September 1, 2020
The Simple Ones
When Tanta Mazla drove Uncle Chaim to the hospital, on Shabbos and over his protests, and in their daughter Keturah’s car, Chana prayed. She read psalms, one after the next, […]
September 1, 2020
The Fourth Child
At that time, because of the war, people lived in tunnels in the ground. You should know: when I say war I do not mean a war that has happened, […]
September 1, 2020
The Mason Jar
A chapter from Homing, a novel in progress My stepfather was a US Air Force pilot. I grew up on a military base in California named after a pilot who […]
September 1, 2020
Bad Faith
In the evenings, Ava Stromm pours herself two glasses of wine, corking the rest right away to avoid temptation, and sits at her low coffee table devising zingy plenaries for […]
May 1, 2020
The Widow
One week before meeting Ben, the man who would become my husband, everything I owned was lost in a fire. I came home that night to a scene on the […]
May 1, 2020
Baby Killer
In two days I was being induced “hell or high water,” according to Dr. Baylor, which I thought was funny because the baby was living in water and I was […]
May 1, 2020
You Can Figure It Out
It was a late afternoon in November, the sun low and the desert hazy with dust. The doors of the Road Runner were open to the concrete patio, where Ned […]
May 1, 2020
Black-Woman
I Black-Woman was born in the back of her father’s baby-blue ’49 Ford pickup. Her mother lay in the rusted flatbed, her feet pressed into the sides, toes curled in […]
January 2, 2020
Mercy
Maybe if I were born somewhere nice, I would be nice, too. You can understand that only if you’re from somewhere no-good. So my girlfriend doesn’t understand, because she’s from […]
January 2, 2020
Mona Samino
For months, I told people Mona Samino would fix my face. I learned her name at a party when a leather-clad woman with perfect bangs pointed at the mole on […]
November 2, 2019
Passing Through a Great Sorrow
(To be read to the soundtrack of Erik Satie) The first time the telephone rang, he didn’t move. He sat there on the old, yellow cushion, covered with faded shepherdesses […]
August 31, 2019
Gilbert in Arcadia
Gilbert was humming on the drive back from Lucy’s when a sound like a foghorn rent the air. In the nearby field the black bull was pressed against the fence, […]