it’s...
The girl is not real. She’s known it for some time now. Since she learned that most little girls don’t practice their words and smiles in a mirror; don’t feel the tingling of the fluorescent lights; don’t linger on the edges, always watching, searching for the rules...
Dolly churns ewes’ milk until her palms blister red, fills her paper-lined pockets with soft and pliant butter, smuggles it out of the dairy before the rooster calls in dawn. Father doesn’t notice the loss. While he goes to market, she crawls through the knot at the...
Our father won’t want to die. But he is curious, and I will see it when he finds a seam while everyone is sleeping and slips through. Our father won’t want to die, but there will be the time we are all called at four am, Traumahawk having scraped him from the road,...
Bea makes her way down the back steps in Gerry’s old slippers, rag and bowl of warm water in hand. Among the lavender jacaranda petals step the three laying hens. The girls. Bea needs to check for signs of diarrhea. Wipe their chicken butts. Their Polly, home from...
Mama says she must sleep for a long time. Her children do not understand. Her husband does not either, not completely. Of course the children have noticed how much Mama naps lately, how slowly she moves. How it’s been worse since the youngest one started school. When...
The light that glowed through Lisa’s bedroom window was a radiant thing. So radiant, in fact, that Lisa’s mother disappeared within it. There was no sound, no physical indication that her mother was taken. Lisa simply recalls her mother there, and then not there....
Lotte sits on the edge of the bed in an ivory vest and pants, made from the same silk as her wedding dress. Her auburn hair is still pinned. It took almost half an hour to get right this morning and maybe she rolled it too tight because she’s had a headache all day...
The woman waters the plants in her garden before she leaves for her morning walk. The man sits at his easel, painting, before he leaves for his morning walk. Once outside, both glance at their watches and quicken their pace to avoid being late. When they arrive at...
The 90-year-old producer had a hole in his heart. A shaky, unpatchable hole. He wanted me to fill it with kisses, candy, and jokes. I handed him a travel-sized Mars bar that I got on the plane. "Only a monkey," he said, "would offer this old sack of bones a gift from...
It was like she’d gotten sober all over again; everything started to make sense after Daniel’s arrest. Like the occasional odd scent on his clothes that she’d always assumed was because of his commute, emerging from the train...
I hold on so tightly I lose my grip. The hubcap clatters to the floor like a platter thrown during a lovers’ spat. “Go to hell!” I yell, then, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.” I pull on a pair of gray sweats and a dirty white T-shirt. Four red lines bleed through the...