
In This Issue

You are a passionate little thing. You feel what you’re doing to me?
more
Sonja slapped her sister. How could she shed tears for the past?
more
What can go heartbreakingly wrong, and what would you do?
more
A little music. An empty bottle of whiskey. It’s a little like cheating.
more
“Stop looking at women’s magazines and call me in the morning.”
more
An owl, as large and incongruous in the night sky as a flying man.
more
She does not know within a decade she will unload a slug into her mouth.
more
Summer Fever
Because my mother was a widow and I her only child, she often pressed me into the role of escort. Somehow, it was
preferable for her to be accompanied by a child than to go places on her own. She was gregarious and seemed at ease in company but perhaps, more deeply than I saw, she was not at ease at all.
Because of all this I was often in places where I was the only child, and where I knew that my presence made people uncomfortable, although I sensed that my mother was not aware of this discomfort or else didn’t care. I grew used to our being a couple; it was unusual, though, for the couple to expand into a trio. But on the weekend of our trip to the lake in Connecticut, my grandmother joined my mother and me, rendering us simultaneously odder and less odd.more
Amazement
Nothing makes
any sense where
I live and nothing made
much sense
where I came from, the parts
didn’t work.
was to pretend. That made me feel
different from everyone else.
They skipped me in school . . .


