Anna must be six years old. It’s hard to tell from Chamali’s window. The girl scoots about the lawn, next to the rotted bones of a barbeque. She is swinging a broomstick without an end. Now and then, she goes to the curb and jumps on the road, as though daring a car to…
Janey said to God, “I’m bored. Need a toy.” “Would you like a new star?” asked God. Janey shook her head. “A new galaxy?” Janey shook her head. “A whole new universe?” “I want something with life on it,” said Janey. She put her hands on…
It’s September 1917, and Lucia has just kissed her cousin. It was a wet, complicated event, and she’s not now sure how she should go about removing the taste of it from her lips. Sheep crowd around her feet. She sticks her tongue out. On the tree before her, a woman appears.…
For as long as Jan can remember, she wanted to live in an orange house. Not a dark orange or a rust color, but a vibrant, bright orange glowing like the late evening sun – only it’s not easy to have that color on your house when you grow up in Michigan, or even…
When Darla got down to three hundred and sixty pounds, her friend Mildred threw her a party. They were the only ones there and split a huge birthday cake. The next morning, Darla had weighed herself. Three hundred and sixty-five pounds, the scale had said. “Shit,” she’d replied. # She sits on a…
You may not believe this, but one time I stole money from a charity. It was easy, because they weren’t the smartest people. First time, it was like a hundred bucks. Then like a thousand over a few weeks. I kept going, expecting to get caught. But there they were, those people feeding the…
Let me be the wronged when I try to understand where you go in the evenings. Let me follow you around the corner and see you dart into the bushes, across the lane, to the subway. I follow and wait. You are not that part of me anymore that begins inside, pours out, circles and…
